Wedding Week: The Big Show

This is all about the most important part of our wedding: the ceremony. It's a little longer than most of my posts, but there are lots of pretty pictures :)

We had our ceremony and reception at the farm that my husband's dad grew up on. Currently his aunt and uncle live in the house and still run the farm today. Our ceremony took place on the lower part of the farm, over looking a wheat (or hay?) field in an oak grove.

When we decided to have our wedding and reception on the farm, we walked the farm to find the perfect location of our ceremony. This area did not make my short list. Many of the oak trees look like they had seen better days, there was a pile of yard debris waiting to be burned, and there was very little grass growing under the trees. But because of the way the roads and parking would work, this was really the best place for it.

She took her job very seriously.

If I am being honest, I was not excited at all. But my father-in-law told me not to worry about it. He spent pretty much every weekend and many evenings after he got off work, working on the ceremony site. He cleaned up the trees, planted grass and got rid of the burn pile. He also coordinated the harvesting of the hay and then we used the bales as seating for our guests.

I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful setting. My brother (who also walked me down the aisle), made the arbor we stood under as a wedding present. It is now in our backyard.

Unity Candle

Our ceremony was performed by Coach Ron. He was the campus security monitor/volleyball coach at the school I work at. He also is a minister. The Mister grew up Catholic, and I am a non-church going Christian. Because I didn't want to go through all the classes to become Catholic, we couldn't have a Catholic priest perform the ceremony. I didn't want to just Google "justice of the peace" and pick one, so I approached Coach about performing the ceremony. It was so nice knowing the man who was playing such a huge role in my life. His part of the ceremony was funny, touching and was really loving. 

We had two readings in our ceremony, as well as the Blessing of the Hands. We said the traditional vows. I love knowing that we said the same words that both of our parents said on their wedding day. 

After the ceremony was over, we rode off in a 1960's Cadillac limo. (That same limo drove me and all of my bridesmaids down to the ceremony site to start the wedding.)