Reflections of Our Wedding Day

Is anyone else as thrilled by a wedding website, blog, TV Show, etc. as I am? Long before my own wedding day and 6 months after, I still love them all. Sit me in front of a wedding photographer's website (like the amazing Allison Lewis photography at allisonlewisphotography.com) and I will be content for hours. Yes, I am one of the guilty ones who recorded Kate and William's royal wedding and my heart often swoons for any beautiful girl in a big white dress.Weddings sure do appeal to many of my senses, but I have to sound the alarm that, at least in my personal experience, this love can soon be totally marred by sin if you allow it to be. 

Most of my struggles when planning Ryan and I's wedding were not the countless to-do lists, coming up with the guest list, planning the ceremony, etc. By far, it was so difficult to NOT become consumed by the what the world tries to sell every young bride concerning their wedding. There are sites and sites dedicated to informing you what your wedding should look like if it is going to be beautiful. When, on the contrary, biblical marriage is already the most beautiful thing ever if you ask me. God designed it, He enables you to be married, and He created it is such a way to bring Himself glory....obviously He is a big fan. (Genesis 1:27-28; 2:24-25). Marriage is so wonderful because it provides another opportunity to display God's glory through you and your husband's lives together. Ephesians 5:31-32 says that marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant with His church. Christ is the bridegroom of His church. He paid a high price to redeem His bride. Your husband has the unique opportunity in marriage to love you as Christ loves His church, and you have the unique opportunity to submit to your husband as to Christ. You were created with separate needs that fit perfectly in tune with Christ's design of marriage. Men were created with a need for respect and you were created with a need to be loved. "Marriage is patterned after Christ's covenant relationship to his redeemed people, the church. and therefore, the highest meaning and the most ultimate purpose of marriage is to put the covenant relationship of Christ and His church on display. Staying married is not mainly about staying in love then. It is about keeping a covenant. This is why divorce is so horrific in God's eyes, it is not merely that it involves covenant breaking with the spouse, but it involves mis-representing Christ and His covenant. Christ will never leave His wife. Ever. Christ keeps His covenant forever, marriage should be a display of that. Keeping  a covenant with our spouse is as important as telling the truth about God's covenant with us through Jesus Christ. Jesus died for sinners. He forged a covenant with us. He made an imperfect bride perfect through his blood and covered her with the garments of righteousness. He said He will never leave us nor forsake us (Matt. 28:10). Marriage is meant by God to put this gospel reality on display to the world. That's why we are married." (John Piper; This Momentary Marriage).

For the world who does not embrace this reality and the purpose that Christ brings to marriage, it is no wonder that they clings so tightly to the wedding celebration itself. Why wouldn't you try to have the biggest, the flashiest, spend the most money, impress the most people, etc. if your wedding's only purpose is to celebrate yourself. So, if you are a Christian preparing for your wedding day, this should bring you a lot of hope. The wedding day pressure is off. You are free from what the world tells you to do or to have. Create a celebration that will bring God the most glory and will be a lovely day for you and your husband to look back on and recount the blessing and responsibility of marriage. What is going to go on that day is already going to be God-ordained beautiful-ness. It is already going to have great purpose. This should be the message that you proclaim to your guests. You don't have to prove that you are the best wedding planner ever by filling their tummies with the most scrumptious food, or providing the best atmosphere for them to get down on the dance floor, etc.

I have tons of other observations and advice based on the things I did right and did totally wrong, so message me for details or lets grab coffee:-)

Ok, the point of this post was to showcase some of my favorite wedding pictures, but as you can see I am making a quick habit of rambling, so here we go. 

Disclaimer: This day was not as perfect as it may seem through pictures. Heck, my pictures aren't even perfect. I have to daily keep my perfectionist self in check from not picking apart my pictures. You may see beautiful, but my eye always seems to find the dress hanger tag that came out during Ryan and I's first dance, the strand of hair that came out after the ceremony, and the bulging vein on my forehead shining so brightly in most of my pictures outside. You probably would never know that I had major breakdown the morning of my wedding after a sleepless night and a no-show make-up artist. I spent a lot of time creating an outdoor garden game area that was never used, my caterer overbooked and sent the "rookie" staff to cover my wedding, and my photographer forgot she had ever met me prior to the wedding day morning. But ya know what? Nobody probably noticed, cared, or thought twice about it. I am the only one who can ruin the memories that I have by dwelling on the small and insignificant details. Way more went right than went wrong and I often fail to give those things the credit they deserve. We had an absolutely incredible day! The gospel was presented through our ceremony, family and friends gathered to support us as we made a covenant in marriage to one another and to the Lord, we danced the night away (Yes, even some of the Baptists), and I was able to drive out of the church parking lot that night married to the man who surpasses my fallen dreams. He is truly evidence of the Lord's undeserved and unmerited blessing in my life and I am so blessed to be his wi-Fee's. Hope you enjoy these pictures as much as we do. 

