On the days leading up to our anniversary, Rodgers and I count down as if it's our wedding day again. Yesterday we told each other, "Tomorrow, I will marry you for the 5th time!" Just another silly thing we do.
I can't decide if the time has flown or if I feel like we've always been married. What I'm sure of is that I'm so glad I married this guy! If you know Rodgers, you already know how awesome he is. If you've never met him, I am sorry. You are missing out.
He is caring, practical, wise, bold. He is both sentimental and rational. We make a great team in life, work, parenting, and ministry. He is hardworking: at his job, with necessary tasks at home, and as a dad. He is so fun to be around! We have a great time together, goofing off and playing with our kids. He takes seriously his role as spiritual leader of our family and prioritizes his relationship with God. This has a tremendous positive impact on our marriage, family, and home.
He is currently at the fish market, buying prawns. He's taking the day off and said he's going to cook me a very special supper tonight. I'm going to bake him a pan of brownies.
Finally, our wedding video is on YouTube. It was a little complicated, but worked out in the end. There's a video of the ceremony itself and a video from the reception. They have been cut in half because they were too long for YouTube's maximum ten minute length. So, without further ado, the videos!
I am holding the DVD to our wedding! We just watched it, and it was wonderful! I'll be uploading it soon for those of you who couldn't come, but want to feel like you didn't miss anything.
That a DVD has been burned today which contains our wedding video!!! Next step: YouTube. Don't worry, we haven't forgotten about our overseas people who couldn't come to the wedding and have been anxiously awaiting seeing it. More than likely, they've all forgotten that there was ever a video to be had. Don't despair! It's coming!
Our 1 month anniversary is tomorrow! Since we both took today off, as a sick day, to take Rodgers to have his medical exam for his green card, we decided to cook a special dinner tonight. It was GREAT!!
After returning from Waco, we were having some donuts at Shipley's, discussing what we want to eat this week, so we could make a grocery list and go to HEB after donuts.
Somehow, I thought about cooking something Kenyan. I remembered seeing a recipe online for samosas, which are sort of fried dumplings. Rodgers said that he had never made them before, but we decided that with our memories of samosas, we could figure out ingredients.
So, we got some won ton wrappers, breakfast sausage, and a bag of peas and carrots. We decided to cook them tonight, in celebration of our 1 month anniversary, since we had lots of time for cooking tonight and won't have tomorrow. Rodgers' assessment of our samosas was perfect: These things are freakin good!!
We put them in a bowl and sat down to watch TV and eat as many as we possibly could.
[I am sensing that I may have neglected to post a link to our official wedding photos.]
Rachel's brother was the official photographer. I've always liked the crazy artistic looking wedding photos. They're so interesting to look at. And beautiful pieces of art for the living room. But for my own wedding, I wanted more natural-ish pictures. Plus, I didn't want to pay a photographer for something we could very well have done for free by a member of the family. I like Trey's camera better than everyone else's, so he won! We asked him to take pictures, and he graciously agreed. And here they are:
We don't have the full video from the wedding, yet, but we do have the very ending of it, thanks to Rachel's aunt and uncle! I've just uploaded it to youtube. It is still in processing. But when it's done, you should be able to watch it here:
The wedding was beautiful and romantic. The 10% chance of rain became...it drizzled all afternoon. We set 11 am/noon as our point of no return. At that point, as far as I [Rachel] could tell, the morning mist seemed to be clearing up. So we were "on" for the outdoor wedding. Had it been torrential downpour, I would have opted for the alternate venue. As it was, we went ahead with the wedding in Pam's backyard. The reception moved into her house, which she seemed to be ok with.
Since I was wearing a huge dress and my head and bare shoulders were covered with a veil, I only felt the rain once. It was actually a huge drop of water falling from a tree branch overhead, directly into my left eye. It was a bit chilly, but not too bad (for me at least).
