Communion

This was hands down one of my favorite parts of my wedding.  We wanted to take communion together as a physical reminder to ourselves, our friends and family, and to God that Jesus is the center of our relationship.  In this moment I felt overwhelmingly, "Jesus, we are only here because of you.  We would've never gotten here without you."  I cried through some of my waterproof makeup.  I asked my dear friend Katie Anthony to sing Beauty of the Cross.  I had first heard this song at CRU, sung by Katie herself.  It has come to mean so much to me.  While I was trying to keep it all together as a student/research assistant at the SESRC/lover of freshmen (not like that, like this)/bible study leader/wedding planner/fiance Katie would sing this to the soothing sounds of her acoustic guitar.  I remember sitting on our dorm room floor worshipping.  The line that stood out to me was, "The beauty of the cross is that your grace has found me just as I am."  The way I sometimes live leaves no room for the cross.  I act like I can earn my way to God.  Like if I do enough good I'll deserve his love.  But the truth is, I sin--miss the mark, can't live up to God's standard.  That's pretty easy when his standard is perfection, and thinking about doing it counts as doing it.  But sin is more than just minor mess-ups.  It's more like a disease.  We spend our whole lives being healed of it, and really don't escape it fully in this life.  Katie has a knack for bringing people into worship.  I knew if she sang people would easily tap into God's presence--even if they didn't know him  They might experience that through feeling peace, an intense desire to do good, bubbling joy.  When planning this wedding, a huge priority of mine was that God would be glorified through it.  I think Katie and The Beauty of the Cross helped with this.

Beauty Of The Cross by Johnny Diaz:

"At the cross I find the beauty of Your matchless grace
At the cross I see a King who died to take my place
It's the moment that You made me clean and pardoned my soul
Amazing grace that I would be allowed unto Your throne
Not by my own will but solely by Your will alone
I'm unworthy of this love you have shown to me
I see my desperate need

The beauty of the cross is that there's One who has redeemed my soul
Beauty of the cross is that I'm finally free and letting go
Beauty of the cross is that Your grace has found me just as I am

Not by my own works that I may boast or I may come
But simply through your Son the sinless and Exalted One
Only through the cross that I'm made clean to draw near to you
Saved so that you would receive all glory due Your name
Everlasting God from age to age you never change
A true love story remains for all eternity
That all the world would see

My sinful soul could only be
Redeemed by the blood of a sinless King
So you came to the world that You had made
Conquered sin on the cross and You rose from the grave

That's the beauty of the cross

At the cross I find the beauty of Your matchless grace
At the cross I see a King who died to take my place
It's the moment that You made me clean and pardoned my soul
Amazing grace that I would be allowed unto Your throne
Not by my own will but solely by Your will alone
I'm unworthy of this love you have shown to me
I see my desperate need

The beauty of the cross is that there's One who has redeemed my soul
Beauty of the cross is that I'm finally free and letting go
Beauty of the cross is that Your grace has found me just as I am

Not by my own works that I may boast or I may come
But simply through your Son the sinless and Exalted One
Only through the cross that I'm made clean to draw near to you
Saved so that you would receive all glory due Your name
Everlasting God from age to age you never change
A true love story remains for all eternity
That all the world would see

My sinful soul could only be
Redeemed by the blood of a sinless King
So you came to the world that You had made
Conquered sin on the cross and You rose from the grave

That's the beauty of the cross"

Details, Details.

