Beyond Beautiful

You may have started wondering why I haven't said anything about Daniel and Erika's wedding on Saturday , and only put up ONE picture, since I've been talking about it basically non-stop since May 1st. The simple answer is that I am still completely in shock over the beauty and perfectness that was October 24th, 2009. I realize this may be a rather biased and controversial statement so if you're married feel free to skip to the next sentence, but I have never in my life-time and long, extensive wedding history seen a more beautiful, touching, sweet, and completely perfect wedding. In other words, it was a Mary Poppins "practically perfect in every way" wedding.

As I mentioned once or fifty times before, Erkia's brother Wesley was her maid man of honor. As such, she decided that Saturday he would get dressed at the same house as us girls. She wanted him right there with her as she prepared for the wedding just the way that any "regular" maid of honor would be. Some of the sweetest moments of the day were when he was helping her put on her necklace and later, in the pouring rain, holding an umbrella over her head as he helped her out and into to the car. I easily could have cried about it if it wasn't for the fact that I was too busy trying to protect my hair from the pouring rain by holding one hand over my head in a sort-of makeshift umbrella and using the other hand to protect my dress from the flood of water running down the driveway.

I feel I should mention here for all of his posterity that Wesley was a fantastic man of honor for his sister. He was such a good sport about spending almost all day long with us girls and even seemed to have some fun with us. Not that there is anything wrong with us girls of course(quite the contrary...), I'm just saying some guys would not have loved their sister enough to not think twice before doing what he did for his "best friend"! And his speech at the reception? I hope somebody got that on camera.


Kim did a wonderful job decorating the church with mums, pumpkins, squash and candles. On the end of every pew on the side closest to the aisle were long black candle holders with a lit candle. It was so pretty looking down the aisle at the candles and flowers as we walked in. By far my favorite thing to see as I walked down was Daniel waiting so handsome at the front of the church. He was practically bursting with happiness. I am so proud of that boy for finding such a wonderful wife!!


To those who say all brides are nervous wrecks, I say you have never seen a bride like Erika. She was so cool, calm and collected the whole time. Not to say there weren't moments when she wasn't nervous or anxious, but to see her sitting there so beautifully with her train on a chair behind her eating celery(I know that's not romantic but its part of their wedding story),and talking and laughing with us you never would have know. I think a lot of that comes from them being so very comfortable with each other. In fact, I think the most stressed she was all day was about her dad arriving on time!

We have only seen a few pictures so far so I don't have many to share yet. I was dying a sad, slow death at the beginning of the week because I hadn't seen any pictures at all when an email from Dani's sister arrived containing 8 pictures and saved the day. I'm counting down the days until we see the rest of the professional pictures because I know they'll be beyond beautiful. I am so hoping there's a picture of another sweetest moment: Daniel wiping away Erika's tears with his handkerchief. The collective sigh from the guest almost blew out the candles. I'm sure I'll be talking about the wedding for awhile and showing lots of pictures; how can I not when it was such a special event?!