August

The months leading up to August and the days leading up to the 16th went by in a blur. Over the course of the spring/summer, we went through venue after venue before finding the beautiful Murray Woman's Club, and I went through three dresses searching for the perfect one, only to discover mine in the unlikliest of places: ebay! Now you all know my secret...

The preparations for the wedding went smoothly for the most part; until the few days before, that is. I had just started a new job (Wal-Mart, ugh) and was struggling to balance work with wedding preparations. Once we started setting up at the Woman's Club, I soon realized that my visions for exactly what I wanted to do with my stacks of decorations were not very well thought out, and we floundered around sticking up bows here and there until we were rescued by a hoard of helpful relatives; Amy and Aunt Cathy revived the limp mantel decorations, Carol ironed every tablecloth, and Karen and Beth brought in centerpieces that just happened to match perfectly. Nan of course put her craftsmanship to work as well, tweaking the decorations to pull together the whole look. Meanwhile, sisters, Mothers, and the crazy me went scurrying around trying to get the wedding party into shape. I was apparently a nervous wreck at the rehearsal dinner, but I must have blocked that particular memory out. Of course, for all of you at the wedding, you know that it went off without a hitch (except for the most important one, that is!) and I truly couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day.

For our "mini-moon" we traveled up to Grand Rivers to stay at Steve Estes' beautiful Bed and Breakfast, The Rose of the Lake. The weather was beautiful and we loved our cozy little cottage up there. We would love to post pictures of our little honeymoon, which also included a wonderful dinner at Patti's and a 3 a.m. trip to IHOP, but unfortunately we didn't exactly get around to taking pictures.

The rest of the month zoomed by as we moved into our horribly run-down little apartment at College Courts, entered our last year of college, started classes and went back to work. The fun was just beginning!