We waited one year to see if we could be married here! It was definitely love at first site when we stumbled across this beauty. Since we were non-members, we had to wait 6 months before we could book with them. I called the church January 9 at 8am and everything ended up working out!

Would love to remember what I was thinking here...

This picture turned out so organic...Love!

My Grandmother made home-made peach preserves as our wedding favors...such a sweet and meaningful touch.

I understand nothing about architecture, but this is just cool:-)

I may be a little biased since these are my new precious cousins, but these could be some of the cutest flower girls ever!

Those are some handsome fellas'

Will is not the cooperative child when it comes to photographs...good thing he has a cute serious face!

My parents blessed me with an amazing wedding day! I could never repay them for all that they did, but thankful that I had the opportunity to give them a little token of my appreciation before I walked down the aisle.

Ryan opening his gift from me before the wedding. We decided Our parents decided that we would not see each other before the wedding, so hearing from each other in these small ways was comforting.

Finished product.

  

Beautiful.

My grandmother's pie chest + our grandparent's old wedding pictures = a great way to display Ryan and I's legacy

One of my favorite wedding day elements....turned out better than I envisioned!

Ryan made a photobooth for the wedding and here were some of our props! Thanks to the amazing photography skills of Allison Lewis; this turned out to be a huge success.

On the way to meet my groom...

I love this. I feel like it depicts how I am walking away from the life I know and into a new chapter of my life...cheesy I know.

These turned out so much better than expected! Lauren Benion from Sorelle Printing did a beautiful job!

Instead of unity candles, tying ropes, or pouring sand...I opted for this!

This was a requested photograph. Ryan's grandparents have a timeless photograph of them walking down the stairs of the church they were married at in NYC and I had to have my own version.

The Kiss!

Clearly excited about what just took place...

So blessed to have all these folks stand beside us in support on our special day!

Seems very wedding-y!

Walking into our reception.

First dance to "Unfailing Love" by Jimmy Needham.

There are not many pictures circulating in the world of my dad smiling this big, so this one's a definite keeper!

Finally married!

I can say this now because he is my husband, but he pretty freakin' SEXY  and he is all mine!

"How Sweet it is to be Loved by You"

I know my dad was nervous and a little apprehensive about giving his speech, but he did an amazing job. We really appreciated his kind words.

World's best-best man speech ever!

Pi Kappa Phi's rose song!

If you know how much I love to dance, then you know how much I love this picture!

Ryan's "Nanny Jane" and one of my mother's best friends provided our assortment of pies for our pie bar!

The rain thankfully held off the entire night, but the lightning sure did make for a pretty picture!

All the single ladies...

I wish this picture could have sound attached to it! If it could, you would be hearing R. Kelly's "Bump N Grind"...priceless.

Pure Joy

We were able to share one last intimate dance after everyone was ushered out of the reception hall...such a sweet moment. Would recommend this to anybody!

Thanks to Ryan's wonderful parents...we were able to drive away in this baby!

Welcome to Our Journey; May it be for our good and His glory!

Confession. I have been living vicariously through many of you "bloggers" for a long time...too long actually! I came up with my blog title long before I even got married 6 months ago. I had high hopes and aspirations of documenting everyday after Ryan and I said "I Do", but obviously that did not happen. And although this fact puts my blog off to an imperfect start, I am realizing more everyday that this is perfectly ok! 

I feel the need to bring to the surface my sinful motives that spring from my wicked flesh before you read on. There is a lot of pride that can creep up in me when thinking about starting this blog. For me, it's not that I NEED a super public outlet to get my creative thoughts out there for others to read.....I want it. I want you guys to read about what is going on in Ryan and I's life and be amazed at the "young godly couple with a super cute dog." I want you to think that we have it all together. I want you to (I dare to say because this really exposes my flesh) even be jealous. For all of those things really satisfy my flesh and make me swell up with pride. And after that happens, I am fully aware of what lengths I will go to and what excuses I will come up with to justify my pride. Trust me, it's ugly.

I know my wicked heart and I want to stay as far away from these thoughts as possible. That being said, I need my husband, readers, friends, and family, to keep me accountable. If you ever read my blog posts and see my pride bellowing in the wind, please call me out on it, because this has been a fear of mine since I first thought about actually starting a blog. It would be better for me not to have this creative outlet, then to create an opportunity for me to sin. Be patient with me, I am a recovering Pharisee. 

Ok, now that my sinful heart has been exposed and you are fully aware of the fallen creature that I am, let's get started on what I really long for this blog to be!

