Wedding Anniversary: The Reception

If you stopped by yesterday, you read that it was my Wedding Anniversary.
If you're like my husband, you probably would agree that the best part of the wedding is the reception.  We had so much fun at ours.

Since I was going into picture overload yesterday, I thought it would be best to split it up into two posts.  So today, I share some memories from our reception.  :)

Our reception was at a place called The Casino at Lakemont Park.  It's not a gambling place, though, and honestly, I don't even know why it's called "The Casino."

This IS one of our professional photos.  It's one of my most favorites!
 

It was a relatively warm day on August 7, 2010.  The guys' jackets were off almost immediately after entering the reception.

Our first dance was to "Angel Eyes" by the Jeff Healey Band

My dad and I danced to "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle

My friend, Kira, (who was already engaged) caught my bouquet.

Our garter toss was fun.  After Scott tossed it and my friend Jason reluctantly picked it up off of the floor, one of our groomsmen took the place of Kira (the bouquet catcher).  Jason was blindfolded to put the garter on "her".  He was a good sport.  :)

This was our cake...and yes, the bride is dragging the groom on the top.

I love this picture of my brother and I.  I don't remember what he said, but he's a funny kid...clearly.  :)

There was a lot of other fun and dancing and mostly inappropriate pictures left with Scott and his friends!  lol

But our day was wonderful, and I just can't believe that it was three years ago!  Time has flown by so quickly!  But here's to many more wonderful years ahead!

It's My Wedding Anniversary

Back in February, I shared the story of how Scott and I came to be husband in wife.  If you missed it, or if you're new around here, you can go check them out: Our Story, Our Story, Part 2.

From reading those posts, you know that Scott and I had a legal marriage, and an official wedding ceremony.

Three years ago, today, Scott and I had our wedding. 

Though, I shared some of our wedding photos in Our Story, Part 2, I'm going to share some of my favorites today.  These are photos that were taken by guests at the wedding.  None of these are our professional photographs.  Oh, and there may be repeats from the previous post, I warn you now.  :)

This is me (obviously) with my flower girl, Zoe.  She's my cousin's daughter.  I can't tell you how much I love this picture.

My mom is finishing the tying of my corset back, and I'm zipping up Tori's (my cousin) dress.

Ready to go...and yes, I took the hair tie off of my wrist. :)

My cousin's son, AJ, was our ringbearer.  He carried the actual rings because I trusted him more than either of the best men.  :)

My brother, David, escorted my mom to her seat.

Scott and his groomsmen waiting for my entrance

Walking down the aisle :)

Mr. & Mrs. :)

Our bridal party

With our parents

This picture cracks me up.  It looks like Scott is using AJ as a puppet.

At our wedding we...
...held our ceremony at New Life Worship Center.
...had 1 maid of honor and 1 matron of honor, 6 bridesmaids, 2 best men, 6 groomsmen, 1 ringbearer, and 1 flower girl.
...chose music that suited us!  My friend, Kira (also a bridesmaid), sang "A Moment Like This" by Kelly Clarkson for the processional.  I walked down the aisle to "Everything I Do (I Do it for You) by Bryan Adams.  My aunt and uncle sang, "The Other Side of Me" by Michael W. Smith for the unity candle ceremony.  We exited our ceremony to "The Way You Make Me Feel" by Michael Jackson.
...did not force our entire bridal party to stand in a receiving line....AWKWARD.  It was just us and my parents and Scott's mom and stepdad. 
...did not leave the church together for the outdoor pictures.  My brand-new husband said it never occurred to him that we were supposed to do that.  Even though I told him that we were supposed to.
...had an awesome reception.

I'm going to share reception details and pictures tomorrow!  :)  Stay tuned.   

Our Story, Part 2

Yesterday, I shared the story of how Scott and I met.  Part of our story is that we had a legal marriage AND a wedding.  I thought that today I would explain why we did both.

It's all because of this beautiful girl:

 

This is a picture of my stepdaughter, Amber.  At 18 months, Amber was diagnosed with Epilepsy.  Through many years of doctors and hospitals, her official diagnosis was Severe Intractable Epilepsy.  Essentially, this means that her form of Epilepsy could not be controlled with medication.  By the time I met Scott, Amber had to be put into her second or third medically induced coma to stop her seizures. 

 

The moment Scott introduced me to her, I loved her.  She loved shopping, "bling", and Scooby-Doo.  I knew things with Scott would be serious when he allowed me to go with him to visit her in the hospital.  He had never taken any other girlfriends with him before.

 

As the years progressed, Amber was spending more and more time in the hospital about 2 hours from our home.  When Scott proposed, we were going to wait a bit before getting married, but something was telling us we needed to grab an opportunity to get married with Amber in attendance.  After a few other options didn't pan out, my friend Leann was able to help.  Her husband's aunt is a magistrate in a nearby county in Pennsylvania.  She agreed to do a marriage ceremony for us, even if it had to be spontaneous, and she was also willing to come to our home to do it!

 

On February 15, 2010, Scott, Amber, and I got dressed up and headed to the next county for our legal marriage ceremony.  We each told only a couple of people, but I didn't want any one in my family to know.  I still want my wedding day to be my wedding day in everyone's eyes.  My friend Leann was our only witness.

 

 

 

We just had a basic ceremony and didn't even exchange rings.  Just the judge, ourselves, Amber, and Leann (who ended up being our photographer).

 

 

 

Our decision to have our marriage done legally with Amber there was a good one.  On our wedding day on August 7, 2010, Amber was in the hospital in a medically induced coma.

 

 

We wanted to have a wedding because we really wanted to celebrate with our friends and family.  It was bittersweet because Amber couldn't be there, but we really did have an amazing day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It turns out that our decision to do both things was very wise.  On September 2, 2010, Amber passed away from complications of epilepsy.

 

Losing her was a devastating blow.  We went from the joy of being married to the lowest of lows.  Marriage vows state "for better or worse," and we certainly started out with a lot of worse.  But we have grown stronger through it all.

 

Not a day goes by that we don't think of Amber and miss her.

 

I know that this post has a major does of sadness mixed with a lot of good.  But the sadness is a huge part of our story.  Now that I have gotten to know some wonderful people in the blogging world, I wanted to share our story: the good and the bad.  Both parts make up the person that I am and the couple that we are.