wedding favorites no. 1

Today our marriage is seven months old!

I have never really shared any of our wedding photos (except the ones from a project life spread), so seven months of marriage seems like a good time to share.  My good friends from my semester in Costa Rica, Allison and Josh took the photos and did an amazing job.  I love the way the captured the spirit of our day.  We got married on July 21, 2012 at a pine grove outside of Greenville, IL.  Josh's cousins' grandparents (on the other side) live on a small chunk of land which includes the aforementioned pine grove and they so graciously let us use it for our wedding.  We did a "first look" in the pine grove and it was fun.  It was definitely a good way to calm my nerves.  Even though we had seen each other earlier that morning (we helped all our family and friends work on reception food and decoration), it was still SO exciting to meet each other in the pine grove.  The smiles in that second photo are proof.

j & r:

Our wedding party was great!  We had our closest friends, our sisters and a couple cousins. The flower girls are my cousins and our ring/sign bearer is a friend from church. I wanted my bridesmaids to pick out a dress they loved and actually wanted to wear.  I just gave them a color range (inspired by wildflowers) and had each girl approve her dress with me.  My mom was a little wary that the colors would be too crazy and bright and wouldn't not match, but I went out a limb and did it anyway. I loved how the colors looked against the pines!

wedding party:

Josh and I really put a lot of thought into our wedding ceremony.  We worked with our pastor, Rick, to plan the ceremony.  We wanted our wedding to be a sacrament of the church and we wanted close friends and family to participate.  Josh's Aunts and Uncles played the music, which I remember being absolutely perfect.  We had two friends from church read scripture and our Grandpas (the ones who are pastors) led communion.  We sang two hymns, which I thought was a great way to have our community participate in the ceremony and a joyful way to the praise God.  I surprised myself by tearing up as we said our vows.  It was a really special moment.  And then I gave Josh the wrong hang to my ring onto.  Whoops.  We all had a chuckle at that.  Our ceremony was really smooth.  No major kinks or mess ups.  I can barely remember the specifics now, but I remember loving it.  Thanks to all of you who helped make this wonderful day possible!

ceremony:

More favorites from the reception coming soon!