Our Ceremony

My uncle Steve just so happens to be a preacher, so when it came time to find a preacher, the choice was pretty obvious.  He did a great job and here are just a few pictures from the ceremony itself.

Being given away

The vows.

  

Of course, everyone was enthralled the entire time

The Kiss

Mr and Mrs Ballard

I love this picture though I'm not sure exactly why.  I just find it so endearing.

The super hugs from everyone, including Aubrie

Us in front of our quintiessential country chapel.

Zac and I with my parents, Stu and Janie

Zac's parents, Jim and Lolla

The big day

I woke up early on Saturday morning knowing that I had a few hours before everything really started to become a blur.  The first order of business was getting myself ready.  (Zac and I decided to do some of our pictures before the ceremony so we would have more time with our family before we needed to leave for the airport.)  I went to town to Maggie’s salon, Hair MD, and we got started.  I wanted my hair down, but we had the hair piece and the sisters insisted I needed my hair on the side.  Mag curled away as I ate a nutritious breakfast of little powdered donuts.  After my hair was up I took off to the chapel to put on my dress and wait for the photographer. 

Zac and I took a few minutes together before the pictures started.  I had a card and a little gift for him (tickets to a Cubs game) and he, of course, didn’t have anything but a hug and a thank you for me, but oh well.  We took a few dozen pictures, then it was time.  Zac, Uncle Steve, Dad and I went to the basement and we waited for our cue. 

I was fretting by this point.  Two of my three best friends were riding together and they hadn’t made it yet.  Dad, being the hard ass that he is,  said "Sis, they knew what time the wedding started, we're not gonna make everyone else waith cause those guys are dumb asses.  They'll get here when they get here, but we aint waitin on them."  I accepted that he was right and shortly thereafter, Ben Folds' song, The Luckiest started to play and dad and I walked up the staircase  and into the chapel.

Preparations, preparations!

I stayed with mom and dad the two weeks before the wedding to help with preparations.  My best friend came to help.  We went to the little church and cleaned and organized.  There wasn’t a ton to do really, but this is what it looked like when we finished it up.   Very simple, but nice. 

Adorable isnt’ it. There is a wooden handicap ramp outside that we wrapped with grapevine and added a few things to, dressed it up a bit.  When you little chapel sits in the woods, there’s not a ton that you need to do. 

The Friday before the wedding everyone was there to help.  Zac’s parents came down and spent some time with us.  Lolla and I made cakes, Maggie and Courtney scrubbed potatoes and a whole slew of aunts and friends decorated my dad’s machine shed.

My dad is a great dad!  He is so fantastic that when I said I’d like to have the reception in our barn, he didn’t just clean up the barn.  He built an entire false wall that was 8 foot high to hide the stuff that couldn’t be moved and painted the entire thing white.  

Add some lights and a little tulle and it was as nice a reception hall as either of my sisters had.  It was amazing.  We had a giant feed trough that we put all the food in, old quilts to hide the ugly garage door and a variety of antique, chippy painted tables to hold the desserts, plates, drinks and presents.  We had an old mailbox to hold our cards.    We finished up everything on Friday and it all looked great.  It was turning out to be the quaint, intimate little wedding I had hoped for.  Now all we needed was for Saturday to get there!

Decisions are the worst! Part 2

We knew the wedding would be in Shelbyville (because we couldn’t afford a destination wedding), but Zac didn't like the church I grew up in, even though it has the most amazing stained glass windows in it.  That narrowed it down for me. I have a huge family.  Between the families we would have 300 people easily.  My dad is one of 7 (don't forget Travis and Troy guys), mom is one of 5.  Zac's dad is one of 6, his mom is one of 3.  I have 32 first cousins, add their spouses and children and we are up to 90, plus aunts and uncles 110.  Zac's family is at least as big, add my 17 nieces and nephews, all of Zac's 5 brothers and sisters, our friends and we were overwhelmed.  We decided to scale back, way back.  Just brothers/sister, parents and grandparents.  Then Zac spent the weekend helping the family and he told me, "I would like to have your Uncle Doug there."  Fine, aunts and uncles too, we jumped back up to around 85 people.    

