Now that we are married....

     First I wanted to say a huge Thank You to everyone who attended and helped with our wedding.  The day was perfect and everything turned out just as Jessica...I mean we, planned it. :)  To be fair, Jessica did have a specific vision and I give her tremendous credit for making it a reality and allowing us all to experience it first hand.  It was truly magical.  I'll post some pictures soon for those of you that couldn't make it or want to see it again.  

     We had a great time planning and implementing so many ideas and crafts that when it came time for the actual party we were in cruise control mode.  I joked with Jessica that she didn't get to give her speech at the rehearsal dinner, but she was more than fine with that.  We didn't really have much of a plan to that night other than for our guests to just eat, drink, socialize and have a good time.  Just in case I did have a sort of off the cuff speech planned should I be asked to "say something."  If you know us, Jessica and I are both "planners" and usually have at least one, if not two, backup plans floating around in our head.  If you also really know us, then you'd realize that weekend, the planning, the decorations, the blood, sweat and tears, the blisters, the hot glue gunning, the miles of burlap and muslin, the cotton, every piece of barnwood, and every single light hung from the rafters was not about our dream wedding.  It was so that you could enjoy our day with us.  It was so you could participate in and be a part of our special moment.  It was for you as much as it was for us.  It was our gift to you, in helping us celebrate one of the most important days of our lives.  So thank you again.  

     Now, I had previously mentioned something about a speech, and I'm a firm believer that all speeches, good and bad, should get a chance to be heard, so here is my rehearsal dinner speech that I had prepared just in case...

     "Thank you for coming.  For those of you who we haven't seen in a long time, or don't see that often, you may not even know how we met. We met on E-harmony.  That is an online dating website, just in case you weren't familiar with it.  It's a little more faith based and has a lot of security as opposed to some other "dating" sites out there.  I never championed our story too much because for the longest time there was a stigma associated with meeting someone online.   Most people's first thought is something off of "To catch a predator" or some other disastrous item they heard about on the nightly news.  (Throw in my Chris Hansen impersonation "Hey there, I'm Chris Hansen.  Why don't you have a seat there.  What's in the bag?" )  However I've grown okay with telling our story as more and more people are meeting online, and even getting married.  E-harmony boasts that over one million people have been matched and married from their site.  That's a lot of people.  We would both get questions like,"How do you know they are who they say they are?"  I have several responses to that; first, it is a highly vetted program with many steps of security and communication.  You have all the time in the world to verify who they are before you ever meet or even exchange phone numbers.  I would trust this process any day of the week over meeting a true stranger in a bar or at some college party.  Just sayin.  Times are very different than they were even five years ago, and this is a prime example of that.  Maybe I can convince Jessica to tell her "joining the Army" story later.  It's classic.

     So after we called on the phone, then Skyped, then finally met in person at Starbucks for coffee, the rest is history.  One of us commuted almost every single weekend for over a year and a half.  Which brings us to today. The fruits of our labor so to speak.  There is no one else who I'd rather be spending the rest of my life with than Jessica.  God has been very faithful to our prayers, and has proved that we operate on different time tables than Him.  But He is faithful none-the-less.  I know there were days and nights when Jessica and I both thought that we might be single for the rest of our lives.  And in true "God-revealed-to-us" fashion, just as I had prayed the prayer that I was fine with being single and for God to use me in that capacity, He gave me Jessica.  

     Many people also ask questions about online dating like, "How can you meet your soul mate online?" Easy answer is God can use any tool, even a computer to put people together.  But I am reminded of a movie quote from  "A Stranger Among Us."  It's a murder drama from the early 90s where a female police officer goes undercover in a strict Jewish community in New York.  She learns all about Jewish customs and ways of live. And of course she even learns about love, or at least the concept of love that was different than hers.  In the movie the concept of a Jewish soul mate, or Beshert, is explained to her.  She doesn't understand because she thinks that a soul mate is someone you meet, like love at first site.  It is something that comes pre-packaged in a relationship.  If you didn't marry your soul mate, then you are bound for divorce, or at the very least an unhappy marriage.  Here is the quote : 

"With all the hard work, with constant giving to their spouse, they will create an irrevocable bond. Through their family activities and community involvement they will deepen their unity. Their sense of intimacy and connection will only grow over time.  Beshert is what you get after you pay your dues. Beshert is what you get when you put someone else’s needs before your own. Beshert is what you get when you keep pushing forward no matter how rough the road. Beshert is what you get after years of struggle and joy, years of pain and celebration, years of effort and laughter."

