The Wedding: PART 3

NOTE: I am including a LOT of photos in this entry, but I don't have my professional ones yet. I get them this weekend!! Yay!!! In the meantime, these are all moments that were captured by friends and family at random.

So. Back to the wedding.

My two sisters held my dress up as we walked in order to keep it off the ground. It was super windy, and a bit chilly, but the sun was out so I wasn’t complaining! As we walked, Andrew’s best friend from college, Mike, and his beautiful wife Sara and her brother Terry, and Mike’s parents were all arriving last minute. So we stopped to let them pass and get into the church. Karen, Mike’s mom, stopped and snapped some pictures of me and I am so glad she did because it was a moment that wouldn’t have been captured otherwise! My cousin’s dog, a big black lab, was also floating around and he stopped and sniffed me as I was stepping into the church. I think he was just saying good luck! 

We stepped in and I hid behind a screen that had been placed there ahead of time so that each time the door opened I would remain hidden. The string quartet began to play the prelude, and somewhere in all the confusion, the doors opened and we sent Andrew’s mom down the aisle! She wasn’t supposed to go until the next song began to play, so the quartet got all confused when they said a mother walk in. They finished their song and didn’t know what to do, so they skipped their next song, which was supposed to have been “To Sir With Love” by Lulu. This song was meant to be dedicated to my parents because it was on the Billboard Top 100 in 1967, the year they got married in that same church. I was a little bummed that they skipped it, but honestly that was the only thing that really went wrong, so who can complain. As a result, the song that was supposed to be for the bridesmaids and flower girl only, Rondeau by Mouret, ended up being everyone’s song. The string quartet just kept playing it on loop over and over until they pretty much figured that was enough. Ha! 

Finally, there was no one left in that tiny little entry way except for me and my daddy. I put my arm through his and squeezed it and then I heard Here Comes The Bride begin to play. Kyle and Kameron, two of our ushers, opened the doors and I heard the shuffle as everyone began to stand. I didn’t see anyone though. My eyes shot like a cannon to the front of the church to find my Andrew. And there he stood, so very handsome, grinning from ear to ear and his eyes wet with tears. We locked eyes and that is literally all I remember. I don’t remember who I passed in the aisle. I briefly remember thinking there weren’t a lot of flower petals, and that the aisle runner had obviously gotten stuck (which I later learned it did), and little things like that. But mostly, I just saw my Andrew. And my heart fluttered, and my face was warm, and I was smiling, and I had never been happier in my entire life, not for one single moment had I ever been that happy! 

We reached the end of the aisle in what felt like 10 seconds. My daddy gave me away, and handed me over to Andrew. One of my most favorite pictures captures that moment perfectly, because the sun came through the windows at that precise moment as my father walked away and my soon to be husband stepped forward, and I felt loved. Again.

After Bobby’s opening words, the ceremony began with my friend Henry singing John Legend’s “All of Me” while my friend Alice accompanied him on the piano. To say it was beautiful would be an understatement. They were perfect together, and Henry’s voice was perfection. Andrew and I were now standing up on a small stage at the front of the church, and we turned outward to face the congregation while Henry sang. It wasn’t until this moment that I suddenly saw everyone. I began to look around the room and take in every face, every smile, every tear (yes, people were already crying.) I took time, again, to remember to take in the moment. I remember seeing so many people that I was so excited to see!! So many people came in from SO far away, and it was amazing to see them all! The church was filled, every single pew was packed to capacity, probably around 150 people. The sun was shining, people were clearly enamored by Henry’s voice, and so many people started looking up at me and smiling, giving tiny thumbs up, and just being happy. My mom and dad were beaming! I remember seeing my friend Tai grinning SO big. And I saw my boss! Ha! Sometimes I would take a break from surveying the room to look at Andrew. Sometimes he was looking at me, too, and sometimes he was also surveying the room. It was one of the most profound moments of my entire life.

