Our best day ever!

We get married Sept 18, 2004 during hurricane season. There was some kind of a storm lurking out in the Atlantic making us nervous, but instead of getting a tent for outside, we took a chance. Our gamble paid off, the weather was in the 70s not a cloud in the sky!

We were excited to have everyone see our new house. Our house had gorgeous a large bed of Banksia Roses that needed weeding. We yanked out poison ivy or something similar a week before the wedding! If you look closely at our wrists in some photos you can still see marks from the horrible blisters.

My beloved family doctor, Dr Garcia, had moved away and they had not replaced him yet. He and I had a great relationship, so when I bounced in the doctors office having fully researched what I wanted, I never expected the temporary nurse practitioner to battle me.

I walked in asking for a steroid shot. She was pushing me taking a slower approach, which was take pills for a week or two and “kindly” explained the horrible side effects: weight gain and moodiness. I had to explain that this is the last thing I needed because I was getting married!! My dress was already fitting like a glove with no margin for error! After a long discussion, she finally agreed to my original request. That was a close call.

Rehearsal day finally arrived and I remember running errands all over town and thinking I would never get everything done. There was no way to avoid it, my simple wedding was still a lot of work.

We had the rehearsal dinner at our house, and it was also my moms birthday.

Our wedding was small, around 75 in total. We only had our family, and close friends.

The next morning we all hustled to meet at the church. The girls went to the bridal luncheon and got ready in our special room.

The boys also doubled as ushers, here they are ready for duty!

Our 6 kids made up our entire wedding party. Michael and Hunter gave me away at 13 & 10.

Eleanor was my maid of honor at 13. She and I had so much fun dress shopping, I let her pick out her own dress. To this day I am still blown away at how much Eleanor looked like my sister. She even chose purple for her dress, my sisters favorite color!

Brian was the best man at 11. They were being very serious at this moment of the ceremony!

Bevan was the “ring boy” and almost 6. Moments before this photo he was playing with our wedding bands and almost dropped one down the drain.

Emma was the Flower girl. She was super adorable but she was also unpredictable! She was only four when we got married! I have to report, she was great: she didn’t cry, or wiggle or squirm too much!

The boys were so cute in their matching outfits which they promptly peeled off for the dancing part of the reception.

Here is a sneak preview of the wild boys by the end of the reception with my nephew, Jake.

Back to the story. Here is a view of the whole wedding party! Notice Hunter keeping an eye on Emma and Brian checking on that ring pillow. Eleanor and Michael were paying attention.

We were early pioneers of taking group photos before the ceremony. At first I didn’t like the idea of “bad luck” of Tim seeing me in my dress early, but we also needed to be practical, there was nothing getting in the way of us getting married. This old superstition was created when marriages were arranged, they never met and the family didn’t want the other to back out. We had taken three years making sure, this wasn’t an issue!

Here is a our big family photo with my parents, Tim’s mom and my grandmother, Mimi.

We were able to get a great photo of all 6, this was not easy!

After the ceremony, we had our first kiss on the steps of the church. Totally unplanned, it was accidentally left off in the service. Extra bonus, impromptu hug from Hunter.

We move to the Cottage at Francis Marion for the reception.

My friend, Vicky came in from Mt Pleasant as my Angel of Mercy. While Eleanor and I were running errands, she had my whole house cleaned, ready & set up for the rehearsal dinner. She also kept the other 5 kids under control. During the wedding she stayed with them in their own “special room” where they ate.

I gave all the kids a camera and Bevan & Hunter took their jobs seriously.

Hunter wanted to help us plan the wedding so I had him help pick the cake.

Here we are getting ready to cut the cake.

This next photo is quite odd, Tim & I look like we about to smash the cake in each other’s face, but that was further from the truth. I added this photo to show how focused Hunter is, he was interested in the ceremony intertwined arms for the cake & toast. Also note Bevan, who loved cake so much he called it bwead, was waiting for a piece!

In this next photo Hunter & Eleanor line up for the second piece, Hunter thought they would copy us as a couple. Eleanor has a HUGE sweet tooth, and just wanted dessert!

Poor misunderstood Hunter found Aunt Diana to do the toast with him.

We had our first dance. We selected Truly, Madly, Deeply. The song truly spoke to us but honestly it was the longest song ever, Dickie & Eileen saved us by jumping it at the end.

Tim then danced with the girls and I danced with the boys.

We had line dances and so much fun!

We ended the night with the kids and I standing on the edge of the fountain singing Bohemian Rhapsody. This was a special moment for the kids and me. We had practiced all the “parts” of the song in the car and until that night I didn’t realize how much they knew the song, it was my favorite part of the night!!