Our wedding day 4.27.09

As promised, I am going to share our wedding story with you! I've said in the past that our wedding story is pretty crazy. People have often told me ... Man, you're gonna regret not having your big one! Maybe there will always be a part of me that will wonder what it would have been like to have a big wedding and all of those nice things, but I still love the wedding we had.

On April 27th, we woke up deciding we were going to elope. We were trying to get in touch with someone to marry us secretly ... then we were going to come back from our honeymoon and tell everyone the news. I suppose my personal reasoning for wanting this kind of wedding at 18 was rebellion, but I knew that's not how I really wanted it to be. Joshua felt the same way. I wanted to wear my wedding dress, have my Daddy walk me down the aisle, and get whoever I could to be there. Joshua wanted to honor his parents, who were already worried about us getting married so quickly and so young!

So, we finished our last counseling session that afternoon with our pastor. We told him what we wanted to do and he agreed to perform the ceremony. When? That night.

After telling our parents and shocking them all, everyone scurried about trying to get people to come and getting ready for it. My best friend Alex came and spent the day with me while I did my hair and got ready.

Once we got to the church, the rest is history! These pictures tell the story.

We weren't able to have a professional photographer ... which does kinda stink! However, I'm glad that we did have people there to get pictures of our special day!

Getting ready at church and showing off my dress. :)

I was nervous! I might look calm in this picture, but I was so nervous!

Our wonderful pastor, my hott man, my brother in law (his goofy smile pretty much amused me throughout the whole thing), and our awesome cousin (who wasn't my biggest fan at the time).

I think we did okay for a quickie wedding when it came to decorating. I had orginally planned on all kinds of floral arrangements, but I kind of like the simple look that we had.

By the way, my bridesmaids were my best friend Alex, our sister Caitlin, our cousin Erika, and our sister Mikayla was the flower girl. :)

Exchanging vows and rings.

You may kiss the bride! Okay, so we didn't actually wait until our wedding day to kiss. We actually had our first kiss a few days before. But it still means the world to me that we waited! It was the best kiss of my life!

Well every kiss really is the best one. :)

Married!

I edited this a while back because I was ashamed of not having a professional photographer. I've since gotten over that! I've realized that the wedding, although it should be special and memorable, is just a day! And memorable it was for us! It was the beginning of our little journey. :)

He's pretty much the most handsome man!

The church that we had our wedding in is the one that Josh has been attending since birth, his Daddy is associate pastor there, and we still go there to this day! Unless God decides to move us elsewhere, this is our home! Love it!

Our little reception! My friend Alex, who was my MOH, bought us a cake and ice cream! Oh and that's not wine ... we were totally drinking Mt. Dew.

Money! (My MIL used decorations from my cancelled Bridal shower to decorate the fellowship hall.)

Okay, so our wedding was kinda dinky. It certainly wouldn't be shown in some kind of a Bridal magazine. But it was special to me. I remember how much of a kid I was when we met (really, I still am, I've just been knocked on my butt a few times and have learned a little in life) and how scared we were entering into this lifelong covenant called marriage.

Our wedding day was crazy ... and I know many were wondering, Oh my, what's going to happen to them?!

I also wish I could've had more family members there. I wish I would've had the nerve to call my other maid of honor (yes I was originally going to have two), but I was too scared of what she would think! I wish I would have had the confidence to say ... You may not agree and that's okay, but I'd still love for you to be there.

But I suppose everyone has something about their wedding that they would do differently.

I am glad I married Joshua, though and I wouldn't change it for the world. We were so different then. I wasn't saved and I had no idea how to be a wife or what any of it even meant. (I also disagreed with submission.) Joshua didn't really understand what it meant to lead a home or be a husband. God has done a lot of work in us since then.

Our wedding was our starting point. We began clueless and God has brought us a long way. To others a wedding might mean a wide variety of things. To me? Maybe at the time, it was my declaration of independence. It was our way of saying Despite what anyone says, we're going to do this. It's us against the world! However, now it means something entirely different. It symbolizes where we began in our little journey and the plan that God had by bringing us together. It hasn't been easy thus far and I know we'll have our hard times in the future ... but I am so glad to see what God has done in our lives since then.

Oh and the wedding night? Just for laughs ...

I cried the whole night. I was homesick!

Ha ha. :)