I, as I mentioned before, am a girl that appreciates simple things.  One of my favorite simple little things was the tiny chapel, set on a country road, with a big bell outside, five minutes from my parents' house.  Mom suggested the chapel and I was immediately in love with the idea.  Once we went inside, it was set in stone.   Not only was it right down the road, it was one room, the pew fabric was red, large windows lined each side, and there was a one-step platform for the preacher.  It was intimate and different and special.  I loved it.  Maybe one of my favorite things about it was that it was surrounded by woods. (and had both a his and a hers outhouse behind it.  Ha! How ridiculous is that.)

Mom and dad are very fair to each of us girls.  They would spend the same amount on each wedding and we could do whatever we wanted.  Annie went big, Mag skipped the reception and got more in cash.  We wanted the cash for our honeymoon, so we decided to do an early wedding, followed by lunch, and I wanted to cook the food.  I just loved the idea of wrapping the potatoes and making the cakes and chopping the salad for my wedding.  Making it really belong to me instead of leaving it in someone else’s hands.  The menu was set, baked potatoes, smoked hog, salad, green beans, dinner rolls (made by mom and grandma),  Lolla’s Texas sheet cake, cookies (made by my cousin Laine) and strawberry pie.  Delicious!

Zac and I kept the invitations simple, just ones you buy and print off at home.  Look at him helping!

We had some greenery left from my sisters’ wedding and I decided not to have bridesmaids (where would they really stand anyway) so the flowers were easy.  We decided to order bulk flower and arrange them ourselves.   Pretty much from their out, mom sorted out the details and we waited for the day to come.

Decisions are the worst! Part 1

I told my family that we were engaged the minute each of them walked in the door on Christmas.  They were freakin pumped.  Mom, Annie and Maggie each took the ring from me and immediately put it on.
They made me call to find a jeweler that was open the day after Christmas and were thrilled to find that there was one in Fairview Heights, which just happens to also have a David's Bridal.  I was not thrilled about this.  I did not wanna go dress shopping, I wanted to lose 30lbs and feel pretty, then go.  But the family insisted we just go look.

We left bright and early the next morning.  We got to Fairview, dropped off my ring and went to David's Bridal.  I am a simple type girl.  I knew exactly what I wanted.  They didn't have it.  I tried on a bunch of dresses and ended up getting one that fit me perfectly and made my mom cry.  I called my best friend later and told her about the dress.  I really didn't like it.  She and her husband came down the next day.  When I tried it on for them, all her husband said was "wow."  Courtney agreed, it looked great on me.  This, coupled with the fact that dad told me "it looks like that dress was made special just for you sis," should have made me realize that it was a lovely dress.  I never warmed up to it though.  Partly because I really had in my mind what my dress should look like, and the dress I got wasn't it. And partly because you have to stand on those podium things at David's Bridal and they fan out the skirt around you.  My family always takes pictures of each dress because you "never know how they will look photographed." Personally, the odd slightly upward agle, especially of me from behind made me feel increasingly more like Ursula in that scene from Little Mermaid when she whips her giant ass around the cauldron and you can see her back fat folds, you know, right before she squeezes that little creature and uses it as red lipstick.  I don't know any girl that would feel beautiful when all she sees is Ursula back fat folds on the tiny 2" square camera screen.  See below pose...

(I know...it does fit me perfectly and I am irrational)

We bought the dress and a hair piece that was beautiful and sparkly, picked up my newly sized and appraised ring and drove home.  Now it was just a  matter of setting a date and deciding the nitty gritty details.  I was still in school at the time.  I started my last trimester in May and wanted to wait until then, when I had a little more time outside of class.  This gave us from May to August.  We kinda wanted an outside wedding, but didn't want it to be too hot, so there went July and August.  By the time I crossed out days I had to be in clinic there were 3 weekends left; we picked the second, June 6th.  Six months to prep!

Yes!

