Our wedding | Part six of our love story :)

I know we had a short engagement but to be honest it felt like the wedding wouldn't come soon enough!!  I was so in love with Brian and every day I got more and more excited about sharing my life with him.  I wanted to spend every minute with him.  My whole world lights up when he is around.  When I talk about him I just glow :)

Our entire wedding was a labor of love put together by friends and family that love us dearly.  I always thought it would be neat to get married outdoors. The idea of getting married in an old rustic barn had crossed my mind as we started talking about getting married in the Fall.  Our friend, Leslie, out of the blue mentioned that it would be cool if we could get married in her in-laws barn in Avon.  As soon as she mentioned it we knew we wanted to have our wedding there.  The Dragons, the owners of the barn and property, were thrilled to let us use their barn at no cost (praise number one).

We found out along the way that another couple was going to get married in the same barn two weeks before us.  They ended up cleaning out the entire barn (pressure washed the floors, prepared it fully, and decorated the barn beautifully (praise number two).  They contacted us to let us know that we could use any of their decorations that we wanted for our wedding (praise three).  We were able to use all of their decorations which saved us a ton of money!!

Our friends and family were so excited for us and for God's story of redemption in our lives.  Everyone wanted to help out.  We started receiving emails, letter, facebook messages, etc.. from friends, family, and even people we barely knew.  These were an amazing encouragement to us.  The letters were filled with words of love written out of hearts that had been praying for us for a long time.  Our marriage was an answer to many prayers lifted up on our behalf.  It brings me tears just thinking about it.
 
We wanted to have a dinner at our wedding so a friend suggested a pitch-in dinner.  We thought about it and decided it was a great idea.  Everyone was volunteering to help and they all wanted to be a part of our special day so we asked everyone to bring a dish to share instead of a gift.  It was the most beautiful dinner, made with love, that I had ever seen (praise number four).  Our parents paid for an awesome barbecue dinner with pulled chicken and pork.  Our friends brought mashed potatoes, corn casseroles, rolls, a chocolate fountain with fruit and other goodies, tons of side dishes, drinks, etc... It was perfect!!! 
Brian had a friend that volunteered her time and talent to make our wedding cake for us, again at no cost (praise number five).  The cake was awesome!!!  We were so thankful for the time and energy it took her and her mom to make this masterpiece :)

My friend, Becky, volunteered to be our "wedding coordinator".  The day wouldn't have been the same without her.  She made our wedding sign, my bouquet, and Brian's boutonniere, she bought the chalkboard for our program, decorated the entire barn, made the kids treat sacks for the table, added special touches all over the barn ("W" coasters on the tables, sparkling cider on the kids table, crayons in cute metal "W" containers, etc...)  She put everything together and made the barn look magical!!(praise six) 
I wasn't sure how the weather would turn out the day of the wedding so I asked if anyone had heaters we could borrow.  I had a number of responses and had more heaters than we needed.(praise seven).

 Being a photographer myself, I knew that capturing this day in photos was very important to me.  I had no idea who I would hire to capture the special story of our wedding.  I had an acquaintance ask me to have lunch with her to throw some photography ideas around.  She had some questions about photography and I was thrilled to have someone to talk "shop" with.  We met for lunch and ended up talking about God the entire time.  I had never seen her work before and this was our first time ever meeting.  She had an amazing story of God's work in her own life.  Her husband was tragically paralyzed in a lawn mower accident several years ago and their entire life changed because of it.  Our stories were different but the author of them was the same.  We have both grown and changed for the better because of the difficulties we experienced.  I knew in my spirit that I wanted her to be the one to photograph our wedding.  We talked it over and she felt that God wanted her to do my wedding as well. Our wedding would be her second wedding to photograph.  I didn't have one doubt about her being our photographer.  She did an amazing job capturing our special day and presented us with the most amazing wedding photos!!!  I LOVE them!!(Praise number eight).

There was an old chandelier in the barn that didn't work b/c the wiring had been cut.  Brian's brother was able to rewire it and have it working for the wedding.  His sister-in-law decorated the food station in the barn and helped put up lights.  My family from California (Dad and Brenda) put the wine labels on for us.  My mom bought all sorts of candles and candle holders for the tables and around the barn.  My Dad, Gary, and his wife, Pam, put candles in all of the empty candle holders.  We had tons of friends and family show up at the barn the night before the wedding to help decorate, put up tables and chairs, and get the barn ready.  My friend, Leslie, made the "Just Married" sign you see in the photos.  Our friends from Broad Ripple, Erin and Bob, made all the carmel apples for us (70 of them!!!).  The worship band from church and my b/f/f, Carol, did all the music for the wedding.  They sounded beautiful!!!  My friend, Jennifer, sells the most gorgeous jewelery for "Stella and Dot" and she gave me all the jewelry to wear for my wedding.  I could go on and on and on about the million other little things that people did to make our day special for us. (Praise nine through one hundred :) 

There are no words to describe the way our hearts felt that night about our friends and family.  We felt truly blessed!!  I think I will write another post about our wedding ceremony and the thoughts I had that day.  There is so much to write about!!  Part seven will cover our wedding day, my thoughts about becoming a mom of six, and the way my heart leaped out of my chest when our pastor announced us "husband and wife"   Stay tuned . . . . . . 

P.S. I forgot to mention that my mom and I went shopping for a wedding dress after I got engaged and I literally bought the second dress I tried on.  It was inexpensive and beautiful (PRAISE GOD)