Hello there.  By chance, are you here to look at mushy-gushy photos of my husband and I? If that's the case prepare to be disappointed.  Not to worry though, those are coming soon.  Maybe you think my wedding is old news but refer the post below to understand why you're wrong  it took us so long to buy the picture CD.  I've decided to show the details first.  Mostly because I want to see those pictures all together.  Selfish? Sorry but I've felt pretty insecure about the wedding since, especially when I go with my tendency to compare it to others I see on Pintrest or Facebook.  You should know that we were on a major budget--and spent about $5000 total on a wedding for around 200 people.  Also, I decided not to take time off from doing ministry in the dorms/school/working in Pullman (the first 3 months of my engagement) or working at Warden High School/hanging with my family (the 4th month of my engagement), or working as a camp counselor (the 5th month of my engagement) in order to give my wedding the focus it would've needed to have style of that magnitude.  I pretty much did everything myself so it feels like putting myself out there.  We are simple folk.  We had a simple wedding.  Please don't judge.

Something borrowed:  My mom wore these earrings when she married my step dad.

Something blue:  ceremony shoes.

Every princess needs a tiara!

Ceremony shoes.  Comfy ballet flats.

Bouquet made by a friend Abby Bergren.

Bridesmaid dresses ($30 at Forever21) and groomsmen attire. 
We bought them matching ties and gave them a dress code.

Simple centerpieces:  Gerber daisies (my fave) from Costco,
Mason jars from Philip's basement, castle scrapbook paper from Craft Warehouse.

Simple Candy Bar.

"Love is Sweet.  And so are you.  Decorate your bag with sharpees and stickers then fill it with candy for now or later.  Thanks for coming, your presence is a real treat"

Simple window decor.  Engagement photos strung on turquoise yarn w/ pink paper flowers & newspaper lacy trim.

The front of our programs/fans (A is for Arnold). 

Communion table.  My mom replaced red grape juice w/ white just in case I spilled haha.

Tops of pink and white daisies lined each side of the aisle.

Our arch.  I don't know if you can see but it is rusty looking and is wrapped in vines and birds.

My dad wanted to cook for us.  Basically, we had italian bread,
fresh fruit, pulled pork sandwiches, baked beans, corn on the cob etc.

A pennant banner I made using pink paper,
 newspaper, and leftover sparkly paper from our invitations.  Philip <3 Chelsea.

Ok so Philip's aunt made our cake.  My aunt/cousin made our cupcakes and I insisted on my all-time fave Funfetti frosting.  Unfortunately, this took away from the fancy-factor because they couldn't be piped through icing bags b/c of this and had to look like plain ole cupcakes.  Frankly I didn't care.

A picnic basket for cards and a guestbook tree.

Bubbly sendoff.

My little brother is too cool for school.  But I wanted to show you that we strung lights around the bottom of the room.  I wanted top but the venue was really picky about what we could use to hang stuff and we didn't want to damage a place we love so much.  Venue is Ross Point Camp where we learned about relationshi with God, met, started dating etc.

 I know this was mostly for me, but if you see something you like would you take a minute to let me know?  I've really wrestled with insecurity about this and your encouragement might really help.

A Ring--and I Don't Mean on the Phone.

Our wedding pictures are here at last!  We suffer from PCSS (Poor College Student Syndrome).  Don't worry it's not contagious.  So we had to save up to buy a disk with all our wedding photos (700+) on it.  Our photographer, Memory Montage Productions, was a bit of a splurge for us--but I think it was totally worth it!  If I could give one piece of advice to brides-to-be it would be to splurge on the things you really care about and scrimp on the ones that aren't a big deal to you.  For example, my top three items were 1.  Venue.  2.  Photographer.  And 3.  Dress!  These things ended up accounting for over half of the budget.  I would encourage engaged couples to consider spending on a professional photographer who specializes in weddings.  The day just ran alot more smoothly this way.  They took the lead and I didn't have to make any photography decisions (unless I wanted to) which was huge for me because planning the wedding I had to make a million and one decisions.  A friend who was helping with the flowers for the centerpieces called me the morning of the wedding asking me simple input questions and I broke down crying.  I am an indecisive person and just couldn't handle anymore.  Plus, if you have a simple wedding like I did the photography can really capture the beauty of the day and help you to remember it at its best forever.

