A Wedding to Remember

Tuesday the 30th through Saturday Aug 4th was a whirlwind of wedding preparations! I am happy to say that Derek and Jessica did indeed get married on Saturday and the wedding was beautiful. Both the wedding and reception were outdoors at my uncle’s estate along the harbor. Of course, there was lots of stress preceding the actual ceremony, but everyone made it through OK. There were a few moments I really wanted to cry. The first was when Derek saw his gorgeous bride for the first time in her wedding gown. They both started bawling, and I could see that they were so overwhelmed with love and emotion that some of us became so too. I kept having these moments as we were taking pictures where I thought “This is ACTUALLY REAL!! It’s finally happening!” The other moments was when my sister had “Butterfly Kisses” play as we bridesmaids walked down the aisle. As I looked over the crowd back at my dad waiting to escort Jessica, I could see his hands raised and he was crying. You see—this song has been special to my dad for so long. I think it's difficult having to “let go and let God,” even though my parents have been doing it all along with us kids from the time we were first dedicated to the Lord. We’ve been such a tight knit family. My dad used to cry every time he heard the song and then for awhile he kind of got used to it. Then when it actually came to giving one of his daughters away he just couldn't hold it in. Now we’ve just officially added one more, and I’m so glad to have Derek as my bro. I'm very proud of both of them, and love them dearly. It was also so great to see the extended family and friends, enjoy good food, and gaze at the sunset over the water. I also had the privilege of singing at their wedding a song that they asked me to compose. It went well despite some mic difficulties, and I also was accompanied by a djimbe player! The song speaks about servanthood and covenant, which also were two of the things stressed in the marriage sermon. Anyhow, I was also the maid of honor, or MOH and as such had to make a speech at the reception. Well, I've never done a toast before, and when it came time to do it we had the goblets but not the sparkling cider so we just used lemonade--LOL! In fact there were several moments (i.e. the 1st cake cutting) where we kids were asking, "now how do we do this?" I guess that's just the prelude -- we're all discovering how to make it through life and most of the time it seems a combination of other people's wisdom and instruction and a series of trial-and-errors. Thankfully, "where sin did abound, grace did much more abound."