The Reception

And now for the long awaited reception post! After a most beautiful wedding, we went to a lovely country club that overlooked a golf course and the ocean. It was quite pretty! The weather was absolutely gorgeous too - a greater answer to prayer than was asked for, as we had highs in the low 70's (we were praying for 50's). Being that warm is very unusual in the Great White North in March!

With every wedding I have ever been a part of, there has always been something that "goes wrong". In a day filled with details, 100% of them don't usually go right. Michael and Bekah's "moment" just happened to involve the Gloucester fire department. They decided to get married at 10:00 in the morning because they wanted to have a brunch reception. As part of that brunch, there was a "make your own omelet" station.

Now there actually was a cook provided from the club - it wasn't like they just turned us all loose to make our own. However, the pans just so happened to be right under a smoke detector. So when the nice cook man started cooking the omelets and it got a little smoky, the fire alarm went off. It was loud. It did not stop. Lots of parents had to go outside with their small children who were screaming because the noise hurt their ears. In the meantime, the bridal party had gotten our food first and we were quite hungry. So we all kept eating. And the alarm kept ringing. LOUDLY. We kind of wondered what was taking it so long to stop. Turns out the guy who works at the club who has the key to turn it off wasn't there. About 15 minutes in, with the alarm still blaring, 2 firetrucks and an emergency response vehicle drive up. Firemen with axes come into the reception.

They realize we are not in grave danger, so they allow the bride and groom to have a little fun.



The firemen leave, with lots of well wishes for the bride and groom. And just in case the club didn't get the message that you shouldn't cook omelets under a smoke detector, the fire alarm goes off again about 45 minutes later. Thankfully the club man with the key is there this time and it gets shut off immediately. And that is why the fire department showed up at the reception!

Michael and Bekah did not have a wedding cake. Neither of them like cake, so they decided to not have one and have donuts instead. Here they are feeding each other a donut...

Now what follows is a bunch of people pictures. These are some of our favorite people in the whole world! I have not edited these pictures yet, but I wanted to go ahead and get this post up, so you get the unedited version for now. These first ones are the Freemans and Brays - lifelong friends and family!




Michael invited a couple of the neighbors we had when he and I lived together in Gloucester. Here they are...


The pastor and his wife of the church my parents are a part of were able to come, which was awesome. I worked with Ellis at West Ridge, and it's always great to get caught up with them!

Here is a picture of Matthew and Lindsay, who enjoyed seeing this wedding and dreaming about their own, which will be in September of this year.

Finally, here is a picture of me and one of my fabulous Massachusetts friends, Jen, and my favorite Massachusetts 6 year old!


A few last tidbits, and then we will close this very long blog! For some reason, years ago a tradition was started where the bride and groom get mooned as they leave their reception. My brother has been right in the middle of most of those moonings, so of course he was not about to be left out of this tradition! Here are the culprits who got Michael and the unsuspecting Bekah as they drove away...

As Michael and Bekah left, it was clear to see their excitement! They headed to Cabo for a week, where they can enjoy warmth and sunshine, Michael can celebrate his 28th birthday, and they can have a great start to their new life together.

I have a couple more blogs to put up from Massachusetts, but they are not wedding related. Stay tuned for those... But for the moment, this concludes the wedding blogs, and I hope you have enjoyed sharing the story of a most fantastic celebration! Have a great weekend!

The Wedding

I know you are all eagerly awaiting a new wedding post. :) Want lots of hits on your blog? Just have pictures everyone wants to see! Haha.... Seriously though, I am just as excited to share wedding stories and pictures with you as you are to receive them. I know you really want to see pictures of the bride and groom and see how beautiful and handsome they were on their special day. And you want to hear all about the fire department showing up at the reception. I promise, all of these things are coming. But this is my blog. And writing these posts is just as much for me as it is for you. So before we get to the reception and lots of pictures, I have to talk about the wedding. Because it was awesome!

I'm gonna be honest....I haven't really enjoyed any wedding that I have been to in the last 3+ years. It is just really hard to listen to people say vows that were said to you and then broken. In some ways, it almost makes your own experience feel very cheap. A lot of people asked me this weekend if this wedding was hard for me to be a part of. I can honestly say that it wasn't hard for me - it was an honor to watch it all unfold. I am thrilled for my brother and Bekah and couldn't be more excited for them. It doesn't bother me that my baby brother is married and I'm not. I'm not mad because he married a great girl and is part of a fantastic new family. I am thankful for God's provision for them both.

I loved every minute of the wedding ceremony. It was sweet and rich and full of promise and God's truth about what marriage is really all about. And with where I was standing, I had a perfect view of Michael's face. I wish I had a camera with me to capture the way he looked, but I know I will never forget it. I watched my brother understand the importance of the vows he was saying to the woman he loves. I watched him cry as he said his vows. I watched his eyes soften, I saw his joy....I realized that my little brother is a man. He is a husband now, and I can't wait to see all that God has in store for him and his new bride.