The ceremony was beautiful. It felt like it lasted about 30 seconds, but it was more like 30-40 minutes probably. Bobby did an AMAZING job as our officiant, and we could not have asked for a better person to fill that role. His words were heartfelt, genuine, beautifully spoken, clear, and he added just the right amount of “Bobby” to fill in the blanks. My friend Matt read 1 Corinthians 13, the entire chapter about Love, and it was perfect. Those words mean SO much to us and are the true foundation of our relationship, and we could not have asked for any more than Matty reading those words! He held a small brown leather folder that my dad hand-glued a piece of lace that my sister found onto the front with a small flower. The bridesmaids held beautiful bouquets of purple flowers, and I held my mother’s white leather Bible from 1967, covered in lace and beautiful purple flowers. Two huge bouquets of purple flowers adorned the altar, and the beautiful integrity and natural beauty of the church did the rest.

When it was time to say our vows, I surprisingly held it together for the most part. I cried near the end. I meant every word, and I took it very seriously to read every word to my Andrew. My heart and soul was in those words, and I didn’t hold anything back. I wanted to put it all out there before family, God, and each other. His words were even more beautiful, and I felt like during those few minutes again the room emptied. It was just us, and not one single other person existed. We shared that together, and I took in every second. 

We poured purple and brown sand into our beautifully adorned mason jar that my daddy had hand-cut a wooden heart for us, on which was written, “The Gehrings, est. 11-08-14”, and sat atop a beautiful handmade piece of fabric Mama Jane gave us as a gift, that was made from homemade wedding dresses from the Phillipines, with hand embroidered lace and flowers. You can’t make this stuff up people.

 The String Quartet played John Mayer’s “Love Is A Verb” in the background, which is the song that began to play with Andrew proposed to me. After vows, exchanging rings (during which I squealed when I put on that beautiful FIVE ROWS of diamonds and the sunlight caught it and I squeaked with delight!), pouring sand, and spreading the love it was time to kiss the bride. Andrew scooped me up and we kissed….4 times….maybe 5. He squeaked and smiled and was SO happy, too! I think this picture is the best summary of that moment:

He grabbed my hand and the String Quartet began to play Bruno Mars’ “Marry You” as we exited the church down the other aisle, the same aisle which my parents ran down almost 50 years before.

We stood in the entry way to the church and greeted every guest as they filed out. Finally at this point, I was fully aware of every single person and I was thrilled to meet and greet each and every one of them with hugs and kisses and love. I could not stop smiling no matter what! I was so excited to see everyone I knew, and meet everyone I didn’t know! Once everyone was out, Andrew and I exited to a shower of bubbles and shouts of joy.

It was super cold though! But I didn’t care. I was just happy. Everyone took off for the reception really quickly since it was so cold, and Mr. and Mrs. Gehring (squeal!) along with our families and wedding party went back into the church to take the combined group photos and combined bride & groom photos. We had so much fun!

It went surprisingly smoothly and quickly, and then we went to the back to sign our marriage license with my sister and his brother as witnesses. The church was cleared out and back to normal in what felt like 5 minutes! We actually ended up getting done so quickly we had time to spare, so we went and sat in our car (which, may I just say was NO easy task to stuff me into wearing that dress!) and just took a moment to just…be. We did it. Here we were. Husband and wife! The planning was over. The marriage had begun! It was time to….party!!

We drove ourselves to the reception hall, and when we got there everyone was still in line getting food. We opted for a buffet style reception with southern BBQ as our meal. BBQ pork, baked potatoes, coleslaw, baked beans, bread, sweet tea and lemonade was the menu (though we didn’t taste a bite of it until the second day of our honeymoon and we finally dove into the leftovers!) We gave everyone a bit more time to get settled, and then we made our first official entrance as Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Gehring. Woohoo!! Our first dance was to Justin Timberlake’s “Mirrors”, which is our song.  I couldn’t tell you the exact order of the reception because it was one big party blur, but here are the highlights:

The Dollar Dance – This was an idea shared with me by my big sister Leslie. The bride and the groom go to the center of the dance floor. The DJ plays a variety of songs and everyone can come up and put a dollar in a jar in order to get a dance with either the bride or groom. It was SO. Much. Fun. Almost everyone was a good sport and participated, we laughed a LOT, and we definitely made some awesome cash to take on our honeymoon!! The highlights were when I twirled and danced with my little cousin Hannah:

 when Matty requested Whitney Houston, and we had a huge dance party that even my little momma broke it down during:

 and above all when Bobby came out on the dance floor and  BUH-ROKE IT DOWN. Y’all.

