A Homemade Wedding Homestead-Style: The Ceremony Aftermath

I could hear the chuckles as we left the church to the sounds of "Forever and Ever, Amen". People couldn't believe we were playing that song for our church wedding. But it fit us perfect, and had the vibe that I wanted. I could barely contain myself from skipping and jumping down the aisle.

Behind us, the rest of the group trickled out, smiling and breathing sighs of relief I'm sure.

A cool thing about this photo: Just to the left of Jenna's face are her mom and dad.

An impromptu receiving line was formed just outside the church doors, and I proceeded to display my finest faces.

If nothing else, I wear my heart on my sleeve. Its written all over my face.

I'm pretty sure we hugged and spoke with every one of our guests (at least the ones who went to the ceremony, ahem). There was so much joy and love and happiness going around.

I made sure to snag one photo with my three ushers before Cowboy H and I whisked off for our own private photo shoot.

In the meantime, the guests slowly made their way to the reception site (a pretty rough 3 minutes down the road) and got ready to party.

Up Next: The Down-Home Barn Party Begins

Of course, I can't forget Applemoon Photography. Thank you for the beautiful pictures!

A Homemade Wedding Homestead-Style: The Ceremony

Or, we seal the deal for the second time.

Since I am Catholic (not a very good one lately) we had a Catholic wedding ceremony inside a Catholic church. But not just any Catholic church. This church is the only Catholic church in my hometown and is dear to my heart. It is the place where I was baptized and the place where I used to altar-serve. Like I've mentioned before, I wanted everything to have as much meaning as possible, so even though its not the most gorgeous church in the area, it was the only one considered because it holds so much meaning to me (and now Cowboy H).

Sidenote: I did not add any decorations to the church because I was too cheap, and thought it would be a waste of money, i.e. it was not that important to me. The church already had flower arrangements in it, which were bright red and white. I hate red. During the rehearsal, I made a note to myself "Have the coordinator remove the flowers before the ceremony" which I completely forgot about. Halfway through the ceremony I looked up and say those dagum red flowers, and thought to myself "Aw, man. I forgot to have those taken down. Oh well". Good thing for black and white, you can't tell what color the flowers are!

The ceremony began with a welcome from the priest. This priest has a long history with my family, as he was the principal for the school my mom taught at when I was born. He also remembers my parents from when they were in high school. Like I said, everything and everyone had very special meaning.

Photo by Katie

Then a series of readings from the Bible were read. My girl Cassie read the first reading, which comes from the Old Testament. I tried to find the booklet with all our readings marked in it because I was going to torture y'all with each and every word stated during the ceremony, but I think I forgot to get it back from our priest. That's how sentimental I am. Whoops.

Then comes a responsorial psalm, which is taken from the Book of Psalms. A line is read, then the entire congregation chimes in with the response. My friend Juan did the honors here.

Cowboy H's sister read the second reading, which comes from the New Testament. It was a huge deal for her to read for us. She used to be painfully shy, but willingly offered to stand up in front of 150 people she didn't know and speak into a microphone. It really meant a lot to us.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the red drapes. There was just red, red, red everywhere. Any other color but red...

The priest then read the gospel, which comes from one of the four books of gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.

I believe the priest then addressed the couple (us) but honestly, I don't really remember. I'm going to go hang my head in shame now.

And then, it was time to say our vows (again). I was just a little giddy. We opted for the traditional vows, and repeated after our priest.

Ha ha, I forgot to mention, that I became sick in the last few days before the wedding. In the middle of the ceremony I had a major coughing attack, which I refused to let out. During all the readings I had my head buried in Cowboy H's armpit trying to muffle the sound of my hacking. Needless to say, my vows were less than heart-stopping. I could barely get any sound out of my mouth. At least I made the people laugh.

And then it was time for the rings. You may remember we had a little, ahem, ring trouble. So we borrowed a ring from a family friend, who, ironically was married by this exact priest a year and a half before us. The same ring was blessed with Holy Water a second time by the same priest. It goes unstated that their marriage had better not fail, being doubly blessed and all.