The aisle began at Pam's backdoor, which is in her dining room. So after the recessional, we just turned around in the dining room and had a great impromptu receiving line as all the guests retreated into the warm, dry house.
It was a great wedding. All week, we've been commenting to each other about how much fun we had and how much we loved our wedding. We really can't wait to see the video! We'll check with our videographer about when he plans on getting it online. In the meantime, there are a few unofficial wedding photo albums online.
These links both came to us in emails, so I'm hoping that you will be able to access the sites without having been sent an email from the album creators. There is also a great album on Facebook, if you're on there and friends with either of us, we've both been tagged in it so you may be able to find that one, too.
Chance of rain Saturday in Brenham has dropped to 10%. That's great news! Not so great news is the high is still only 54. I think we can cope with that. Just the MOHs will be cold. Everyone else will be fine. Maybe we can find something for them...like a heat wrap to go under their dresses. That might help...
Still watching the weather. It's not looking good, but maybe will be ok. I really don't want to use the alternate venue. But, if it's raining, I guess we'll have to. :(
Either way, we'll still be married. But, I want to get married outside. Mom says the rain is supposed to stop by noon Saturday. This evening, they'll have the hourly forecast for Saturday afternoon on weather.com. Right now they only have the hourly forecast through 5 am.
I had decided that the venue would change if it were cooler than 50 degrees and had more than a 50% chance of rain. Right now, the forecast is 53 with a 50% chance of rain "sometime" on Saturday. Once I have the hourly forecast, hopefully, we'll see that the chance of rain doesn't include 3 pm. Hopefully.
What are we feeling at 6 days left of singleness? Insane excitement.
Rodgers is so overwhelmed that he's been napping for 2 hours this afternoon. [Ok, the napping may be due to the fact that he doesn't get enough sleep during the week at night, so he sleeps all afternoon Sunday.]
He came to pick me up for church this morning. On our way down the road, he said, "This is your last Sunday before the wedding!" Yesterday, he reminded me that it was my last Saturday before the wedding. He has also been making up songs to go with the countdown. I have a sticky note countdown stuck to the hutch over my desk at work. Every day I peel one sticky off to reveal the next countdown. And now, there's less than a week to go! I'm only working 3 days this week, so I think it will be a very fast week.
We didn't do anything exciting at all on the last weekend of our engagement. Well, we haven't done anything exciting yet. It is only 4 pm Sunday afternoon, so there's still a little time for spontaneous excitement, IF Rodgers wakes up from his nap. He's opened his eyes to look at me periodically, but then he just falls asleep again. We have the A/C off and the balcony door opened. It's 84 degrees outside. The warm air coming in adds to drowsiness.
I've been keeping an eye on the forecast. I'm watching weather.com and accuweather.com. For the past week, they've been disagreeing about the weather for Saturday. One day one would say that it would be raining and 60 degrees and the other would say sunny and 75. The next day they would switch. Today, they're pretty close to the same. We have a 20-30% chance of rain, and the afternoon high will be 62-63. A bit cooler than I was hoping for. At least the chance for rain is low. But, with 6 days to go, I'm sure the forecast will change again.
We talked about having a webcam to broadcast the wedding live via Skype. Then, we realized that more people could watch it if we could somehow broadcast it here on the blog. BUT, now we're thinking that logistically it will be simpler if we just use a digital camcorder to film the wedding. We can get better quality and more varied shots. Also, that way, people won't have to get up in the middle of the night to see the live broadcast. We'll film it, burn it to DVD, which we will gladly send to those who want it, and then also post the video here, via youtube. But that may take a few days.
So, that's the plan now. I thought a live broadcast on Skype would be fun because then people could talk to us during the reception, even if they aren't there. However, this plan seems better. We can set up some Skype dates if some of you want to talk to us after the wedding.
We FINALLY got our cocktail napkins today! I ordered them January 20; they finished processing the order (charged my bank account) on January 29, and finally they arrived today. They have a "track your order" on their website, which still says that the order is "in processing." Frustrating. But, it's over now, we have our napkins, and they are wonderful!
