Happy Anniversary!

Wow. Has it really been five years?! It seriously has flown by.

Many of you might not know the story of how our wedding came to be. It actually wasn't supposed to happen! At least not when it did. We had planned to get married in June of 2006 after I graduated college. I had done a bit of wedding dress shopping, color picking, and other little general wedding things. I started making a binder with things that I liked, what kind of bouquet I wanted, who was going to be in the wedding party, and who was NOT! haha

But things changed when Matt got 'The Call'. He was told he was deploying - and SOON! Matt and I talked it over and we were not comfortable with him leaving and us just being engaged. We really felt like we needed to be married. Some might think that is just over dramatics and that it's JUST a deployment but we had always known that we were going to marry each other. God had set us aside for each other and we would have a family and grow old together.

So, over the course of the next few days we had gone from getting married two weekends later in our hometown at a park with friends and family, to getting married a week later at the chapel on base, to getting married THE NEXT DAY! Seriously.

His deployment date changed so many times in a matter of days. Even changed twice in a span of about 3 hours. We told family about our intentions and the plans were underway. A park back home was being reserved and we were going to have a potluck wedding at the gazebo. Those plans came to a screeching halt with another date change. Then some of Matt's superiors were feeling pretty bad for our situation. They knew we wanted to get married and with his deployment date changing so many times it didn't look like it was going to happen. But phone calls were made, strings were pulled, and a wedding date of June 5, 2004 at 3:00pm was set! Thirty-six hours later Matt and I were going to become Man and Wife.

We called our families and told them to gather anybody they could to come watch us get married. And they did. :) My mom, dad, and sister came. Matt's mom, dad, sister, grandma, aunt, and two cousins were also there. And then MANY from Matt's work. It wasn't too bad of a turnout!

It was a perfect day. My dad walked me down the aisle and gave me away. My mom cried her eyes out. My sister was my Maid of Honor. Matt's dad shook his hand, his mom hugged him tight, his cousin was his Best Man. Matt's other cousin read a Bible verse that we picked out for the service.

If I remember right, it was 3:32 that we were officially announced. Matt was my Husband, I became his Wife. Just the way we knew God has always planned it.

We all gathered at a restaurant afterward for some dinner, cake, and a few gifts. It was truly a magical day, even though it was all thrown together in 36 hours!! It was all meant to be!

Here is the link to the album of wedding pictures I have on Facebook. And then here are some pictures of pictures of the wedding album that Matt's aunt (not the one that attended the wedding) made. It's a great album and I'm so glad I have the pictures in it to remember our special day. Sorry the pictures aren't that great, but you get the idea!

The opening picture of the album (you can click all of them to make them bigger):

The family that was able to make it out:

Making it official by signing the papers:

HUSBAND AND WIFE!!!!!


We have two little blessings and one little angel from the last 5 years. I can't wait to see what the next five has to offer.

Matt:

"You made me looove youuuuu. I didn't wanna do it, I didn't wanna do it. You made me love YOU!" I love you truly.