June was such an amazing month. I had recently graduated from college, moved out of my apartment. We [my family & friends] moved "my life" from Illinois to Tennessee - the only thing is that I wasn't going to be living there til after the wedding. So for the months of May & the beginning of June, I lived out of a suitcase. :)
The family started arriving to help decorate for the wedding & finish all the final touches. Since there are so many amazing memories & things I could go into so much detail about, Ill just touch on a few favorites... [The girls putting together all the gift bags for our hotel/out-of-town guests - what a system we had down. Going to look at flowers and make the final changes the day before - but being floored by how perfect it was... Exactly as I had dreamed. Standing in the freezer with my girls - Haha. Getting our marriage license at the courthouse. Watching too many hours of Wipeout. All my family & friends at my brothers ball game the night before rehearsal. Don Sol for the last time with my favorites. Running around like idiots dropping off gift bags at hotels. The horrible nail job - And the last minute fix. The organized chaos. My aunt's amazing structure for our two hour crunch time at the reception hall decorating. Everyone having specific jobs! Pictures left & right every 5 seconds. All the amazing phone calls and texts. Getting ready, shaking like a leaf. Writing in Josh's bible, in tears. Getting my hair done with my girls. The cameras in our faces' all day. Walking into the church with everyone, but not noticing anyone - overcome with joy. Getting my dress on - then realizing I should have went to the bathroom first. Visiting the bathroom 20 times in 5 minutes. Sweating like crazy. Reading & re-reading my vows. Walking down the aisle with my dad. Seeing Josh's face - Even though ~400 people were there, not seeing anyone but him! Hearing Josh's song - Doing everything in my power not to cry. Getting announced. Walking out together. Seeing all the amazing love we were surrounded by, all the awesome people that came to our wedding! Pictures like crazy. Our first dance. Our beautiful cake. The stunning reception hall. Friends & family. The drive to Effingham that took way too long. :) Walking into the hotel - everyone hollering for us! Our first night as a married couple. :) Oh and of course, Domino's pizza.
What an absolutely amazing day. I can honestly say I never stressed out over any of the wedding things, not the planning or even the day itself. It was even more than I had ever dreamed... We can't thank God enough for how beautiful it all turned out & how smoothly the day went! <3
The day after, we drove back to Mattoon. With all of our family members, we chowed down, visited, laughed, took pictures, and opened all our wedding gifts, and cards. It was the PERFECT Sunday! What a wonderful way to be "sent off" before our honeymoon starting Monday.
Hawaii was breath-taking... There is just no way to describe it all - You HAVE to see it for yourself at some point in your life. [We CANNOT WAIT to go back!]
[[Some of our "adventures" since our marriage: I will say, Josh was sick on the first two days of our honeymoon... His family had gotten him sick. When I say sick, I mean SICK. And vomiting on a 9 hour plane ride = miserable. But that was just the START to our many marriage adventures... Haha since then, we had to worry about Maui's fire. The emergency sirens going off at the hotel. A dear loved one passed away while we were on our honeymoon. I passed a kidney stone [not too long after I officially moved to TN] - So I had my first ER experience as a patient. A skunk got into our air unit around 3:30am one morning. I got a bunch of maggots & ants in my trunk [and all over my hands] when taking our trash to the dump. I got food poisoning. Haha the list goes on...]]
**Even with all these crazy things, I wouldnt have it any other way... Being married to the man you have always dreamed of, finding your soul mate is nothing sort of a magical miracle. The feelings, the thoughts, the dreams, the firsts, the obstacles, the joys, the love... it's nothing sort of PERFECT! **
[Ill post some of our professional pictures as soon as we get them! But for now...]
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