They say "Eat, Drink, and be Married," with our name and wedding date underneath. They are much darker red than in the picture, but the camera flash washed out the color. The imprint is gold foil.
Four weeks from this very minute, we will be at our wedding rehearsal. That means that in 4 weeks and 1 day from this very minute, we will be on our way to our HONEYMOON, after just leaving the wedding reception!! Does it get more exciting?? Oh, yes, I'm sure it will. As far as wedding plans go, there's not much left to do but sit back and wait. And while waiting, continue working 40 hours a week, sleeping 56 hours a week, and hanging out together the rest of the time.
This week, I got my dress back from the alterationist. It was more expensive than I had hoped. But, considering that I got the dress on ebay for $35, I guess I can't really complain too much. It's still worth more than I've paid for it so far. And now it fits me perfectly! She also made a bustle for it, so that, during the reception, I don't have to trip over the train.
We met with Mom and Dad this week, to discuss the ceremony. We told Dad some of the verses we want to have included. We decided (maybe I decided and Rodgers just went along with it...) that we would simply say "I do" or "I will" rather than repeating or reciting the vows. Much simpler that way.
I was thinking about the music today. I chose a passage from The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis to be read after we light the unity candle. I had chosen an instrumental song to be played behind the reading. Turns out that the reading, when I read it aloud myself, is twice as long as the music. And...I don't have any other songs that are long enough that I like as much as the one I had chosen. I think we may just play 2 short songs behind it. And that will be fine.
The other thing about songs is something quite significant. For the past 5 or so years, I've been dead set on having At Last, by Etta James, played as my husband and I walk back up the aisle at the end of the ceremony. There's a commercial on lately, I think for a cruise line, that plays One Love, by Bob Marley. It's such a fun song that it's got me thinking...maybe I want to have that one played as we walk out. We could play At Last at the beginning, while the mothers are being seated and lighting their candles. Then it would still be in the wedding, as has been my dream.
(At Last - Etta James - I'm not sure the video there is appropriate, but it's the only one of the recording that I can find...I don't like the live versions much)
(One Love - Bob Marley)
So basically, all that's left to do before the rehearsal is to pay for the cake! And buy an aisle runner. And decide how people are going to throw birdseed at us. But that's it!
For all those in the Dallas area, we're having a come & go pre-wedding party in Arlington on the 28th. You should all get invitations next week. If you don't, let me know, and if you are someone that we know (as opposed to a random blog reader) I'll make sure you get invited. :)
I wanted the bride, matron of honor, and maid of honour to all wear the same earrings in the wedding. I wanted these earrings to be pearls, but not just plain studs. And not on silver, on gold. I was never able to find any that worked. The closest was Avon, which had some hoops strung with pearls. And they came in a set of 3 pairs of earrings. BUT, one was white pearls, one pink, and one black. That doesn't really work. If they were all white and in different sizes, that'd be great. But, in the end, they don't really work. I'd wind up with 6 extra pairs of earrings.
So, Rodgers and I went to Michael's today. I wanted to look and see if they had the flowers I wanted for bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres. They did not. But, we did find some pearly beads and gold hoops. I don't know if these particular hoops are really for making into earrings as we did or not, but they work, and they look great!
Modeling our handiwork
We extras so that my mother and his "mother" (friend who knew him when he was a little kid and who will be lighting his side of the unity candle) could match us, too. I will wear bigger ones, and I think the matron of honor (Claire) will also wear bigger ones. The others can have the small kind.
We decided to go with the second cake I posted (the one that I don't remember seeing at the store). Rodgers likes it as well. Plus, it has pearls on it and I'll be wearing pearls. So I'll be all coordinated. Only the 2 larger tiers, 10" and 14", not the top 6" tier. And we'll use the cake stand I have, not those pedastals. And my crystal topper, surrounded by berries and bits of chocolate on top. This is beginning to get exciting!
