My Wedding Day....It was a God designed circus!

As I looked at a photo this morning of my wedding bouquet, I was reminded of how God works even before we know Him.


I have often joked about how the story of my wedding and all events leading up to and afterwards would make a tragic comedy if every recreated.

There can only be one explanation of why my wedding happened and how my marriage has lasted this long…by His design, God made my husband specifically for me and has been the glue that has held us together through every trial.

The calamity of the wedding day cannot be fully appreciated without the background of the four years leading up to the big day. I do offering a warning that even though it is a story still in progress, that today I find laughter and tears in it all.

My husband and I met in January 1994. I will spare everyone the details of my dysfunctional 18 year-old ways. To be honest, I met him and his best friend. Kent was quiet and showed no interest. Well, the honest part is that I thought he was a jerk and way too old for me.

Over the next six months, I would date his best friend from who he was inseparable. My roommate would date Kent. It was, for all intentions, a great way to spend time with my roomie and the guy I was dating…oh yea, and that old, jerky guy too.

Towards summer, both relationships began to drift apart. Yes, that is a nice way of saying dramatically in all teenage fashion, breaking-up.

On a very strange, but fateful night, all four of us would begin to follow the paths that God had set for us.

That night began a new and lifelong journey for each of us. While the new paths would strain and eventually separate the relationships amongst friends, we each knew there was a reason.

I am happy to tell you today that the other two are still married today and have two beautiful children.

It did not take long to learn that Kent, even at 28 years-old, was in no hurry to get married. He was ready, but only to wait. And wait we did.

Over the next 3 ½ years, we would date get to know each other and date via long distance relationship. He lived in Wichita and I lived in Humboldt. We would talk on the phone every night. It’s amazing the amount of life you can share on the phone. It did create huge phone bills and he was all too happy to help pay for them.

Kent drove home on the weekends and we would be together for most of it. The saddest part of the week would be at 3 p.m. on Sunday when he would load his truck up and head back to Wichita. I would watch his truck until it was out of sight with a tear in my eye and the anticipation of his return on the following Friday.

Without fail, that’s how we lived our lives for several years. During that time, Kent had moved to Lee’s Summit but the routine was the same. In the summer of 1997, I would begin to feel what I call the “3 years together and I’m ready to get married” itch.

I believe God used several events to bring us closer together and push us in the direction of marriage.

In September 1997, Kent left me a message on my home answering machine that without a doubt stays with me today. “My apartment caught on fire and I’m not sure when I’ll be able to call you.”

His neighbor below him had caused a fire that completely destroyed the entire quad. With Kent’s parents, I went the next day and tried to help him salvage all that he had gathered in his adult life. Loads and loads of laundry, lots of smoke saturated furniture and what little was salvaged was moved into another apartment. This was the point when Kent decided it was time to look for a home.

Leaving him after his fire was the absolute hardest time I ever had not being with him. It was the desire to be more to him than a weekend girlfriend that drove me to take the ultimate risk in our relationship. I told him in the fall that it was time to either get married or go our separate ways.

Saying he was reluctant is an understatement. We shopped for an engagement ring together. He shopped quality, I shopped hurriedly. I only wanted to get the ring on my finger before he decided again he wasn’t ready.

Once we had the ring, it was decided that Christmas would be when we would be “officially” engaged. Upon my persistence that he get on with it and give me the ring, my proposal consisted of this…”Here, put the ring on and tell everyone we are engaged.” Of course then, I was just happy to be engaged. Now, I realized that a little patience may have resulted in a much more romantic proposal and one I would be much happier to tell.

Now, the hunt was on for a house. The fire and impending nuptials pushed Kent into taking another huge leap into adulthood. In March 1998, he purchased and moved into the house where we still live.

All that was left was to plan the wedding of my dreams and begin my life of wedded bliss…or so I thought.

My contract with the school was up in May, so May would be the perfect time for a wedding. Kent, still dragging his feet, would have preferred to plan for a later summer wedding and of a different year. We finally agreed on August 1, 1998.

While not surprising yet completely heartbreaking, my dad would offer to help with $100. I was so fortunate to not only be living with my grandparents but have a grandmother who would do what she could to make my wedding as close to my dream as possible.

As a young girl, I may have dreamed of getting married but never fantasized much about the wedding. I had no illusions that my mother would finally behave like a mother and be a part of the planning of my big day. So, it was my grandmother, not my mother who gave me support during the planning.