Cowboy H slid mine on my finger nice and easy first. Please note my bouquet on the altar behind the priest. The night before, our coordinator managed to forget to tell us when the bouquet should be handed back to me, so Jenna jumped the gun and gave it to me right before the ring exchange. I didn't know what to do with it, so our priest grabbed it from me and set it there. Just another one of those moments.

Then, I was my turn to return the favor.

So far, so good.

And then it got stuck. Right at his knuckle. But he told me before the ceremony that it would fit, so I tried to jam it onto his finger. By golly, that ring was going on if he said it would. And Cowboy H grimaced. And then I cracked up. And so the ring was left were it was, halfway up his finger. Sigh.

The Prayers of the Faithful were then read by my dear friend Lauren, who has a couple of blogs of her own: The Next Adventure and Lauren's Next Adventure.

The priest then gave us our final blessing.

Finally, we got to face our guests and were pronounced officially married by the priest! I promise you, Cowboy H is excited too.

And THEN, we got to kiss! Hahahaha.

I realized, at this moment, that I hadn't really kissed him all day, and just grabbed him! Everyone started laughing.

Cowboy H was a little confused. But he survived.

Just as we were supposed to be walking back down the aisle together, we had a music glitch and there was an almost awkward silence. However, my baby cousin Amelia ran out of her seat to me and gave me a cough drop. Yes, she handed it to be because I was coughing so badly during the ceremony.

It was easily one of my favorite moments of the whole ceremony. It was so pure and sweet.

Then, the music started up and down the aisle we went to the chords of Randy Travis's "Forever and Ever, Amen"!

And then, we rode off into the sunset!

Up Next: The Reception Kicks Off

All photography credit goes to Applemoon Photography, unless otherwise noted. You guys rock!

A Homemade Wedding Homestead-Style: Struttin' Our Stuff

Hello! After being MIA for (quite) a few days, I'm back with so much to tell you about. Hopefully I'll be able to get my ducks in a row and actually post about it all in a reasonable amount of time.

The rain finally stopped sometime late in the day on Friday. Saturday morning when we got up we saw blue skies for the first time in a solid week. We could finally see our local mountains, and what a sight! The snow level had dropped nearly to the valley floor overnight.

Cowboy H and I already had a little weekend getaway planned, which involved a snow day on Saturday and a desert ride with the Desert Rose on Sunday. I know, I know, it was pretty brave of us to venture out with her after the "incident", but we survived! Pictures will be coming. Eventually.

When I last left you, the ushers had seated everyone and the doors shut were shut behind us.

The ushers from left to right: Brett (younger brother of Mel who was passing out programs), my bro and Stephen (who was named after my dad). These boys have known each other since before birth. The infamous naked pictures exist of these three (together) also, but I won't be sharing them.

Leann Rimes' acoustic version of "Amazing Grace" began playing and we lined ourselves up for our aisle-walks.

Cowboy H and his grandma were the first to go,

Followed by my brother and my grandma.

Photo by my cousin, Joelle.

Next Trent escorted his (and Cowboy H's) mom,

With Tiffany and their dad not too far behind.

You would think at this point, everything was going along just swimmingly, but no, not really. If you haven't noticed yet, I wanted this wedding to be as personal as possible, so I recycled two aisle-walker. My brother and Cowboy H's brother both had to circle back and escort a second person down the aisle. During the rehearsal, we had gotten the timing down pretty good, but of course that changed during the real deal, when everyone was staring. If you look in the picture above, you can see two boys in the background stretching their necks to watch something at the back of the church. What you don't see if my brother running down the side aisle-way of the church to get to my mom in time. Looking back, I should have used those to boys to escort the two additional women, but oh well. It made for a funny moment.

Fortunately, Joe made it back in time and walked my mom down the aisle. You can see the smirk on his face after that stunt.

The lady in the beige shirt in the background is my "horse trainer". I have known her since I was in second grade. My brother and her oldest son went to kindergarten together. Her and my mom are still very close. I love the look of pure affection she is giving my mom and brother.

Then it was Trent's turn to get back to the back of the church.

He had to run too, which cracked Jenna up as she was waiting for him. In the background, my dad is lecturing me on the fact that I should have used more people.

And off they went.

I hate this picture, but its the only one I've got.

And now, what you've all been waiting for. Okay, what I was waiting for.

My turn.

I'm pretty sure, this is my all-time favorite picture of my dad. EVER.

