Oh Happy Day: Part Six

When I was growing up and still to this day, The Sound of Music was one of my favorite movies. In it, Maria sings a song that starts with the line, "Let's start at the very beginning. A very good place to start."  If by chance you have never been to this blog before, have been living under a rock, or missed a few days, I would strongly suggests you follow Fraulein Maria's advice and start with these posts!

Oh Happy Day: Part One
Oh Happy Day: Part Two
Oh Happy Day: Part Three
Oh Happy Day: Part Four 
Oh Happy Day: Part Five

Somehow, we've made it to day six.  Wow!  I've quit trying to map out these posts and when I'll be done.  Too many people have expressed to me how much they are loving it.  Except for my Mom.  Who hasn't expressed anything.  She's probably not loving it.  I can hear her in Jackson again...."Get on with it Sara."  Okay, okay Mom, but you know as well as I do that there are TOO many pictures to choose from!  Simply too many!  So just sit back and enjoy Mom because even you haven't seen all of these photos.  You're probably the only one still reading this on day six anyway! :)  And clearly that's the truth since we've yet to increase in follower number at all since I started the recap!

Oh, you have no idea how excited I am to share today's wedding part of the day with you! Eek!  Today, today my friends is the day we have been waiting for!  It was the moment when I saw my {almost} groom.  Eeeeeeekkk!  I know you can hear my squeal!

David and I decided that we wanted to see each other before and take photos before the actual wedding.  Looking back now, there are times that I wish I hadn't seen him before simply because of the excitement I see in my almost married friend's eyes.  HOWEVER, nothing more could have put me at ease than seeing him beforehand.  It was just the two of us in the sanctuary with our two {inconspicuous} wedding photographers.  How blessed I am for that special, intimate moment with my future husband.  I think it was the first and only time of the day that we were able to stop, catch our breath from the chaos, and enjoy one another.  Just us. And no one else around.  It was that point where I could just BE with the love of my life.  Up until that point and after that point it was crazy, but in this moment, it was sweet, somber, and silent.  Isn't that one of the best parts about being with the one you love?  When you can just be with no words and know everything the other is thinking just by looking in their eyes?  There were smiles.  There were tears.  There were clicks of the camera.  On second thought, this was my favorite part of the day.  {I'm sure you'll hear that a lot}.  No really, it was though!  What a special time between the two of us.

Pictures tell a thousand words, so check some of these out from that sweet, sweet time together.  I feel the need to sneak a song in here for you to look at these photos to.  I love music {no secret}.  This was in our rehearsal dinner video. Matthew West "Waiting for You."  Go ahead, just hit play and then read along.

This is my guy trying to sneak a peak.

His smile goes from curious in the photo above to excitement in the one below.  You can tell just from these two photos that he had seen me coming in.

So excited about seeing HIM!

He has the ability to calm me down and make me laugh all at the same time.  I love his silly self more than anything else, but his serious self is perfect too.  Our pastor in Memphis made the joke that his first question in marriage counseling is have you had a good fight yet?  He was talking about communication.  David and I laughed after church and said we would have been in trouble. We had two fights before we were married, one before we were engaged and one after.  Trust me, we made up for that in the first year of marriage!  But as I sat down and started thinking about all of the times we get in fights, my husband rarely raises his voice. He does not let anger control him by any means even when I am furious!  I have been labeled a drama queen by some, but my husband will simply say "What would you like me to do about it."  That sounds like he's being sarcastic and though I may take it that way in person sometimes, he genuinely is asking what he can do to make the situation better.  It's in these moments that I'm reminded why I love his gentle spirit and ability to make me laugh in stressful and fun situations.

Sorry girls, but my Prince Charming told me I looked beautiful when I got to the end of the aisle first! :)  After that and some laughter and some teary eyes, he pulled me close to pray.  We just wanted to start the day by continually reminding ourselves that this was all for Christ's glory and no one else.  The day was not about David and Sara. It was about reminding everyone that we are the bride of Christ and marriage is just a small vision of an eternal perspective.  It's joining arms and saying we'll walk this road together.

It's letting others see the glory of Christ through the way we treat each other and the decisions we make in life.

It's loving and respecting.  It's continually building each other up even when our day has been bad and we just want to tune out of the world for a little while.

Sure it's sharing a bed with someone and living in them same home. Raising a "dog" for a child and learning to balance finances. But it truly is so much more than that!

It's striving to be like Christ and to show the world the kind of love He showed.  All the while knowing that there is no way we could ever perfectly do this, but we, as young Christian newlyweds, should look different then the world.  We wanted our day, our marriage, our LIVES to be a testament to what God had done for us and what we knew He would be faithful to do in the years that come!   

So full of joy in this moment!  {and even more today!}  After praying and our "alone time," we began posing for photos.  I had almost forgotten the photographers were in the room until we finished praying.

And now I want to share a "few" of my favorite photos from the big day.  These are SO out of order, but I don't care.  I'll do my best to arrange them...

You're probably out of music now, so I thought I'd give you a new one. This one was also in our Rehearsal Dinner video:

The wedding photographer told us she was going to take pictures of our feet and to rest our smiles.  Seriously...you try smiling for three hours straight!  So we were resting our smiles.  But this picture is just simply hilarious to me!

If I remember correctly this was the moment when David kept trying to get up to go get food.  I think I neglected to tell him that when we started pictures at 11:30am, he was supposed to be in every single one of them.  I thought that went without saying.  Apparently it did not.  He wanted food, and I wanted to finish pictures.  I was trying to explain to him why he couldn't take a break.  So at this point I asked someone to bring him a plate of unmessy food so he could finish pictures. Then I told him to stop groaning because he only "got" to take wedding photos once in his life! :)

And now comes the blue wall photos.  My photographer snapped these all while we were waiting on the ceremony to start {but I don't think there will be a day that they fit in better than today}.  I. Cannot. Pick. Just. One.  I SERIOUSLY love them ALLLLL!  So for that reason, I'm posting my favorites, and I hope you'll comment away at your favorite! {I'll number them for you!}

#1.

#2.

 

#3.

#4.

#5.

#6.

#7.

#8.

#9.

#10.

Told you that there was an excessive number of them! Your pick {#1-#10}

And since you've seen so many of me, here's my handsome guy!

I will be married to this man for life, and I will always look back on this day with such incredible memories of how faithful God was and continues to be. I'm so grateful for a photographer who listened to what I wanted.  I wanted extremely candid photos of the two of us.  Since I didn't take bridal portraits, she tried to get some of those too.  I love her creativity and ability to capture such expressions as ours.  You can definitely see our personalities coming out, and I think when I look back on these photos, I'll forever remember just how I felt, and hopefully as our family grows one day, they'll be able to tell as well!  I love this man!

Stay tuned for tomorrow.  You might get to meet our wedding party!