My grandmother was the one who drove me an hour to buy the dress I had fallen in love with in a magazine. I never thought I could have something out of a magazine, but she made it happen. My grandma also drove me two hours to a bridal fair one Saturday, where we met the lady who would make the cake I had also fallen in love with in a magazine.

It was my grandma who would sit with me for hours looking through magazines, books and samples of wedding invitations. While Kent was interested, he was not big into the planning. For the most part, he was good just knowing the date and time.

During the planning of the wedding, I watched my grandma’s health begin to decline rapidly. She began having breathing problems in January of that year. As I sat across from her while making a final decision on my wedding invitations, I watched her excited for me fade quickly as she struggled to catch a breath between words.

Towards early summer, most of the plans for the wedding were set in place. We had a location, decorations, flowers ordered, invitations ready to be mailed, dress purchased, cake ordered, photographer, wedding registries completed and a flurry of other details wrapped up.

I would begin a summer of packing, slowly moving to Lee’s Summit and enjoying the wedding showers. My mom was sewing the dresses for the three candle lighters and I was hand sewing beadwork on my veil. There was one small detail that kept me from feeling as though I was ready for the big day.

I had bought my mother’s dress for the wedding, but my grandma had not yet gotten one. By then, she was in and out of the hospital often with little to no explanation of why she was having problems breathing. Each time I encouraged her to get her dress, she assured me that she would not need one.

Once the wedding plans were set, I spent time helping Kent and his parents getting the house ready for the big change that was coming. In mid-July, Kent’s parents tangled with brush and trees in our backyard. Little did we know that they were tangling with tons of poison ivy. It isn’t the poison ivy that will later cause a problem for our wedding day, but it is the steroids they were on that would.

It was well into mid-July before I began to count down the days. I didn’t have the kind of friends who were big on bachelorette parties, which was fine by me. As a last fun trip for me, I went with a friend and her kids to Kansas City for the day. The same day, my grandma was to have testing done on her lungs in Wichita.

While we were at a pizza place, I used the pay phone to call home. I was calling to let my mom know that I would be home late and to find out about my grandma’s test. When I heard the voice of my estranged cousin answering the phone, I knew something was wrong.

What she said to me would kick me in the chest and take me minutes, maybe days, maybe years to recover from. She said, “Grandma has cancer. She is on life support and she is going to die.”

The next few hours is still fuzzy to me. I called Kent and he met me in Humboldt. From there, we drove two more hours to Wichita. At 4 a.m., we arrived at the hospital in Wichita where we tried to sleep for a couple hours in the waiting room before my mom would find us waiting. This was before the time when cell phones were prevalent.

While the details are a blur, I spent the next six days living in a hotel room and sitting with my grandma during the day. One by one, most of the family came, visited, said goodbye and left. With four days until my wedding, my mom finally made me leave.

In the first few days on the vent, my grandma communicated with nods, blinking eyes and writing half legible notes. By the time I left, she was barely able to blink when we asked her questions. I leaned down close to her and told her I would see her again soon. With tears in her eyes, she shook her head and grabbed my hand.

As much as I wanted to believe there would be a miracle, I knew that was the last communication I would have with her.

I got out of bed the next day in my grandparents house, completely alone. The first thing on the agenda was to put together a memory locket for my bouquet. What I had planned was to have a photo of my great-grandpa who had passed away my senior year. Now, I was adding a photo of my grandma.

Next on the agenda was making hundreds of tiny mints for the reception. As I pressed and molded my last mint, my grandpa, mom and uncle walked through the door. I knew, they didn’t have to say anything, I just knew.

Three days before my wedding, the wedding my grandma had helped plan and pay for, my grandma passed away.

If it weren’t for my ability to go numb when emotions were threatening to overwhelm me, I don’t think I would have survived the next 10 days. The wedding I had dreamed about and planned for would quickly turn into a circus.

First up would be funeral planning. Because of my dysfunctional family, the date and time of the funeral would become a battle of wills between my family and my uncle’s family. My wedding was planned for 2 p.m. on Saturday. My uncle, who was more interested in not missing any time from work, was insistent that the funeral be held on Saturday.

His idea of not interfering with the wedding would be to have the funeral at 10 a.m. I was having absolutely none of his theoretical plan to have me wear my wedding dress to the funeral. His plan may have been spoiled merely by what could have possible been my only known childish, kicking and screaming fit in all my life.

Because of other funerals, it was set that my grandma’s funeral would be Monday morning.

Kent and I had not planned an extravagant honeymoon, but our reservation was not refundable or moveable within one week of check-in. In true dysfunctional fashion, it was the same uncle I fought tooth and nail on the date with who called and paid for the honeymoon to be moved by one day.

