Life as a Leigh: wedding

26 March 2012

Saying I Do

Our wedding ceremony was held at Seacoast Chapel in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. I have always loved the chapel. It's the perfect mix of modern architecture with classic touches like beautiful stained glass windows. Also, it is fairly large for a "chapel" and we were able to fit all 300 of our lovely family and friends. I wanted our ceremony to be very unique with personal touches. I walked down to an instrumental version of "Bittersweet Symphony", not your traditional bridal march. Our pastor read our vows from his iPad, and he opened the ceremony by commenting on the history of strong and committed love we have in our families. Between both sets of parents and grandparents there have been no divorces. That is so rare today, and we are so blessed to have such great relationships to look up to!

Our ceremony was short, sweet, and to the point. No songs, passages read, or lighting of candles. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it just wasn't really us. I felt that everything that needed to be said was said in our vows. Our vows were customized to fit us, our relationship, and desire for our marriage.

“Because God has brought us together, and has established our love, and our relationship, I take you Emma to be my wife. I will love you as Christ loves His Church, through whatever joy or trial we face. I determine this day to walk the way of the cross before you, living with you in an understanding way. I promise to honor the Holy Spirit’s guidance, so that I may lead us in God’s way. Because I believe in God’s promises and God’s power, I here and now give you everything of myself, that I am and shall be. In Jesus name.”

“I also believe it is God’s perfect desire for me to become your wife. So I, Emma, receive you as my husband. As you have committed your life and love to me, so I too give you my life. Where you go, I will go. Where you live, I will live. Together we will serve our Savior. Because I believe in God’s promises and God’s power, I here and now give you everything of myself, that I am and shall be. In Jesus name.”

Overall the ceremony went smoothly. Sure... I forgot the sash around my dress, got choked up during our vows [Where you go, I will go. Where you live, I will live. meant a lot to me since I knew all that we had in store with the Army in our future], and broke out in hives. [Yup! I have no recollection of EVER doing that before then, but apparently my Mom said when I was a toddler it happened once before. When I was struggling to get through my portion of the vows RC kept asking me if I was okay. I thought it was sweet and just nodded me head. THEN once we walked down the aisle and got back to the Bridal Room I looked in the mirror and realized I was all red and splotchy! I do not cry in front of people and I think getting choked up made me really nervous... hence the hives. Is that embarrassing or what? Ha!] But at the end of the day we were officially married and that's all that matters! :)

We did it! :)

20 March 2012

Engagement Pictures

I so enjoyed looking through our engagement photos. We had such a good time walking around downtown Charleston looking for unique shots on cobblestoned streets and waterfront parks. It's hard to believe that was over a year ago. For any of you in the Charleston area, Alyona Semenov was our engagement shoot photographer. You see we actually had one photographer for the engagement and then a completely different photographer for the wedding. Why? After lots of worrying (on my end) about when Ross would have to leave for the Army we decided to push up the wedding date to the same weekend as my college graduation. Unfortunately, Alyona was not available for our new date. I was so bummed, but luckily we found another fabulous photographer for the wedding. (I'll post our wedding photographer's info on our ceremony and reception recaps!)