Our 5th Anniversary

This weekend, Hubby and I celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary!

I thought maybe you'd like to take a little trip down memory lane with me...?

I wanted a "winter garden" theme (not sure exactly what that is, but it sounds pretty and romantic).

My soon to be hubby and father in law quickly found out what a taskmaster I can be when I told them we would be building our own "trees".

Yes...yes, we did. Hubs and I went out and cut down 10 young tree trunks (I even used the chainsaw for a bit, which I can hardly believe myself), cut off the branches and put the bases into 5 gallon buckets of cement. Then we stapled branches onto the trunks. Yes, you read that right. Every. single. branch. was stapled on and approved by yours truly. I am amazed that hubby still went through with the wedding.

But...I wonder if he actually realized what a telltale sign that was of his future life with his DIY wife-to-be?! I'm guessing not. 

My FIL then lightly sprayed the trees with a coat of white and  built all the boxes for the trees and did all the electrical work, connecting the lights!

My handsome man waiting at the end of the aisle!

Coming down the aisle.

My dress was a touch too long, so I had to kick it out from under my shoes with every step.

I definitely did not "float" down the aisle...more like marching with all that kicking!

My mom didn't realize she was supposed to hug me "goodbye" so I had to drag her up off her seat!

Hubby will never let me forget that my first words to him were, "does your brother have the ring????"

Once a control freak, always a control freak, I'm afraid.

My oldest brother was our pastor, so we were lucky enough to have him marry us. 

The steps up the center aisle were also built and carpeted by my hubby and FIL just for the wedding....as was the platform on the baptismal tank right behind us.

 I needed a platform to put the half dozen trees on after all!

Hubs and my dad cut down the fresh trees the day before the wedding.

Now...my dad had just retired from pastoring, and was still kinda in pastoral-style-clothing mode, if ya know what I mean. There was also quite a lot of snowfall right before our wedding. My dad apparently wasn't prepared for that. But - as hubby would say - anything for his little princess...so my dad wallowed through waist deep snow in dress pants and dress shoes in order to cut down a dozen trees and drag them back for us to decorate. Oddly enough, neither one of them were in an overly happy mood when they came back to the church with the trees, and I did hear a somewhat muttered threat that if anyone had a problem with the trees they cut down, then that person could just go back out into the woods and cut down new trees by themself! Hmmm.

Our very unchurchy kiss...timed to 24 seconds of the Hallelujah Chorus.

That is a long time to kiss.

Notice my brother's look of slightly amused horror?

I hope our kids have more sense at their weddings than their parents.

We did it!

We came down the aisle to Steven Curtis Chapman's "The Great Adventure"....little did I know!!!

See the little favor box above the centerpiece?

My SIL-to-be, her mother, her SIL (not related to me), and her mother baked 1700 sugar cookies to make those wedding cookie-cake favors. You read that right. Then the next day, she and I reheated all the cookies, recut them and iced them all together and froze them. The week before the wedding my MIL-to-be and I covered them with poured fondant and piped the borders. 200 favors.

I'm not sure if any of us have ever baked a sugar cookie since.

Dancing to "Song Bird" by Eva Cassidy.

(We are terrible dancers.)

My man and his crew.

My girls and I having a moment of silly.

All my bridesmaids, except one, were from BC and just about froze themselves solid.

Poor things.

For some reason, we thought it would be fun to take some rednecky pictures with guns.

We intended to only take one or two, but for some reason our photographer thought it was funny and over half  of our pictures are with those silly guns! That, my friends, is not funny at all!

Thanks for joining me on my little wintery stroll!

I hope I didn't bore you, but I guess if I did, you wouldn't have read this far down...

And Honey, since I know you read my blog...I love you!

You give me the warm fuzzies, keep me on my toes, challenge me to grow, 

melt my heart and drive me a little bonkers...all wrapped up in one great package!!!

 I'm looking forward to the next sixty or seventy years together!!

Oh...by the way...you wouldn't mind building another couple of trees together again...would you?

I have some great plans for Christmas decorating in the living room....

*wink*