five years.

last week nick&i celebrated five years of marriage.  i can't believe it's been five years, it's flown by... and yet, i can't believe it's only been five years because it's hard for me to remember life apart from him.

the last five years of my life have represented the tangled web of pain and joy that is this life.  the beauty of the mountaintops... and the empty brokenness of the valleys.  we have felt it all.  and honestly?  i'm so thankful.  definitely not for what has caused our pain and grief and struggle.. but for how god has used it to cement us even closer together.  our marriage is not built on butterflies and romance which is fickle and fleeting... but on what god has brought us through together and how he has continually deepened our love for one another.  teammates.  for life.

on our wedding day, one of the most amazing details was something that was not planned by us.  actually, it could have never been orchestrated by anyone other than god.  throughout the duration of our ceremony, an eagle circled over the exact spot we exchanged our vows.  several of our friends and family told us about how beautiful it was.  to us, it was a god thing.  his reminder that he was there, in the midst of us.

the morning after our wedding, i woke up as the sunlight first crept in through our windows.  contended and happy, i laid in bed next to my sleeping husband and relived the events of the day.  when i thought of the eagle flying above, god immediately brought to my mind isaiah 40:29-31:

"he gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the lord will renew their strength.  they will soar on wings as eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."

as we began our new life together that day, i was comforted by those words; by the sign i felt like god had given us.  life is hard.  but he would be with us each step of the way.

the past five years have proven that to be true.  loss of loved ones, a move across the country, grief, change, fear of the unknown, financial struggles... and yet woven through all of the difficult times, the birth of two gorgeous babies, the provision of jobs we absolutely love, unexpected blessings, the purchase of our first home, watching god build a beautiful life for us... one we are so grateful for.

we celebrated our anniversary by a little getaway to bar harbor, one of our favorite places.  it's a quaint little village on the coast where nick proposed to me almost 6 years ago, so it's very special to us.  it was rainy and gloomy most of the time we were there but we didn't care.  that made it more cozy.  we didn't have set-in-stone plans... there was so much beauty in just roaming the streets and not having to take note of the time. one of our best trips ever!

  

the quaintest, quirkiest coffee shop we found; definitely a new favorite

us

walking by the water

nick & his cigar ;)

love it when strangers volunteer to take pictures!

the shore path we love to walk

town square & cherry trees

love this old new england style church

our hotel balcony

 

ahhhhh....

before dinner

ocean shot

i've always loved this fountain

 so grateful for you, nick; i love you more today than ever and i can't wait to see god's story for us continue to unfold.  thanks for asking me to walk this journey with you.  i'm forever blessed.

our wedding.

almost five years ago, i married a pretty awesome guy.

one of my hopes for this blog is for it to be a documentary of our family's life.  i want it to be a precious gift to our girls someday... for them to look back and read what i've written to them, or about them, or about their daddy and our lives together.  i've written about our story before (to read, click here) , but i've never posted before about our wedding day.  being the sentimental gal that i am, here are a few photos (okay, it's total picture overload) capturing our special day.

the wedding site
we got married at the lucerne inn; a beautiful historic inn tucked in the mountains, overlooking a lake.  when i was a little girl, i always loved driving by it because i thought it was a "castle".  my grampy's father was a caretaker of the inn during the winter months when my grandfather was a little boy.  he tells many stories about ice skating on the lake and running about the inns endless hallways.

the invitations
i have a thing for pretty paper... my sister found this scrapbook paper for me and handmade all of our invitations.  they were beautiful and so special!  i also used this paper for the centerpieces and other decor.

worship music
music is so important to both nick&i and we are so blessed to have some very talented friends!  these are a few of them that sang before and during our ceremony.  "your love is extravagant" and "praise to the lord, the almighty" were a few of our selections.

my handsome groom
seriously.  so handsome.  nick wore a khaki suit and white shirt/tie.  i married one good looking guy.

heritage of prayer
it was really important to us to involve our families; we had a time in the ceremony where our fathers came up and prayed over us.  this was one of my favorite parts of our wedding, and this is a very treasured photo.  love it so much.

reception centerpieces
we had a few different centerpieces for the reception tables... these are vases filled with branches.

head table
we lined the head table with empty vases for the bridesmaids to place their boquets in.

the bride
i wore this veil that i bought for thirty dollars on ebay!  and drop earrings i bought at a jewelry discount store.  i purchased my dress (originally $1200) for four hundred bucks at a trunk show in dallas.  bam.  i'm all about a good deal.

sunset rock
our photographer was incredible, and took us for a quick ride across the street and up to this rock that overlooked the inn and surrounding mountains and lake.  we've gone up to this rock a couple of times since.  some of my favorite wedding photos! 

