Saturday, October 1, 2011

for 17 years: the big day...i-10

August 6th dawned bright and clear, preceded by a fun night with family and friends at our rehearsal dinner, preceded by all manner of showers and parties to equip us with tools to build a home and a life together.

We had premarital counseling with our pastor and an elder couple in our church. We went to an Engaged Encounter weekend through the Catholic Diocese of Dallas. We're actually not Catholic but had heard really good things about the marriage preparation weekend offered by the Catholic Church. I recommend it to every engaged couple I meet. So, so good.

We made it through the planning and the preparation and now were at the moment of execution.

Yep, that's right --- execution. The death of our old lives, our singleness, our selfish ways of living...

We had family and friends from out of town. I even had friends from my heartland of Spain attend, so we had a bi-lingual service, incorporating the help of my Puerto Rican friends.

The service itself was beautiful...so many people cooperating to make our day special - from the music to the flowers to the food...each part was a personal reflection of our lives and the people who loved us.

The best part of the service was when Lee sat down at the piano to play our song. Reminding the crowd that we were now married and that this was now a party (!), he played out the melody and sang to me as I stood by his side.

Then he rose, took my hand, and off we went down the aisle, now husband and wife.

After a flurry of pictures, we were off to the reception where we were greeted and loved on by our many guests. The food was good, the cake magnificent, and I was married to the best man in the whole world. It couldn't get much better than that.

Then finally the time came for us to depart in our blue Chevy pick up, decorated in typical fashion w/ shoe polish and streamers. Rice was thrown, more pictures taken, and with a wave, we were off to begin our new life together.

Next: married life
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