resort to counting to get that dress on Lulu!


The beautiful kissing balls the little girls carried.

I don't know why they are called that, but I love the name.

My Bouquet.

We did have some adults in our wedding. My sister was the matron of
honor and the best man was a friend of Chris' from college. Sorry guys,
you're not quite as cute as the kids, so they get more pics!
Fred thought he was so funny. It's hard to see, but he's giving Chris bunny ears.

Someone didn't want to be left out!

The site of the ceremony. I grew the asparagus ferns that were on the tiki torches (which I bought at Walmart for $5 each.)

I also grew these little pots of grass after spray painting clay pots brown & turquoise. We used them on some of the tables and on the dance floor. I was afraid they weren't going to grow, then the day before the wedding they starting looking so good that Chris even said they might need a haircut!
Again, thanks to Morgan for such an amazing record of our special day!

* Disclaimer.......my sister wants me to be sure and point out that Flo, Fred & Lulu are NOT the names she gave her children. Aunt Hope has come up with those lovely names herself!

I'm skipping ahead a bit here by going straight to our engagement pictures. Between us meeting in December and getting engaged in July, a lot of things happened. We went skiing in Vermont, we spent many weekends at his Dad's lake house, and he took me to Vegas for my birthday. But, I have scrapbooks of all these activities, so I'm going to get right to the big events so I can get caught up.


After we got engaged, so many things just seemed to fall into place with the wedding details, but I had a very hard time finding a photographer. I wanted something different. In June, we had been to a friends wedding, and it was the 2nd best wedding I have ever been to (can you guess who's was 1st?). Then, I saw the pictures from that same wedding and they were amazing. I found out who the photographer was and called him. It took about a 3 minute conversation for me to know there was no way I could afford him. So for a while I went back to thinking about asking a friend with a good camera to take the pictures.


Then one day, it came to me, the BRIDE from the wedding would be perfect. I had no idea if she even took photographs, but I KNEW she would see my vision. Even though I didn't know her well, I called her and tried to sell her on my idea. She bought in right away and it was the best decision I made about the wedding except for the groom. You can visit Morgan Trinker Photography here to see what an amazing photographer and writer she is. Thank you Morgan for the most amazing engagement and wedding pictures ever taken. Here's just a little sample because there is no way I can post all of them.

I have always loved fairy tales and romance novels. I love, love, love when the princess is swept off her feet by the knight in shining armour and they live happily ever after. There for a while, I didn't think it was ever going to happen to me. I wouldn't say I had given up, but I had decided that it was just a pipe dream and not reality. I was wrong.

When you are 34 and single, meeting prince charming is hard. There's no student center to hang out in. You can't just grab your empty backpack and head to the library to see what hot single guys are lurking there. Anyone who you would WANT to go out with is probably at work. Thank goodness for modern day technology. When I decided to try match.com, I had NO idea how successful it would be for me.

I decided to give it a try in the middle of October. Within 30 minutes of submitting my profile, I had received 50, that's right, 50, emails! I dated a lot in college, but I was never that popular!!!! Over the next 2 months, I went out with 23 different guys. I only had 1 bad experience, but I will save that for a different post. Most of the dates were OK, they were just not the guy for me.

Then, around the first part of December, I got an email from this hot, young, guy. He was quite funny in his messages. After a few emails back and forth, he asked me for my phone number. Let me just pause to say, after that bad experience, which happened on my very first date from match, I had developed a system, which I never deviated from. It went something like this - 2 or 3 emails. If I was interested, I would call them. From a blocked number. And talk for 30 minutes MAX, never any longer. If I decided they were worth meeting, I would meet them in a public place, you know, Starbucks, a resturant, somewhere with lots of people around. I had a friend give me a call within 15 minutes of meeting them to give me an excuse to leave if they turned out to be a serial killer (or maybe if I just didn't like them!) I considered this my "out". I only went out with 2 people more than once, and no one was ever invitited to come to my house.

Back to the hot, young guy. Apparantly, I had "winked" at him. A wink is just a little message match.com sends if you want to contact someone, but not actually email them. It's like a little wave, hey, look at me, kinda thing. I DO NOT REMEMBER doing this. I never winked at anyone. I only responded to emails, I never tried to contact anyone first. I was totally outside of his search criteria, and he was totally outside of my criteria. Then, I actually called him from my cell phone, not a blocked number. We talked for maybe 10 minutes. I thought it went OK, and we decided to meet up at Baker Peter's Jazz Club for a few drinks. I really don't drink that much, but for some reason, I had 3 Cosmopolitans that night and was a little typsy. I was quite talkative, but we had some good conversations. My "out" forgot to call me. Afterwards, he walked me to my car, asked if he could see me again and gave me a hug. When I left, I wasn't sure if he would ever call me again.

He texted me on Friday night and asked me out to dinner. I accepted, AND I gave him my address to pick me up. After we went out for sushi, I actually invited him in to watch a movie. By the way, he had some movies in his back seat, just in case, he was invited in. And, as they say, the rest is history. I broke all of my rules with him, and he turned out to be perfect. Personally, I think there was something greater at work and I will always be greatful to God for winking at him for me.

As a scrapbooker, I do have a great record of the journey Chris and I have been on together. But, after reading so many wonderfully creative blogs and seeing the amazing way you can chronicle your life story and preserve family history for future generations, I have decided to start blogging. There are a few obstacles to this. I am not a good writer. I love to read and always secretly wanted to write a book. I tried to put things down on paper a few times. It always sounded so much better in my head. I'm not that great of a photographer either. I love looking at pictures and scrapbooking. I have wonderful ideas, in my head, of how a picture could be taken, but I can't make it happen through a camera lens. I believe this trait may be hereditary, as more poor Dad loves pictures but took so many BAD ones when we were growing up. However, I'm going for it anyways. Maybe my writing and picture taking will get better, who knows? I'm going to start "in the beginning" with how and when we met. I hope to get up to date very soon. Welcome to our story!