Were there moments that pricked my heart? Of course. I had someone look at me the same way Michael looked at Bekah and make those promises to me. I still grieve that loss. I grieve what isn't. But I grieve in healing and in hope. And I know how to pray for my brother and his wife. I know how to encourage them. I know God is real. No matter what my own story holds, I saw a new glimpse of God's love this weekend, and I am thankful He gave me a front row seat.

The Wedding Rehearsal

Hi everyone! I know you are all interested in seeing pictures from the wedding, so I'll do my best to get a few posts up this week so you can see everything. I am back in Florida after having an amazing time in the Great White North, where we actually had the most glorious weather for the wedding festivities. The wedding day temp was actually 72, which was quite nice! Anyway, here are some pictures and stories from the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

As you will find at any rehearsal, there is a lot of standing around. We had fun though and laughed a lot. This is the wedding party, minus me since I was taking the picture.

As Bekah practiced walking down the aisle, Michael was goofing off and pretending to faint. It's hard to see in this picture, but Matthew caught him as he "fell".

Bekah was trying not to cry as she came down the aisle, but most of the bridesmaids were crying, which made her cry. In this picture though, she was just excited to see Michael. Or perhaps trying really hard not to cry! :)

As part of the ceremony, all the parents came up front. My parents were asked "who gives this groom", along with Bekah's parents being asked who gives the bride. It was actually really cool to see. Might have to copy that some day...

Here is a cute picture of my parents as they watched the proceedings.

After they were finished with the bridal party and going over the parts of the ceremony, I climbed on top of a table to get a few pictures. This is one of my favorite pictures from the entire weekend. I love the look of excitement and anticipation and love on Michael and Bekah's faces. It makes my heart smile.

Here's a sneak peek to a wedding picture....similar looks on the faces!

Here's another of my favorite pictures from the rehearsal, but I have to share a bit of the story behind it. Bekah actually liked my brother for a couple of years before they started dating. She thought he was a really solid guy and was interested in getting to know him but had a very hard time getting past the fact that he wore orange crocs. After they started dating, it became quite the joke, so of course my brother had to wear them for the rehearsal. This picture is a great insight into who they are as individuals. :)

Now on to the rehearsal dinner. We brought the south to the Great White North and had a southern cookout. Thankfully the weather was nice, as we grilled hotdogs and hamburgers and had all the fixings. We even brought in bottled cokes to go with the sweet tea and lemonade and had cute little "picnic tables" for folks to sit at.


It was fun to see everyone try different things. My friend Joanna, originally from Canada, had never had a chili dog before. Here she is taking a bite of her very first one. She is now a fan!

The one request Michael had for the dinner was that I make homemade banana pudding for dessert. Thanks to help from a couple of awesome ladies, we made four, and they were delicious! We had moon pies to go along with them, but those weren't quite as popular. As one of the southern groomsmen said, we're not sure why people eat them so much in the south - they aren't really all that good!


I think that is enough for now! I'll put a post from the wedding day up soon. It was a really great wedding and a special time was shared. And just like all weddings have some sort of story that happens, this one did too! More pictures to come soon, as well as the explanation of how the fire alarm went off and why the fire department showed up at the reception!!!

Gators

I know, I know. I'm a horrible blogger! I apologize because I know that by not blogging, you are less apt to read my blog, assuming nothing new is there. I have decided there are a couple of reasons for my lack of blogging. One reason is that I don't have tons of pictures right now to share with you. I used to blog a lot because I took a lot of pictures and wanted to post them. I don't like posting many blogs that are just words, so there are fewer now. I'll try to get better about taking pictures! Another reason that I haven't blogged much is because sometimes you just don't have a lot to say. For those of you who know me well, I know that is a shocker. :) But I am processing through so much in life right now that I don't know how to get it on paper. I will someday though, and I'm sure you'll be waiting with anticipation for that day. :)

For now, I thought I'd share a little fun story for the few of you who might still be reading. I live in Florida now, and there are many gators here. If there is a pond around, you can pretty much guarantee that there will be a gator living somewhere in it. We have several of these ponds in our apartment complex where we live. Nikki and I have now seen 4 gators in different ponds around here. So far, they are babies - cute and (we hope) relatively harmless. They appear something like this...

They might actually be a little bigger than that, but so I don't have nightmares, let's pretend they are always this cute and tiny. Here is another picture of the alligator that lives in the pond behind my balcony.

You have to look closely, but you should be able to pick him out in the grass by the water. This is Alan the alligator. Yes, we named them all. :) The other gators in our complex live in different ponds. We named one Samson and one Oscar. Today, we were driving home from church, and we passed Samson's pond. It was a lovely sunny day, so he was out sunning himself on the grass. And next to him was another gator! He has a friend!! So of course we named that one Delilah. :) Yes, we have issues, but at least we live a jolly life!!

I hope you have enjoyed my gator story. As a reminder, always run in a zigzag pattern if chased by a gator - he can't catch you that way. Here's hoping our gators stay tiny and don't chase anyone. Although if they want to eat the dogs that live below us, I won't mind.

This week we are counting down to Michael and Bekah's wedding!! Only six days to go! I am super excited, and I know they are too. I am heading up to Boston on Wednesday, so there will be many posts to come because I will be taking many pictures! Hope you all have a great week!