No, not Noah. Tim. This week he is pretty much gone more than home. Hey - I'm not complaining...the work is nice to have back! I'm just getting used to feeling like a single parent for the week and am so thankful that I am not one all the time.
Tonight I was feeling sentimental so I broke out our wedding DVD and watched it. It was just a handheld camera by my grandpa, so there are lots of shadows and the sound isn't always the best...but I'm so thankful to have something to watch from our ceremony.
The actual ceremony (we did a slideshow beforehand) opened with Deidra singing "Ave Maria" and our wedding party walking down. Tim was up front with the pastor who officiated, Bill Blue - my old youth pastor and the father of one of my best friends. He was crying as soon as the first bridesmaid/groomsman couple came walking down the aisle. Then came three more couples followed by our ring bearer - Tim's nephew, Cameron - who had fractured some bones in his foot the week beforehand and had a slight limp. He still was adorable. Our flower girls and ring bearer were supposed to walk up only to the front row and then sit with their parents; we didn't want them standing up front during the entire ceremony. While watching Cameron walking up the steps, handing a ring pillow to Randy (the best man), walking down and then realizing he wasn't supposed to do that and walking back up to get the pillow and down, you can hear one of the flower girls having a breakdown. Yes, my 3 year old cousins, who the night before and all morning couldn't get enough of their baskets and pretty dresses and were soaking up attention everywhere, barely made it down the aisle. Gabrielle took off like a rocket and raced down the aisle to her parents. Racquelle threw herself down in the middle of the aisle and screamed until someone came to get her. Oh, well, it provided laughs.
Switch music to "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini." I chose to walk down to this song in honor of my grandpa in a way that no one but the female members of my family would recognize. The song is played by a music box in the movie "Somewhere in Time" - an old family favorite because it was filmed on Mackinac Island. My grandparents lived in St. Ignace during the warm weather months and so we spent much of our childhood summers in St. Ignace and the surrounding areas. My grandfather had passed away almost 2 years previous to my wedding and it was a way for me to remember him and have him a part of a most important day even though he couldn't actually be.
Anyways - cue "Rhapsody" and enter me and Dad. I was somewhat crying as I hobbled down the aisle. Yes, hobble. In all my intelligence leading up to the wedding I had decided to have an itty bitty plantar wart removed from the ball of my foot. All I could think about was how I didn't want to go on my honeymoon with this almost invisible wart in a place where no one was going to look anyway. I also didn't want to experience my wedding night with this thing attached to me (as if Tim would even be paying attention to the bottom of my foot.) So the Wednesday before the wedding I went in to kind Dr. Maskill - who I will say did try to talk me out of it until after the wedding but I ignored him thinking it couldn't be that bad - and sat there silent and in intense pain as he held liquid nitrogen against it. Three days later I was still somewhat hobbling in pain if too much pressure was put on the ball. I think by the end of the day my foot was somewhat numb overall.
Tim continued to cry as I came up the aisle. He also cried as Bill began the ceremony. Then again after lighting the unity candle. I think once he realized we were close to the kissing part he got himself together.
I watched myself on the DVD and realized what a goofball I looked like that day. I think I was so nervous I couldn't keep my head on straight. I looked around at people on my side of the church, my bridesmaids, Bill and occasionally at Tim as Tim looked directly at me the entire time. I made silly faces a couple times and had a big cheesy grin on my face the rest of the time. I wonder if he realized that day what a nerd he was marrying!
Ah, well. What do you do? Almost five years later and we're happier now than then although at that time I didn't think we could be more so. Every year for our anniversary we have always been blessed enough to be able to travel around the date and we usually just end up saying it's our way of celebrating. The first year we went to Cancun with my sister and brother-in-law the week after our anniversary. The second year we went to Mackinac Island to attend a "Celebrate Your Marriage" conference. The third year we were in Florida the weekend after our anniversary because Tim was a groomsman in a wedding. Last year was our first actual planned specifically anniversary getaway and we went to Chicago to see Frank Lloyd Wright's studio, house, and the Robie House. This year we are going to be traveling again. We'll be in a gorgeous part of Virginia where Tim's cousin is getting married on our anniversary - May 24. Yes, we'll have a one-month old daughter at the time, but we don't want to miss it and, quite honestly, the younger they are the easier they are to travel with because they sleep all the time!
I can't wait to celebrate our anniversary and look back on what we have encountered in our marriage and how God has grown us.
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