If not now, when?

I didn't want to wait until our 20th anniversary! I realized after my last post that it would be wrong to skip blogging about this occasion just because I'm behind. After all, this whole blog and almost everything I write about would not be possible if I hadn't married David. And anyway, our wedding day was one of the best days of my life, and I've never written about it.

But I had trouble getting around to scanning pictures. Does anyone have a good invention for that? Scanning is so slow and time-consuming compared to most of the other electronic things I do.
As soon as she heard we were engaged, David's sister Lety offered to make my dress. I am still amazed by the offer and the job she did. What a precious gift!
And if that wasn't enough, Tom (Lety's husband) took these shots of us. He and Lety also took my bridal portraits.

We took our pictures with family before the wedding. I was not superstitious and did not want our guests to have to wait in between the wedding and the reception.
Our flower girls were David's niece Ariana and my niece Lauren.
I have many, many group shots, but what caught my eye this time was this one, which reminds me how thankful I am that David was able to know both of my grandmothers.
Steven, our ringbearer (my friend Stacy's son and Charlie's first cousin)
David's dad sang "Ave Maria", which tends to make his whole family cry, it is so beautiful. I don't have a picture of our other musician, the flautist, who played an aria from Carmen that I love (and which Carmen is named for) as the processional.
insert picture="" of="" mom="" dad="" walking="" me="" down="" the="" aisle="" The stupid scanner will not work for me anymore! I had both my mother and father walk me down the aisle; I did not like the metaphor of being given away like so much chattel, but I liked the idea of including both of my parents in the ceremony, giving us their blessing.

Somewhere there is a picture of me with my roommate from A&M, Shell, who came a long way to be there and brought me a sixpence from England for my shoe (to go with my something borrowed--gloves from Gordon's wife Lisa--and my something blue... what was it? I don't remember!) I also carried a small white leather Bible.
Stacy was expecting Abby in 2 months!
My cousin Andrea and her string quartet played in the foyer of the church before the wedding.
Ariana, our just-turned-3 flower girl (David's niece) was cute as a button.
Lauren also looked beautiful. She was shy and worried about everyone looking at her. But she did a great job and helped look after Ariana.
Manu came from California to sing "One Hand, One Heart" from West Side Story. Gorgeous!
David's friend Tim from his radio days in South Bend is now an Episcopal priest. And I think because the Southern Baptist Convention was going on in Salt Lake City (!?) that weekend, he was allowed to marry us in the Baptist church where I grew up. Tim threw in several nice touches, including starting with the paraphrase of Chief Seattle ("whatever man does to the web, he does to himself... all things are connected") and ending with a prayer said half in Spanish, half in English. Very thoughtful for the few guests who couldn't understand most of the service.
David's best mate Gordon, his old soccer buddy, came from New York City to be with us. (We had been to his wedding in Manhattan on New Year's Eve 6 months earlier.) He got a warning from someone about having a flask in the church, but thankfully I didn't know about that on the wedding day, or it would have stressed me out!
I called my former high school choir director to ask for help finding a bass, alto & soprano to sing "The Lord Bless You and Keep You" with Manu as the benediction. This song was the end to all of our concerts in high school, and I still loved it.

Later, one of my colleagues said, "That wasn't a wedding, it was a concert!" I think she liked it.
Newlyweds exiting the sanctuary!
We exited the church to bubbles instead of rice.
Dodging bubbles was fun!
We rode in a beautiful blue Jaguar until we went to the airport bound for Hawaii the next day.
When we arrived at the reception, we were surprised by Andrea's string quartet playing the Can Can, referencing our engagement in France.
(Yes, that is David Finfrock, one of our celebrity guests, who I had the pleasure of introducing to Nanny, my grandmother, who was starstruck to see him in person.)
I loved this cake. I had seen one similar to it in the Tiffany book of weddings at the library. (Thus the Tiffany box on top!) The bakery that agreed to bake the cake, Creative Memories, (our favorite bakery, Fresh from the Oven, took one look at the picture and said no!) didn't want to make fondant ribbons, so they used real ribbon instead. (The other cake I liked looked like a Mad Hatter cake with tilting layers.)
A shot of us cutting the cake... we had discussed how we would be NICE when feeding each other cake. I can't imagine doing what some couples do, smearing it on each other!
The groom's cake sported an Eiffel tower, recalling David's choice location for his marriage proposal. My friend Julie, who still lives in France, sent us the metal tower.
My aunt Beverly got this shot of David's surprise big finish of our first dance.
Several months before the wedding, I sneaked my mom and dad's reels of movie film out of the house and David & I had them transferred to digital video so we could edit a surprise for them for the reception. We worked on it for hours and hours on an editing computer that belonged to David's employer at the time, Avid. (For years he liked to say, "Now that machine belongs to CNN!") I came home late, late, late many nights and sometimes Mom gave me grief about it. I knew she'd understand when she saw the video. Because the film was silent footage of my sisters and me growing up, we set it to songs that reminded me of the times: Happy Together, All You Need is Love, etc. The end result was a piece I'm still proud and very fond of; I even show it to my students sometimes as an icebreaker and a crash course in storytelling.
David's sisters sang a song they made up to the tune to the theme of Gilligan's Island. Very funny! But the only line I remember of the words was something about my "very short skirt" when he noticed me! (Actually, I was wearing short shorts.)
That is Lance as a toddler in the foreground during the garter toss.
This is cool: a picture of my sister Amy's friends who came to our wedding. From left to right, many of these are friends she's had since elementary school and she's still friends with all of them: Katie, Jennifer, Christine, Amber, Amy, me, Wendy, Manu and Amanda. I've had some great friends in my life but somehow Amy has managed to maintain some very close friendships for a very long time, so I admit to being a little jealous of that.
This is almost all of my dad's side of the family, the last time we were almost all together (Chrys was in Europe) before Grandmommie died in 2001.

OK, so I'm a little off track. But it's been a lovely trip down memory lane. So thanks, everyone, for allowing me to reminisce and share my wedding photos. And thanks to all of you who played a role in our wedding and who have supported us in our marriage and family. And thanks to David for putting up with me. But thanks most of all to God for blessing us with each other and surrounding us with steadfast love!