He was called “that dancing preacher man” for the next few months.

Daddy Daughter Dance – I don’t know what possessed me to ever think that I could get through this moment in one piece. Heck, I couldn’t even get through it in a million pieces. We danced to Steven Curtis Chapman’s “Cinderella”. It started off fine. We were laughing and talking, and I told him how much I loved him. Then I laid my head on his shoulder, and he patted my back. I began to cry, quietly at first. Then I just began to sob. I kept telling him how much I loved him. He kept saying he loved me, that I would always be his baby girl, how much he loved Andrew, how proud he was, and how special this day was to him. I kept holding him tighter and tighter. He felt so small to me. My daddy, always my greatest hero in life. I knew that this was kind of that final moment, that real time when he was handing me over to Andrew. I’ll always be his little girl, but I knew that shift had happened. I cried and cried and cried and held him as tightly as I could. After the music stopped, we didn’t move. We stayed embraced, and it was dead silence. No talking, no hushed voices, no music. Just the sound of my crying. Finally, I was able to pull away from him and look him in the eye and he wiped my tears. I suddenly remembered where we were and I looked around. The entire reception had formed a circle around us, and everyone had stopped to watch. The first person I saw was my mom, who was sobbing herself. The next person I saw was my Andrew, who was also crying. Slowly, everyone began to clap and daddy and I stepped apart and walked off the dance floor. It was truly the most special moment I have ever shared with him, and I am forever grateful that I was able to have that moment in time with my hero, my daddy. 

The Newlywed Game – On a lighter note, we played a super fun game at some point in the evening. Andrew and I sat back to back in the middle of the room, each holding one of our own shoes, and one shoe of the other person. My sister Leslie had created a list of 20 or so questions that neither of us had seen. The DJ read them aloud, and each question was a “Who is mostly likely to…” or “Who does…” type question. So to answer, we had to hold up the shoe of the person we thought should be the answer. We were pretty in sync for the most part, but there were a few hilarious questions that we held up opposite shoes on and everyone got a good laugh. It was SO much fun, broke up the evening nicely, and we learned a few things! I highly recommend this!

Throw in some fun dancing, some great speeches, some smashing of cake into each other’s faces and you have a great reception. We had a wonderful time, and we tried really hard to get around and talk to everyone that we could! The room was lit up in purple and the dance floor simply said, “Love.”

There was no alcohol served (out of respect to my daddy), but people certainly had no shame in busting a move, shouting out and having a blast! We rounded up the evening by having an Anniversary Dance, where all the married couples got out on the dance floor, and the DJ would call out years married in increasing amounts, until the last couples on the floor were those who had been married the longest. It was beautiful to see SOOOOO many strong marriages in among our families and friends!

It started around 4:30, and I believe we left around 8:30, so it was a perfectly wonderful reception full of fun, laughter, dancing, and love. We felt nothing but blessed as we took off and headed off on our honeymoon. It truly was the best day of my life, and I could not ask for one thing more. I wouldn’t change one moment of that day, and I cannot believe it all went off without a hitch!

 I am now 4 months post-wedding. I am the happiest I have ever been. Andrew has proved to be an amazing husband, and I am daily in awe of him. I am proud of him, and love him more now than I ever have. We had a lot of people tell us after the wedding that they could truly SEE our love, and couldn’t remember a wedding in their memory that seemed so genuine and real. I am so glad our love comes across like that. Love takes work, it takes two, and it is amazing. I am forever grateful for this entire journey. It may have taken me four months to write about it, but that is only because I was so blown away by the amazingness that was our Wedding Day. Here's a sneak preview of our official wedding photos!