Beshert in Yiddish means "your perfect match, your destiny, your soul mate."  I love this idea that your beshert is someone you grow with over time.  You build that relationship. It is not pre-packaged and has no bearing on the start of your relationship.  You foster it, nurture it and it grows to be fruitful with deep roots.  I'm excited to start that journey with Jessica and I already consider her my beshert.  Once again, thank you for coming and I hope everyone has a great evening."

So that's my wedding speech.  It probably sounds a bit more light hearted in person,  but you get the meaning.  I'm writing this at a conference in Austin, TX and I find it absolutely hilarious that I just got a "gift" from room service.  There was a knock at the door and when I opened it I was being presented with a tray of chocolate covered strawberries and a bottle of champagne.  Now, keep in mind I'm here alone since Jessica needed to work.  I told the nice young man there had been a mistake and that I didn't order anything.  He said it was a gift.  I still told him that it was probably a mistake and he had the wrong room.  Well, the card on the tray did have my room number on it.  He said it would be explained in the card and that the gift was mine.  "Sure, come on in, set it down over there." I exclaimed wondering who it could be from. He set it down and left with a smile.  I opened the card to read "Enjoy Your Weekend!  Love, Your Materials Marketing Family." Well, two things; first, it's Thursday and I'm leaving Friday.  So no weekend will be involved here.  Second, I have no Materials Marketing Family.  But thanks for the champagne.  It looks nice and it'd be shame to waste it.  I'm going to wait a few more minutes because I'm sure as soon as I pop that top they'll come looking for it to give to the correct people. :)  To bad I don't like strawberries.  Jessica would love those if she was here. 

     Seems like two months between posts is a recurring theme, so we'll roll with it for now.  We have both been fairly busy with work, family life and of course planning a wedding.  We had huge checklists that we've been able to slowly start to whittle away at and get them to a more manageable size.  The majority of the "large" items have been dealt with and we are starting to focus on the details now.  Some items in the "rear view" since my last post include the wedding dress, the brides maid dresses, Caterer, wedding cakes, most flowers, table planning, and the Wedding DJ. 
     Recently we also started working on plans to convert Jessica's house from a single w/ 3 cats, 2 dogs house to a married w/ 3 cats, 1 dog house. We went took inventories of our "stuff" and worked on what we would get rid of, combine or replace.   We also worked on some new paint colors and some minor decorating ideas for the house as well.  We were able to replace all the blinds in most of the house with beautiful full length curtains this past weekend.  We'll post some pictures when we are through painting so you can get the full effect, but here are some of the colors we are using, along with our Jessica's new shower curtain:

 

     This past weekend was the 4th of July and we had a great time cleaning, making wedding plans, and of course visiting with many friends and family.  We were able to go see Despicable Me 2 on Sunday and in preparation we made Minion cupcakes on Friday night:

 

 





Still more planning to do as we really start to look into decorating the barn and all details that go along with that. 

     It's been a little while since I updated the blog, but after this past weekend I figured it was time. There are several topics I want to write about but this weekend is a great starting point for getting back into the blog a little bit.  To start off, Jessica told me about a month ago to not make any plans for the weekend and that she was going to surprise me.  Now, I like surprises as much as the next, but it can be hard to surprise me sometimes.  I was determined not to snoop or look on the internet to see what was going on that weekend so that I could truly say I was surprised.  Well, that weekend finally come to pass and we met in Chattanooga on Friday around noon.  Jessica pulled out her phone and it proceeded to give me driving directions and after a short time it was evident we were heading to Atlanta.  Now, I have to admit that this is the traditional weekend for all kinds of music festivals like Jazz Fest in New Orleans, Memphis in May, Birmingham Music Festival, and more recently the Shaky Knees Festival in Atlanta.  I'm thinking we're going to the Shaky Knees Festival...
     We end up at a restaurant called Canoe.  It is the number one restaurant on Trip Adviser, which carries a lot of weight with us because we have found some excellent restaurants this way.  And true to form, the lunch was great! 