Tommorrow morning I am going to lose some wisdom, and gain some drugs.  Yup, I am getting my wisdom teeth out.  I think it's great timing for the pictures to have arrived.  I'm probably going to spend the weekend eating mashed potatoes and ice cream, drooling on the keyboard as I upload pics to Facebook, my blog, and attempt to create a photo album.  I'm thinking of using My Publisher, but what program would you recommend for digitally creating a photo album that you can buy as a print?  Pray for my poor husband because I have known to be pretty loopy on pain pills.  The saint took the whole day Friday off to take care of me!   

Finally, the point of the post...(I know I can be a rambler, but what is blogging for?)  My ring!  I don't think I've shown a good picture of it yet.  I love it so much!  I remember when marriage was very hypothetical for Philip and I one of my friends told me that her boyfriend had asked her to start looking at engagement rings.  When I told Phil about this he thought it was stupid.  He thought it was more special if the man picked it out himself and wouldn't want me to know that a proposal was coming ahead of time.  I objected asking, "But what if you don't know what I like?  I mean, do you even know if I'm a gold person or a silver person?"  He answered, "Silver."  And from then on I trusted him to do the ring biz on his own.  After we got engaged he told me that one of the reasons he liked the ring is it because it has three diamonds.  He said the middle, larger one, represents God, and the two outer ones represented us.  God is at the center and the main focus of our marriage.  Love it, and him!  Stay tuned for more fabulous wedding photography and potential pain killer-induced loopiness!

Secret Love

Deeply, by someone who died to know you.

I'm so behind on sharing updates of my life.  But in light of the "Post Secret Live" tour that my husband and our friend Katie L. and I attended (plus we bumped into friends Eleanor, Molly, and Erin T.) I feel compelled to share this.  I love reading Post Secrets because they're artistic, sometimes silly, usually relatable, and always REAL.  Rarely do people get as brutally, painfully, embarassingly honest in real life as they do via postcards sent to someone they don't even know--fittingly named Frank.  He shared that secret, in Hebrew, means come closer.  I love that.  How much closer would we be, to God, our spouses, eachother if we told our secrets?  I am plagued with an ultra-emotional personality.  So whether poured out over my blog, or in tearful conversations with friends I often can't help but share.  I left Post Secret Tour feeling especially sad about the broken human condition that I am living in and that if we're honest we're all living in.  I also felt sad that I don't have any "secrets" because I couldn't think of anything that I have never told anyone.  When we got home, my husband asked me tough questions.  And, as it turned out, I had about an hour and about three soaked napkins worth of secrets.  I don't think I was intentionally withholding them, but rather I believed that no one cared to hear them.  You see, when you're an emotional person living in a world where everyone seems like they have it all together, you can feel like a burden pretty quickly.  Who wants to hangout with the person that cries and talks about deep crap everytime you see them?  It's much more fun to just laugh and talk about clothes and exchange intellectual opinions.  But I CAN'T JUST DO THAT.  I'm not saying those things aren't valuable, or that I don't love doing them sometimes.  I am say that I can't only do that.  Being emotional means if I don't talk about brokenness I am going to explode.  Sort of like I did tonight with Phil.  When I finished my husband said, "I love you so much."  I said, "I don't know how to love like you love."  He said, "I don't know how to love like this, this is God loving you through me."  Call me crazy, but I really believe that's true. 

The bible (Isaiah 61:1-3) says this about Jesus: 
 "The Spirit of the Lord God is on me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.  He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and freedom to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, and the day of our God's vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, to provide for those who mourn in Zion' to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair.  And they will be called righteous oaks planted by the Lord, to glorify Him."

I believe that's who He is and what He wants to do in your life.  Frank is passionate about suicide prevention, which I think is great.  He gave things that people can focus on in order to have the will to live.  Things like:  school, a job, friends, hobbies, a boyfriend/girlfriend.  From what I've experienced those things are enough to help us stay alive another day.  But only Jesus brings true healing.  Just being real friends.  Much love.