The Blustering Baker: Our Wedding

Three months later and I've finally motivated myself to write a post about our wedding!

Shortly after BT and I got engaged we started throwing around ideas of when and where we'd like for it to go down. Personally, I wanted to elope but knew that my family would probably disown me if we did so. BT wanted, at the very least, some sort of gathering. So we decided on casual, family only, and, if possible, somewhere about halfway between his family (Ionia, MI) and mine (Virginia Beach, VA).

Somewhere in podunk Ohio is the exact halfway point and we both gave that a huge NOPE right away. Have you ever been to Ohio? You're not missing much. So I looked into West Virginia. I'd driven through before, but never visited the state. Wild and wonderful West Virginia, the advertisements say! That sounded right up our alley!

We settled on the Canaan Valley area, a popular ski destination, and picked 10-10-15 as our date. When I found the Timeless House on a rental site, I knew it was the perfect place.

We booked the house, sent out the invites, and busted our butts for the next three months getting everything in order.

BT and I arrived on Thursday. The house was perfect and the view was spectacular.

Our families arrived throughout the day on Friday. Most of them went out to dinner that night. BT and I stayed behind because we were still waiting on a few people to get in. The night before our wedding was spent sitting in the house alone, eating veggies and hummus and drinking beer. Ha!

We were up and at 'em early the next morning to start getting everything in order.

BT and his BIL were in charge of setting up the chairs and archway.

They did a great job. Then I came along and made them change everything. Heh.

"The chairs need to be closer!"

It was a stressful morning with lots to do. We pretty much self-catered the entire thing because, A. I'm a control freak when it comes to food, and B. we wanted to save money. I gave Dad detailed instructions on the food prep/set up and he nailed it. His reputation as a food professional was on the line, after all!

We had a couple of SNAFUs with the music/speaker setup. The first being no mic stand.

Crisis averted! We used a stick!

Once the food prep was done, everything was set up, and everybody had their tasks assigned, I finally stepped away from the madness and headed to my bestie and her husband's place for a quick nap and some quiet time.

"We got this, yo! Go get some rest."

Everyone did an awesome job of setting things up. We were so thankful for all of the help.

The guest book and photo scavenger hunt.

Fueled by gummies!

Yeeeeaaaah....

I returned from my nap and headed to the carriage house to get ready. The guests began to arrive!

Midway through getting ready, I heard a bunch of hootin' and hollerin'. BT must have made his grand entrance.

TZ was in charge of the music and acoustics set up. He did a phenomenal job.

SNAFU #2: We didn't have a power strip to plug the speakers and mic into. The closest store was a good 15 minutes away and we were T-minus 45 minutes. I called the BFF and asked if they could pick one up for us. They arrived with the power strip just as the last guests arrived. Perfect timing!

BT's sister got ordained so that she could perform the ceremony. She did such a wonderful job. We couldn't imagine anyone else doing it.

Here we go! Chapter 37: Pookie gets married!

BT and I wrote the ceremony ourselves. It was just perfect for us.

We started with a remembrance and right off the bat the tears were flowing.

Next, BT's sister did a reading: Love's Ride by Charles Johnson.

After a brief "story of us", my amazing aunt came up for the second reading: a poem from the movie Broken Arrow, written by Albert Maltz (sometimes referred to as the Apache Wedding Prayer).