My husband worked at Best Buy the entire time we dated, through our engagement and is still rocking a Geek Squad uni to this day.  He loves it, LOVES it, and I'm trying hard to accept that my very smart, college educated husband works not as an electrical engineer, like he should, but installs other peoples home theater systems.  (He got his degree in Aviation Electronics, and should work for Boeing, but decided he hated planes when he had 1 year left to go.)  Needless to say he liked to shop in house when it came to presents.  He bought me a digital camera for my birthday which I loved.  Then I got a me a wine cooler/fridge, yep, wine cooler. I know there was something else, but I can't remember now.  Anyway, last Christmas came up really quickly, and just as expected, Zac had done no shopping.  He always has to work on Christmas Eve, so I knew he wasn't going anywhere, and judging by the lack of anything with my name on it under the tree, I was getting something electronic.  

My computer had been on the fritz for awhile, so when Zac got in my car carrying a box the size of a laptop I had mixed emotions.  We had too much debt to justify a new computer.  I told him I knew what my present was and that he had to take it back because we couldn't afford it.  He asked me, "how do you know what it is?"  I replied, "well hun, you got it at Best Buy, my computer sucks, and that is the size of a laptop.  Its not exactly a mystery."  He told me I was "ruining Christmas."

We made it up to his parent's house.  They always do Christmas Eve with all the brothers and sisters.  It usually looks like this.  This year Zac and I took up seats behind the sofa in the bay window.  The kids were passing out presents, so I went upstairs to the bathroom.  I was taking my time, I think I was picking at my flaky winter skin to be honest, but lets say I was touching up my make-up.  Zac yelled up the stairs at me, all rude, to "GET DOWN HERE, WE ARE OPENING UP PRESENTS!"  I came back down and my little pile of presents had multiplied.  

I started with the ornament Zac's mom gives us each year.  Mine was a little red shopping bag with a ring and a few other things inside.  I got really confused.  I just looked at it, thought "is that my ring?" and tried to pull the little ring.  It stayed put.  I thought, "well, that's odd" and wrapped it back up.  My next present was from Zac and it was as I expected, my new MacBook.  I was in shock.  It was beautiful.  I'm weird I know.  It was though.  I didn't want it, until I looked at it.  He refused to take it back.  I just hugged him, told him it was too much, that I loved him, and he was the best.  The next present was a big box from his Mom.  His family is really inconsistent about presents.  Some years I get one, some I don't.  I try to do something for the sisters-in-law each year, but anyway....I opened this big box to find inside a metal tin and tissue paper and random canned foods.  I opened the little tin box and inside that were pictures of Zac.  Underneath that was a navy blue ring box.  

I opened up the box and looked at my beautiful ring.  I looked up at Zac, who by this time was the most nervous I've ever seen him, and he asked me with a quivery chin, "will you marry me baby?" I looked back at my ring in complete shock.  I DID NOT see this coming.  Especially since 2 weeks before that I tried to talk to him about getting engaged and he told me that everytime I asked him, I was making it way less "fun" for him.  Needless to say, I said yes.  

I told my best friends that night and waited until the next day to tell my family when I was face to face with them.  Zac was going to ask me on Christmas Day, but got too excited and couldn't wait.  You may have noticed the ring is not all the way down on my finger.  The solitaire belonged to his grandma, and he wasn't sure I would like the setting, so he didn't get it sized.  I didn't like the setting, I loved it.  This is a close up of our rings at our wedding. 

How could I NOT love this ring. ( For those of you who are diamond junkies, it is a 2ct round brilliant cut, VS1 clarity and I color, cut slightly deep, in a unique tapered cathedral setting. )

Coming up next....wedding prep!

Up coming

I wrote the story of how I came to be with my husband Zac, but I ended the story there, when really, there is more to tell.  Much like Jillian and then Maggie, my next bunch of blogs will have parts as I write about my small, country wedding and then my large european vacation.  I've been really bad about blogging because my boss is out of town for the week, so I doubled (and working on triple) the number of patients I'm seeing this week.  This leaves me exhausted when I get home, plus I've been adjusting family and friends in the evening and writing patient notes I wasn't able to get to at the office...but tonight is the night because I'm caught up on notes!  After I get home from going to look at a rental trailer to buy, I will be blogging my wedding.  I'm excited! Now all I need is for you to GET EXCITED!