So many updates....and oh yeah, we are married!!!

So it has been a VERY long time since I have posted.  I am sure my five followers will understand though because we have been very busy....getting married!!!:)  I have so many updates and I have kind of felt overwhelmed at the thought of catching up, so I finally decided I would just start with the most important update, our wedding.  The day was beautiful, exactly as we had hoped for.  We were determined to have an outdoor wedding, it's just us, so I found an old home in Tennessee with beautiful trees surrounding the property and we had our ceremony on one side of the house and our reception on the other.  The weather cooperated in the sense that the rain held off, but it was EXTREMELY hot!  Again, I am sorry to anyone who attended for scheduling such a hot evening, lol.  However, it was so neat to have everyone we love in the same place, and we tried to really take everything in and enjoy it.  I have to tell on J.R. for anyone reading who did not attend our wedding.  I think possibly the most memorable moment of the evening was him becoming so emotional during our vows!  I have never seen him like that in front of so many people, and it was just extremely special to me to see how deeply he felt the significance of what we were doing!  Our officiant, Kerra (minister for my grandmother's church), surprised us both with her amazing sermon!  She had met with us a few times prior to that day and we had talked to her about our first date.  For anyone who doesn't know, we were introduced to each other by our friends Jayson and Selina in Tennessee.  The night we met, all four of us went to a Bill Cosby comedy show on the Middle Tennessee State University campus.  Anyhow, Kerra opened our ceremony with a quote about marriage from Bill Cosby.  We both looked at each other and felt huge smiles come over our faces.  For someone who barely knew us, she truly made the ceremony special.
The reception was extra special to me because since I was a little girl, I had always envisioned having my dad's band play at my wedding.  They played "My Girl" for the father/daughter dance, and it was as perfect as I had imagined.  I have grown up going to their "gigs", so it was really nice to introduce all of J.R.'s family (now my family too) and friends to a part of my upbringing and influences.  Unfortunately, the sound system needed to be adjusted during J.R. and my first dance as husband and wife, but luckily the best man (thank you Jayson!) had them play it again, and we had a beautiful "second" first dance as well.  Thanks to my awesome friend MaryAnn for the video!


We were so thankful to everyone involved in making our day special.  We had so many people travel so far to be with us and we felt very loved.  Thank you to all of our family for your help with our day... J.R.'s mom Susan, his Aunt Susan, his grandma Rhea, my Aunt Susan, my grandma Martha, my stepmom Jackie and especially my Dad who gave us a beautiful day!

I am still uploading all of our wedding pictures to Shutterfly (and making photobooks for some of you), but when I do I will post the link so everyone who wants to sift through the almost 650 pictures is welcome to, lol!  For the time being I will add a few of our favorites.  Stay tuned for catch up posts in the near future!