Next hurdle for me was with my soon-to-be in-laws. The day my grandma passed away, I was to help clean the church for our wedding. Keeping in mind that my in-laws were saturated with poison ivy and a heavy dose of steroids, you can only imagine the misunderstanding we had over the church cleaning. It would not take long for me to learn that I would probably hear about this for a while.

I know you may be thinking there is nothing comedic about this so far. But, it’s coming. Even if it wasn’t funny at the time, I can laugh about it now.

As you may remember, my mom was in charge of making three candle lighters dresses. Earlier in the summer, I purchased all the material and patterns for the three dresses. My mother, as would be her normal, had waited until the last minute to make the dresses. And, where was she at the last minute? She was with my grandma at the hospital, two hours away from the material and a sewing machine. With four days left until the wedding, I frantically and thankfully found a family member who made the dresses.

It was the same family member who made last minute alterations to my wedding dress. After a long week of stress and not eating right, my arms were very swollen. I had lost weight from not eating, but the stress had caused major fluid retention. The dress fit perfectly, except a small issue. I could not move my arms. The dress was let out in the arms only and nobody knew any different.

For 18 months prior to getting married, I lived with my grandparents. My plan was to finish packing my things during my last few days there. That task became nearly impossible with the steady stream of family and well wishers passing through the house.

The funeral arrangements were made and I had nothing to focus on but my wedding. The rehearsal and rehearsal dinner is but a foggy memory to me. I believe the stress everyone was under put a cloud of negativity over the entire event. I think a rehearsal dinner is probably the first indication of the true colors of the family you are about to marry into.

The Friday night rehearsal did lead to some interesting activity to say the least.

Kent had asked his best friend to be his best man and his brothers to be groomsmen. Not being close to many women at the time, I asked a co-worker to be my matron-of-honor and a good friend to be a bridesmaid. My second bridesmaid was originally a former school mate and girlfriend of one of Kent’s brothers. One month before the wedding, the brother and girlfriend broke up. Leaving me short a bridesmaid, I asked my oldest brother’s girlfriend. I would have liked to have chosen someone I knew better, but it worked and that’s all that mattered.

All three of the ladies agreed on a simple navy blue dress that truly could be worn again. I purchased the dresses and all three said they would pay for them. The night of the rehearsal, one of my bridesmaids gave me a check for her dress and shoes. It was two weeks later that I learned that the check had bounced and I was out the $85 for the dress and shoes. A small price to pay for not having to find another replacement at the last minute.

I had asked my two brothers to be ushers at the wedding and asked the oldest of the two to do the music. We were married in a Church of Christ. This Church of Christ does not believe in having musical instruments in the church. It did, however, have a sounds system and cd player.

The night before the wedding, my oldest brother’s girlfriend and bridesmaid, informed me that because my brother couldn’t be in the wedding and stand opposite of her, he would not be helping anywhere else with the wedding.

During the rehearsal, I had to find an usher and someone to play the music we had chosen. Kent’s brother-in-law would be an usher and my cousin would take care of music.

It was also during rehearsal when I realized I would have a problem with a cousin. She was, much to my disbelief, taking on a role as personal attendant to the bride. She boldly stood in my place during the rehearsal and made herself at home giving orders to everyone. In all fairness to her, she did keep things in order during the wedding with the music. But imagine my fear as I saw her taking over, knowing that she was not always the most trustworthy person.

That night was the moment I also learned that my soon-to-be mother-in-law and sister-in-law would be wearing the exact same dress. They both were aware that they had chosen the same dress. Being strong-willed mother and daughter, neither of them would agree to exchange for a different dress. No way to avoid this catastrophe only hours away from the wedding.

The fact that Kent and I barely said a word to each other through the four days prior to the wedding might have led everyone to wonder why we were even getting married.

Finally, the morning of the wedding and I bet you think this story is about to reach it’s beautiful ending. Not yet, it’s just beginning!

That morning, I awoke to rain pounding on the roof. I know everyone says it’s good luck. But I needed a miracle and rain wasn’t part of that plan.

With everything I needed in hand, I headed for the church in the rain. Each of the ladies in my wedding party would get their hair done by a friend of the family at the church. And, one by one, each of them would leave in the rain or August post-rain humidity. One might think that a mature woman would understand why that was a bad idea.

I soon learned it wouldn’t matter anyway. Once my hair was done, we began taking group photos. I didn’t see Kent prior to the wedding, but we did all photos possible beforehand.