Did I mention the weekend was to celebrate our one year anniversary?  We met at the end of March and "got to know" each other for about a month and met in person on May 5th, 2012.  That is a blueberry sorbet with a lemon poppyseed shortbread cookie.  They also had popcorn flavored icecream that our wonderful server let us try, and it was so weird, but really good!  Tasted just like popcorn, butter and all!   I had a huge lamb sandwich and Jessica had a Salmon burger with an egg on top that was also fantastic. During lunch Jessica told me how we would be spending the rest of the weekend, and it was not the Shaky Knees Festival.  She had booked us at the Weekend to Remember Marriage Seminar at the Atlanta Renissance Waverly Hotel.  This is a three day event hosted by Family Life that works with married (and engaged) couples to show how important marriage is and how to strengthen that relationship.  I think Jessica thought I would be disappointed, but on the contrary, I was looking forward to it! 

     This is getting a little long winded so I'll start to be brief.  We checked into the hotel and enjoyed the first night of the conference and finished it up with dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  The next day we enjoyed the conference and at our lunch break went to Pappadeaux's Restaurant and enjoyed some great seafood.  More conference and then for dinner Jessica had made reservations at the Blue Ridge Grill, another highly rated Trip Advisor favorite which also lived up to its reputation.  But we weren't through for the evening yet!  Jessica had tickets for Larry the Cable Guy and Bill Engval at the historic Fox Theater!  Those guys are very funny and we had a great time laughing that evening.  Sunday was a half day as we finished up the conference by 1pm and stopped by Chipotle for lunch in honor of Cinqo de Mayo.  After a short stop at NorthSide Hospital to see my brother we then headed to...the Shaky Knees Festival for the second day to see such bands as Drive By Truckers and The Lumineers!

 

     Almost immediately after we parked at the commuter lot to wait for the bus to take us to the festival we noticed that everyone had on mud / rain boots.  It had rained all the day the day before we we quickly figured out that it would be muddy where we were going.  Jessica was smart enough to recommend we get ponchos at the mechandise booth and after we purchased two they sold out.  We put out yellow plastic ponchos on just as it started to rain.  The rain came and went for a while and then set in around 8pm for good.  It wasn't bad till the sun went down and then it started to get cold.  The Lumineers were the last band, and of course the one we wanted to see the most.  They took the stage around 8:30 and we enjoyed about an hour of their set before we were just too cold and started to make our way to the commuter bus to be taken back to our car.  We took off our muddy shoes and cranked up the heat in the car and started our own commute back home to Chattanooga.  All in all it was a packed weekend as we crammed so much into the time we had available.  It almost felt like we were back in Barcelona.  I have learned one thing from this weekend, and that is that Jessica is a great planner (like I consider myself) and able to schedule just enough to keep us busy but not so much that we were overwhelmed or late for anything.  Thank you Jessica for an incredible Weekend to Remember! 



 

     The hunt is on... we have four places we will be touring this weekend for possible wedding / reception locations.  We don't want to give away too much yet, but on the down side, we have already had to cross off a few favorites because the date we want is so late in the fall that the location is already closed for winter at that point.  We are hoping for some decent fall weather in mid to late November, keep praying for that. We have pretty much decided on a theme however, and that is giving us something to work with. 
     This is us at the Sagrada Familia Church in Barcelona.  It is still under construction and scheduled to be completed in 2030.  I like to joke with Jessica and will sometimes just start chanting "Barcelona 2030!" as a possible location and date to get married.  And while I do have faith we will get married this year as planned, it would be awesome to go back to Barcelona between now and then and check the progress of the church, and again in 2030 to see the final, finished masterpiece of Gaudi.

So we're getting married!  I figured we would start a blog to tell some stories and keep everyone up to date on what we are doing and how the planning is going.  Here are a few pictures to start it off.  The second picture is Jessica right after I proposed on the beach in Barcelona.