Ryan and I always seem to be in conversations about the future. We kind of feel temporarily stuck where we are. I mean "feeling stuck" in the least negative sense possible. We are super content and blessed to be exactly where we are. The Lord has blessed us with an amazing new church family (of which I plan to blog about in the near future), the most amazing small group on the planet (of which we fondly call "The Duffbags" and also of which I will hopefully blog about in the near future), an amazing dog (who will make a Wi-Fee debut in the future), amazing friends and family, etc. you get the picture. The reason we feel "stuck" quite honestly is that we can't move or do anything drastic until I finish pharmacy school in 1.5 years. Actually, I don't even know if I would call this "stuck," let's call it "transitional." We are in a transition. We are not completely satisfied where we are, in that our hearts are longing and dreaming of something else, but we are thankful for where we are and where we have come. We realize that not only is the Lord sovereign over where our lives are right now, but Scripture says we are not even promised tomorrow. (James 4:13-16)

All of that being said, my heart is to document our day to day lives for several reasons. I want to calm my "ancy" heart that always seems to be looking to future things by reflecting and finding joy in things that the Lord is doing in our lives right now. Secondly, I want to create a timeline to look back on later. Ryan and I have laid a "blank check" with our lives (meaning we are trying to hold loosely to the things of this world and ourselves, so that we might freely move, speak, give, go etc. to that which the Lord is leading us) before the Lord for him to use us, our time, our resources, etc. as He sees fit. We know this kind of reckless abandonment with our lives may seem foolish to our family, friends, and to the world in general, but to us as children of our great God, it is wisest way to live our lives. All through Scripture, we see that the end of God is His glory. "The reason being God is righteous. This means that he recognizes, welcomes, loves, and upholds with infinite jealousy and energy what is infinitely valuable, namely, the worth of God. God's righteous passion and delight is to display and uphold his infinitely valuable glory." (John Piper in "Let the Nations Be Glad")

Look at Isaiah 48:9-11:

For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise, I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it. for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

Do ya see it? This text and literally thousands others throughout Scripture hammer home the centrality of God in His own heart. God's ultimate goal is to uphold and display the glory of His name. This is quite a different image than the meek and mild Jesus knocking on your heart's door, asking, no begging you to answer. His aim is Himself. For all of my southern gospel friends; When He was on the cross....you probably were NOT on His mind. Bringing glory to the Father and thus Himself is probably the overwhelming majority of what was on His mind, and while on the cross He created an opportunity for us to be righteous. Yes, righteous! We are righteous in that we no longer bear sin because of the perfect life of Christ that did not bear sin, but more than than we get to be righteous in that we bring great glory to the Father through our lives by denying ourselves. For some reason, this sounds nothing like the "Get Out of Hell Free Cards offered at the front of most church's altar calls. 

So, God is righteous and all would be well if we would acknowledge this fact and become righteous ourselves by repenting of our sin and accepting the life, death, and resurrection of Christ by faith through the work of the Holy Spirit as the means of making us righteous. But.....that is why we are called unrighteous. If God is righteous because He recognizes, welcomes, loves, and upholds, with infinite jealousy and energy what is infinitely valuable, namely, the worth of God. We are unrighteous because we do not recognize, welcome, love, and uphold His name and His worth as the highest of all. Just take one look at our sinful and unrighteous lives and you will see fallen creatures trying to recognize, welcome, love, and uphold our own name as Lord of all. We tried first in the garden and continue to try to be our own God; thus comes our unrighteousness.

How silly is it then to try and align your life around anything other than bringing great glory to the one true God. This is why we say we have laid a "blank check" on the table with our lives. We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God will continue to be righteous, which is bringing glory to Himself. If we are asking him to take full control of our lives, we know that he is going to position them in such a way that brings great glory to Himself. We find so much joy in our lives being counted as righteous, not by anything that we have done, but because we have given them over the righteous God of the universe. What a win-win situation!

So here we are, our lives given over to God for Him to use as He sees fit which we know will be for His glory. Now what? Well, I find myself asking that same question all the time. Now what? The decision to give up your life seems so ground-breaking, so earth shattering, surely everyday is full of crazy twists and turns and thick plots. I have really nothing great to report his morning besides that my husband gently woke me up this morning before work as he always does, prayed with me, he left, I sat in bed playing with my dog for a few minutes, mustered up the strength to get out of bed (not a morning person at all), poured some cereal and milk, slumped on the couch, spent some quiet time with the Lord, read a chapter in a book about being a godly wife, and well....began writing this post. Kind of mundane actually. But, I know that the Lord is gathering up all these details and small events in our lives and making them into something beautiful that I can't see right now, but I hope that by writing down details through many many weeks, will have a big and clear picture of where exactly the Lord has brought us and how He is getting great glory through our lives. 

So, that was a very long first post to describe to you that I am creating this blog to currently and prospectively remind Ryan and myself that our God is great and greatly to be praised, and if our stubborn hearts need more convincing, we can look back at this blog and see His timeline. Welcome to our journey. We are thankful that you care and ask for your prayers and support as we take our next step, which for me seems to be getting up from this couch, fixing some lunch, and going to tackle some household errands! Sounds death-defying to me:-)

I know you probably feel like I should have wrapped this thing up several paragraphs ago because I know I do, but just a few more things and of course, I could not end without a picture:-). I don't have a really great plan of how to catch you guys up on our lives and write for myself what the Lord has done in Ryan and I's lives over courtship, dating, engagement, marriage, etc., but I will probably just insert a few old with the new. Not sure. I apologize for the randomness of it all now! Ok here is the promised picture! 

Start of  our Journey together!