Dear daughters

Dear daughters (all 4 of you),

I saw a post today written by a mom with this title...Dear daughters, what I want you to know about my wedding. I've decided there are some things you need to know about our wedding, so I'm copying her idea, but these memories are your heritage.

WEDDING PLANNING:
There was no pinterest.
No google.
No digital cameras.

I tore some pictures out of a bridal magazine of the bridesmaids dresses I wanted, a beautiful cranberry colored dress, and a cake design. My mom (Grandma) has always been in retail and we found my dress on a sale rack in under 2 hours. The puffy sleeves WERE in, and they went with my hair, even though I went with a french twist for the ceremony.

I remember ordering the cake from Harps bakery and they wouldn't agree to a non-traditional cake (Italian Cream Cake) because they said it would be too heavy. They did a great job imitating the picture I gave them of the design on the cake.

A lady who owned the only "tea room" in Mtn Home catered my reception. I didn't touch most of the high falutin' food she served but I trusted Mom and Mrs Ponder to choose things for the reception. I remember they were really excited about spinach dip. I didn't touch green veggies during this time in my life, but if it was going to go over well, it was OK with me.

WEDDING DAY:
Our wedding was at 6:00 but the Hogs played Tennessee at 1:30pm. We had our rehearsal the day of the wedding since Richard had to work the night before in Dardanelle. Unfortunately, the game went into overtime and Todd Wright kicked a field goal to win it right before 4 to win it. The unfortunate part was the entire wedding party was at my house watching the game on tv. I didn't take a shower before pictures or shave my legs, and I didn't take quite enough time to check my honeymoon bag for some things that were missing when we arrived across the country. Seems like not a big deal, but we got ready to go to pictures in about 10 minutes and well, I didn't feel quite prepared.

I didn't walk down the aisle to the Wedding March, we asked a friend to marry us because he was young. He didn't live near us so there was no pre-marital counseling. We were his first wedding and he used every word we wrote as our ceremony. We wrote our own vows and ended them with a pledge of I Corninthians 13.

What happened during the ceremony that wasn't planned: the unity candle I was holding came out of the cylinder and almost caught my dress on fire.

I had several sorority sisters serving during the reception. Unfortunately, I was seriously so happy to be leaving my home and marrying my prince, I didn't talk to my friends very much. I regret that now as I haven't spoken to some of them since that night. It wasn't that I wasn't glad they were there, but I was enamored and under the marriage spell.

My bridesmaids dresses turned out to be hot pink, but I didn't admit this until years after the wedding. This was the same year I pulled the pictures out of a sticky photo album that was an expensive gift from friends. Apparently the sticky part of the album wasn't acid free and as the pages turned yellow, I was afraid I'd lose those pictures too. They are now in a box.

Things we noticed right when we got the pictures: Dad's tie was crooked during the pictures and ceremony. He's still a little ticked about that, so don't bring it up or point it out when you see our wedding picture on the wall at Grandma's.

The videographer gave us a video that you cannot pick people out of. Seriously, it's complete "snow." Apparently even though the service at my home church was televised every week, and video was shot from 3 cameras, the cameras weren't in focus because they were set to transfer to the tv station or something and there is nothing but sound and gray lines for our video.

We left with bird seed flying, I had forgotten my shoes to go with my "going away" outfit and borrowed my mother's black flats (2 sizes too big) to run to the car. We drove to my house, 2 blocks away, emptied bird seed from Richard's pants, and were on our way.

AFTER THE WEDDING:
We had to stop at the carwash so Richard could see to drive to Little Rock (3 1/2 hours away) and while he was washing the windows off I looked in the take home box since we didn't eat anything at the reception. It was filled with spinach dip and some crackers.

The hotel in LR lost our keys sometime between midnight and 5:30am...when we had to go to the airport to catch our plane to Nantucket. Fortunately, my spare set was in the bottom of one of our suitcases. We might still be in the lobby there if they hadn't been found. What valet LOOSES YOUR KEYS?

SO, what's the point of this post?

Our life together started before the wedding. We were committed to one another even before we were engaged. We had the most important transformation in our lives when we got our hearts straight with God before we tied the knot. It made us able to battle the hardships that are bound to come when two strong personalities marry, have kids, and breath the same air.

Our wedding was a blip on the screen of the last 23 years married to your dad. It was a special day, but only one day and the wedding was really only a couple of hours. What my dress looked like, what was served at the reception and who put that bird seed down Dad's pants doesn't matter one bit now.

What is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING is that Dad chose to love me at that time and he hasn't changed his mind. How do I know? Well, I'm hard to live with and we've had 23 years of ups and downs, and sometimes I ask him how he still loves me and that's when he tells me he committed to me for forever.

That's the kind of person you want to marry. That's the most important thing about our wedding day, are the words we vowed and no matter what has happened or will happen in our lives, we're going to keep our covenant with God and with each other.