Completing Him Summer Challenge: The Wedding

I am participating in the Completing Him Summer Challenge hosted by Courtney over at Women Living Well. This weeks challenge is simple.   Remember Your Vows - post pictures of your wedding day. We will review the sacredness of this day.

Our wedding was really simple, we were as frugal as we could be.  With our families and friends working beside us we prepared a simple, yet meaningful ceremony.  We had known each other a little over 6 months, but one of the songs that was popular at the time said it so well, "When God made you He must have been thinking about me."  We feel we were brought together in God's timing.  After we stopped speaking "hypothetically" and decided we were to get married, we began to plan.  We enlisted the help of a friend at church to make a slide show which was to be shown during the ceremony.  He skillfully put together the pictures of us (recent pictures, growing up pictures, pictures of our children) to the song "When God Made You." by Newsong.  Here is a link to a copy of the lyrics.  I was fortunate to find a wedding dress on sale at a small wedding shop in the small town where I used to go to church.  My friend and I created our bouquets with artificial flowers.  I made hair clips (finished them the day of the wedding, so like me).  A friend from church styled my hair and all three girls' hair as a wedding gift.  Harold's sister prepared the food.  Someone who Harold knew owned a bakery and gave us a deal on the cake.  And we had the ceremony at the church I attend;  there is no charge for church members.  And to top it off, the church was already decorated for Easter in the light purple color I wanted for our wedding.  We arranged the furniture the night before the ceremony, along with the Rehearsal.  The wedding went off almost without a hitch.

We had my and Harold's mother light the candles and be seated by Harold's boys (Chris and Alex) to the song Wind Beneath My Wings.

Harold, Harold's dad (who was his best man) and Pastor Wally entered to Fun Zone by Weird Al (I believe my hubby has to be Weird Al's number one fan).

The processional was set to the song "Two Less Lonely People in the World" by Air Supply.

I was escorted down the aisle by my two sons to the traditional music.

Looking back on the wedding DVD today as I was trying to remember details (and I also just took the majority of these pictures by pausing the DVD and photographing the screen) I was so touched by all Pastor Wally said about marriage.  Christ is to be our example.  He quoted Paul as the teacher of what love should be from 1 Corinthians 13, part of which we had printed in our wedding programs (which I can't find or I would have included).  Pastor Wally used both the traditional wedding vows and then allowed us to use the vows we made ourselves.  It is by God's grace that we have come together, so his girls, Amanda and Candice sang Amazing Grace.  He also talked about needed Christ in the middle of our marriage to avoid the friction that would come with out him. 

We then showed the "When God Made You" slide show.  After that we joined the separate candles together and lit the unity candle.  As stated by Pastor Wally, "It symbolized how we are made one, our thoughts are to be for each other." And blowing out the individual candles symbolized that we are now united and are not divided anymore.  We then sang "Bind Us Together" which was a song we sang at Koinonia and at my old church and new church.

We were introduced as Mr. and Mrs. 

Then we took pictures while the food was prepared.  These are the only pictures I had until I decided to take pictures of my tv screen today: