My Life Story: Wedding Bells

It's been a couple of weeks since I've shared another chapter of my life story... With this beautiful weather and summer projects overtaking my life, I haven't wanted to spend much time at the computer. But I forced myself! :) Here we go with Wedding Bells...

The next year went by so fast! Mike and I continued going to church, learning and growing in our faith. My mom began attending church with my grandma. It’s amazing how God works.
We began to plan a wedding…A wedding? Something I never dreamed would happen to me.

Yet, most girls do dream of getting married as they grow up, but I didn’t, really, I didn’t. So, I had no “idea” of what I thought the perfect wedding would be like for me.

Did I want a church wedding, an outdoor wedding? I didn’t have a clue. Mike and I were pretty much on our own doing this. Not much money and zero experience, perfect!

I knew I couldn’t ask my mom to help, financially or otherwise, I just couldn’t. I don’t think it was pride or anything, maybe I just didn’t want the hassle. I guess I figured one less thing to argue about… Thankfully, Mike’s parents were willing to pay for a photographer. That was huge for us!

I had this inspiration to sew my wedding dress. Remember, I’ve been sewing for at least 10 years, and I felt pretty confident that I could do it. I never went to try on any wedding dresses. I just had this picture in my mind of what I wanted and combined a couple of patterns to get there. It was a beautiful “Princess Diana” style dress…it was a big ball gown with massive poofy sleeves, very 80s. I loved it! What a long process, it took me forever! I hand sewed all of the beads on the front embroidery and each pearl on the sleeves. I even made my veil, which looks a bit wonky in this picture.

Then for some crazy reason I helped make most all of my bridesmaids dresses. What was I thinking?

Mike looked so handsome in his tuxedo tails.

Our wedding was beautiful and simple. We had an evening wedding in the same church that we got saved in. We had white bows, silk flower arrangements and candles. Our reception was hor d' oeuvres and cake. We did everything we could to keep the costs to a minimum. When it came right down to it… the wedding was an event….the marriage is a for a lifetime and I was getting ready to marry the man who had taken my heart and swept me off my feet.

Saturday, February 27, 1988…I'll never forget that night…It was raining… I was sick with bronchitis, but so overwhelmed with peace and happiness it didn’t matter. The wedding was finally here! The wedding was set to start at 7pm. But we were ready by 4pm, because we had decided early on that we didn’t want our guests waiting around for us at the reception. So, we took all of our pictures before the wedding. I know, I know… people say, “Oh, you shouldn’t do that… bad luck… blah…blah…blah…” It was our wedding and we didn’t and don’t believe in all that hullabaloo. We had our ‘first sight’ of each other and that was special. After all of the pictures were done, we parted for the wedding…

I never had any sort of father figure in my life, so I didn't have anyone walk me down the aisle. We had the perfect solution. Mike and I were both coming separate to this marriage and leaving as one. So, I when I started to walk down the aisle, Mike started walking up the aisle.

We met in the middle and he got down on one knee, kissed my hand and we walked down the rest of the aisle together. I was totally dissappointed that the photographer didn’t get a picture of Mike kissing my hand… This is a picture of us walking down the aisle, you can see I still have my veil over my face.

Just thinking of that moment today, brings tears to my eyes. That was so special to me.

Well, let me tell you, I was a complete mess, from that point on! Balling the whole way through the wedding and at the same time desperately trying to control a bronchitis coughing fit. I barely got through my vows, crying tears of joy. From what I was told, I had most of the congregation in tears. At that point, I was so glad that we took pictures before, because like I said, I was pretty much a complete mess!

It was such a beautiful Christ centered ceremony. We were so happy!

On to the reception, which I barely remember. One thing that stood out to me, was that Mike and I did not smash cake in each other’s face. I have no idea why that stands out to me.

It was all a flurry of hugs and congratulations, with many many thank you’s.

Our honeymoon was also easy on the wallet…. we went camping through the Redwood Forest. We camped up and down the California coast and enjoyed a week of God’s beauty. We’d spend one night in a campground and then a night in a hotel and so on. Here we are all packed up in the pick up truck.

We had such a fun time!

The Redwoods are amazing. We found someone to snap a photo of us sitting in a tree.

I’m so glad we didn’t go nuts and put ourselves in debt for our wedding and honeymoon. Too many couples start their marriage with so much debt and it just adds so much unnecessary stress.

One of our first dinners out as Mr. & Mrs.