Tuesday, January 20, 2009

WEDDING MEMORIES

Note from Linda: I mistakenly referred to Merrillee as the M.O.G. when, in faact, she was the M.O.B. Please join me in welcoming Love Inspired author and Mother of the Bride, Merrillee Wren!

This past Monday the photographer who took the photos of my daughter’s wedding called to let me know the wedding albums were ready. I rushed right over to get them. Although we have plenty of snapshots and 4 x 6 prints from the wedding that friends took as well as those of the photographer, there is something about the official wedding album that captures all the moments that meant the most to the bride and groom. After all, they spent hours going over four hundred plus photos to choose ten percent of them to put in an album that would capsulize the memories of that day.
Even though I had already seen the photos my daughter and her new husband had chosen, seeing the photos in the album with the special matting and trim made the pictures stand out. Also looking at the photos again took me back to that special day in October 2008 when they exchanged vows on the beach near our home.

My other daughter got married on that same beach a couple of years ago, and I blogged about that experience here in May 2008 if you’d like to check out the archives. Since I already had the experience planning a beach wedding, I was convinced that this time around would be a piece of cake—wedding cake that is. We would use the same caterer, photographer, florist and rental place for the tent, tables and chair for the reception. However, we found it easier to use a Bose system with an iPod dock for all the music from the processional on the beach to the dance music at the reception. It worked beautifully. We had no worries about getting sand and salt air in any instruments on the beach or wiring speakers for the reception.

The wedding day arrived, but it was overcast and looked like rain—not a welcome sight for the bride whose heart was set on getting married on the beach. The beach had also been torn up by storms and covered with dried seaweed—not the same beautiful beach conditions that had greeted our other daughter’s wedding in May 2006.

The ceremony was set for five o’clock so we were praying that the skies would clear by then. When I took my daughter to get her hair done at one o’clock, sprinkles of rain dotted the windshield. My daughter looked as gloomy as the clouds overhead, but our prayers were answered. When I picked her up about an hour later, the sun peeked through those clouds. By the time we had loaded the wedding cake in the trunk of my mother-in-law’s car, the sun was shining and the sky was a bright autumn blue.

After delivering the cake, we showered and headed to my mother-in-law’s house to dress for the ceremony. My son-in-law and brother-in-law were out on the beach raking away seaweed. I carried a couple of torches and the table for the sand ceremony, but we were running out of time. The guests were arriving, and I had to get dressed. Where had all the time gone?


As the guests arrived, I directed them through the gate toward the path that led to the beach and handed them each a torch to carry and place in the sand to form the aisle down which the bride would walk. Despite the seeming chaos of the last hour before the ceremony, everything turned out.

Was this wedding a piece of cake? Not exactly, but what would we have to talk about if everything had gone smoothly? I finally came to the conclusion that even though I had done this all before, if you are the wedding planner and have the reception at your house, the wedding day will be chaotic no matter how well you plan.


In my book, Mommy’s Hometown Hero, a January 2009 release from Steeple Hill, my hero and heroine attend the wedding of the hero’s brother, who happens to be the hero of my February 2008 book, Four Little Blessings. I used the some of the memories of my daughter’s beach wedding while I wrote that scene. What would a romance be without a wedding?



Do you have some wedding memories?

Linda's Note again: Arent't these wedding photos and this cover just lovely?

posted by Linda Goodnight @ 5:56 AM