flower girl & ring bearer
our nephew, wyatt was our handsome little ring bearer; i love these pictures of him!  he wore chocolate brown pants from old navy, a white button up shirt and white converse sneakers.  when nick&i were engaged, a seminary professor of mine and his wife so graciously offered for me to live with them in the months leading up to our wedding.  i was very close with their family and asked their daughter, jill, to be our flower girl.  i found a simple white dress (i think it may have been a first communion dress) for her, and ordered a chocolate brown sash.  she wore simple ballet slippers for shoes that we found at payless.

our reception
we honestly had a blast at our wedding.  don't listen to anyone that tells you that you won't have fun at your wedding or reception!  this was my dad doing his ever popular fist pump move... such great memories... so fun!

reception centerpieces
another variation of table centerpieces; square vases filled with river rocks and water with pink gerbera daisies.

reception site
our reception was on the lawn of the inn under a large white tent light with twinkle lights and white paper lanterns.  it was pretty, casual and seriously the most fun i've ever had.  if i could pick any day to live again, it would be our wedding day hands down.  for many reasons, but our reception was just a ball.

reception
again... more dancing... we have awesome friends :)

father/daughter dance
my dad and i danced to "my girl" by the temptations.  that song will always be so special to me; we had a thing for the movie "father of the bride" (which features the song) because of the scene where the father and daughter shoot hoops in the driveway.  so special.  love my dad so so much; very blessed to have been his girl.

mother/son dance
when nick was growing up, he remembers listening to country music with his mom and siblings; specifically dolly parton.  so he chose to dance to "i will always love you" sung by none other than dolly herself.  this was such a sweet moment, and i really love this picture :)

down the aisle
i had pictured this moment a thousand times in my head and it was still incredibly surreal.  my bridesmaids and i walked down the aisle to "glory in the highest" by chris tomlin.  i will be forever grateful for the fact that my dad was able to walk me to hand me off to nick.  i had picked out a point in the song where the music crescendoed, and that was when i wanted to begin walking down.  i'll never forget my dad was so excited that he kept trying to step out too soon i had to hold him back and keep telling him to wait.  so sweet.

boutineer
nick's boutineer was a simple cymbidium orchid with a few green berries sprinkled in.   

bridesmaids boquets
i wanted simple flowers for our wedding; no use in spending lots of money on something that will last for a few hours!  but i love fresh flowers, so i wanted them to be pretty.  obviously.  i absolutely love gerbera daisies, so it was a perfect fit.  each bridesmaid carried a boquet of three light pink gerbera daisies.

cake
i absolutely loved our cake.  i wanted something super simple; we came up with this design... three layer pink cake with white frosting detail and chocolate brown ribbon topped with a silver "c".  the top layer had stripes, the second layer dots and the third layer a scalloped detail.

aisle decorations
again, super simple: light pink gerbera daisies and a few branches tied around chair ends with tulle.

matron of honor boquet
my sister was my matron of honor, which was the easiest decision for the whole day!  a no-brainah.  she held a bigger group of coral colored gerbera daisies.  loved these against her chocolate brown dress!

first dance
we danced our first dance to "at last" by etta james.  i love this picture :)

ceremony
we wanted our ceremony to be casual and personal... we had three different pastors that knew us well involved in the officiating.  there were definitely some laughs!

wedding party
we have the best friends in the whole world.  seriously.  most of our wedding party flew up from texas or other parts of the country (chicago, michigan, kentucky...) to be with us on our big day.  so special.  the girls wore chocolate brown strapless dresses from jcrew and chocolate brown ballet flats from the gap.  the guys wore khakis and white button up shirts from old navy and leather flip flops from the gap.  aren't they awesome?!  yes.  this photo captures them all perfectly.

bride boquet
my boquet was made of light pink peonies, hot pink roses, cymbidium orchids and some green berries.

husband and wife
we walked out to "l-o-v-e" by nat king cole.  perfect ending. 

there may be a few things that i would do differently if we were to get married now.  i would definitely be more hands on; planning from half way across the country, my mom ended up doing most of it.  i knew a few things that i for sure wanted (after all, i was a bridesmaid ten times before i got married... no joke... i had seen a lot of weddings!) but i honestly was so anxious to get married and start our lives together that i didn't care about a lot of the details.  which i'm thankful for now.  we had a beautiful wedding, but our focus was on our marriage.  a wedding lasts a few hours, but a marriage lasts a lifetime.

so.  if we got married now, i'd ditch the chocolate brown and go with a bright color like a pretty coral.  i'd probably do peonies, ranunculas or billy buttons for flowers.  and i'd fully enter into crafting/antiquing mode and do a lot of the decor differently, consulting pinterest along the way.

but, does any of that matter?  nope.  i would marry my husband a million times over no matter what we had for flowers, or what the color scheme of our wedding was.

this day was and will always be the most happiest day of my entire life.