My dad and I waited (im)patiently for the music to change to Chris LeDoux's "Look At You Girl". After the first few beats, it was time to go.

I tried so hard to walk slowly, soak it all in, but I was ecstatic. Beaming. Overjoyed.

You know, just a little excited.

Photo by my cousin, Joelle.

And shiny.

I know you're supposed to look at your groom, whose patiently (and excitedly?) waiting for you at the end of the aisle, but I couldn't believe all the people that had come. It was surreal. I wanted to look at each and every one of them, burn them into brain, bask in the joy that these people had come to watch Cowboy H and I get hitched. Seriously, I tried to make eye contact with everyone.

Look! Its a Desert Rose on the left. And please note my dad is wearing two different blacks. Thanks, Dad. I still love you.

Unfortunately, no one took a picture of Cowboy H's face as I was coming down the aisle. I'm pretty bummed about that (come on professional photogs!) but I'm pretty sure he was looking at his shoes like he was during rehearsal.

All too soon we were at the end of the aisle, and my dad hugged me off.

Then, he shook Cowboy H's hand, while I gripped his arm (for dear life?), bulging bicep and all.

Up Next: Let The Ceremony Begin!

Question: Do you all want to know what was said at the ceremony? I mean, I can dig up and type out the readings, vows, etc. Or, I can just show you the pictures and tell you what was happening then.

All photography credit goes to Applemoon Photography, unless otherwise noted!

A Homemade Wedding Homestead-Style: Arrivals

*Still* raining. Yesterday brought blizzard conditions, thunderstorms, flash floods and even a tornado to our area. Be careful what you wish for.

We arrived at the church about 30 minutes before the ceremony start time and my brother-in-law delivered me directly in front of the doors. A bunch of guests were already there, milling around outside since the church's wedding coordinator wasn't there yet to open the doors. I was so excited to see everyone there, I couldn't wait to get out of the car.

Once I did, the hug-fest began.

My friend Juan, on the right with his girlfriend. We went to high school, and ran track, together. We were both hurdlers. Funny enough, we both ended up at the jr. college in town together; I playing volleyball, he on the athletic training team. Then we both moved to the LA area, but at different times. I think we're stuck with each other. And oh yea, I went to his Sr. Prom with him.

This is Cassie's mom. While I have not spent a lot of time total with this lady, I feel at home with her. Really, she feels like my mom to me. She actually really reminds me of my mom, too. Maybe that's why Cassie and I always felt like old friends from the day we met. Strangely, even though Cassie and I have known each other since before 6th grade, and Cassie had visited me almost every summer, our moms had never met each other! They met for the first time at the wedding.

This is my baby cousin, Amelia. My mom has eight brothers and sisters; my mom is the youngest. Most of my cousins are old than me, and their kids (my second cousins) are closer to my age. But Amelia is actually our generation, and she's the baby! She LOVES me, to put it mildly. I should have hired her to be my personal assistant for the day.

At some point, we figured out a side door was open, so we sneaked in the church and opened the front doors, so all the guests could take a seat. Plus, it was freezing!

My girl Mel (of the chaotic morning prep) and her husband passed out the homemade programs.

Remember when I said I misspelled a word on the program? See "Amazing Grace"? It used to say "Amazing Graze". I guess sometimes our brains are elsewhere, like the pasture with my horse.

This is one of the other two girls I would have had stand up with me had we actually had a wedding party (how many 'had's can you fit in one sentence?). Once we cut it down, I still wanted her to be involved so I asked her to be a reader. School teacher that she is and all, she responded "Greeter? You want me to be a greeter? Why, I'd love to." So, passing out the programs it was. And she did a fabulous job.

Just before the ceremony, my sister-in-law decided her dress was too low cut for her duties as a reader, and asked me to pin it.

Photo by my cousin, Joelle.

I'm so glad someone caught this moment of me getting fresh with Tiff!

Then, suddenly we were shuffled inside and the doors closed behind us! Our priest gathered all the participants at the back of the church and gave us a little blessing.

Photo by my cousin, Joelle.

I bowed my head, and attempted to put on a serious face.

Up next: Let's Get This Show Started!

Once again, hat's off to Applemoon Photography!