Our photographer was a friend of Kent’s family and was a complete amateur. You’ll hear more about the wedding photos later, but they are awful to say the least. She took all of us out in the hot, humid August weather to have photos taken. All hairdos were hair-undoes by the time we were finished.

Flat hair didn’t matter to me, this wedding was about to happen and be done.

As I continued to dress in the small cry room of the church, I got hit with one issue after another.

The cry room was in the lobby of the church. Each time someone came to ask a question or give me bad news, the door opened and every one walking through at the moment could see me getting ready.

We had sent 100 invitations and had 89 people RSVP. The church has a capacity of 212 people. Because of my grandma’s death, we had family and friends who decided to show up. People who weren’t invited and people who hadn’t sent an RSVP walked through the door, filling this small church. With over 15 minutes left until the wedding, we already had people standing at the back of the sanctuary.

The first visit to my dressing room was my future mother-in-law. Her only comment to me was about my dress or maybe more so about me. She said without pause that if I had lost weight, my dress would have been beautiful on me. She turned and left before I had a chance to pick my chin up off the floor.

She was followed by a stream of older women from both sides of the family who were insistent on talking about losing my grandma.

Minutes to go, nothing else can go wrong. Right?

Wrong!

I get a very upset relative coming in stating there are not enough corsages to give to all the females in the wedding party. How could I be two short? I planned the flowers with precision and with one spare of everything. With my grandma gone, there should have been two extra. I told the family member to make sure mothers and grandmothers had flowers and someone would have to go without.

It was only long after the wedding was over that I would learn where the extra flowers had gone. My cousin, a.k.a. my uninvited personal attendant, had taken one corsage for herself. I’ll explain more later, but she gave her mother one as well and she kept one.

I can hear the music as the next person runs to me with a problem. It is Kent’s niece, one of our candle lighters. With all the men in place, Kent’s nephew Zack was our ring bearer. Sticking to tradition, I did put our wedding rings on the pillow. Zack, who was 5, had gotten a few steps down the aisle only to get scared and run with the ring pillow to the bathroom.

One of Kent’s brothers left the alter to get Zack out of the bathroom. He was carried down the aisle and yet another catastrophe was avoided.

One by one, everyone got down the aisle. The only one left was me. I stood there with my dad. The only reason my dad was allowed to walk me down the aisle was to keep with tradition and to avoid questions. While waiting our turn, my dad turned to me and in all honesty said that he felt sorry for Kent. He truly did and does believe that Kent could have done better than me for a wife.

Being a bit of a controlling person, I wrote and scripted our entire wedding. I felt as though it was important for both sets of parents to come to the alter once I arrived. The pastor asked each set of parents if they not only gave their child into this marriage but accepted the other as part of their family. As it was time for my in-laws to do their part, there was a sickening silence and an obviously reluctant agreement.

They all returned to their seats and the candle lighters came forward. I should have guessed that with three 9 year-old girls there would be some kind of problem. My two cousins lit their candles and all was fine. Kent’s niece could not keep her lighter going and her candles lit. Very loudly, she yelled to her mom that it wasn’t working. She stopped trying, started crying and finally ran off the stage. Another crisis, over.

The rest of the wedding went as planned.

Thinking again that it must be over? You would be wrong, again!

Everyone headed to the reception. Kent and I were still barely speaking to each other. I wasn’t even sure if I would be riding with him to the reception.

I had planned the reception and made changes when I knew there would be additional guests. I had chosen some friends to cut the cake and handle the gifts and guestbook.

Remember the missing flower that was given to my aunt? At the reception, my aunt informed one of my friends that they were no longer needed at the cake table. She took over and had no idea what my plans were. She started to cut cake before we arrived. Thankfully one of my stronger willed friends kept her from cutting our smallest cake that we had planned to freeze.

For the most part, our reception went as planned. When we lined up for the receiving line, my mom threw a childish fit. She wanted to be the last person in line. My mom isn’t an emotional or gracious person. As people would pass through the line, she would barely look at them and refused to shake a hand.

By this time, most of the photos had been taken and my mother-in-law was already angry. Even though it was her friend who took the photos and she had met with her, someone had overlooked the fact that she wanted a photo of her family. When I say her family, I mean without me! Hadn’t we just gone over that whole “united as one” thing? At least with her pouting, she was out of my hair for the time being.

As we got ready to leave, we were prepared for the traditional throwing of bird seed. In true redneck fashion, my family was ready to pelt us and they did. We both got bird seed in the mouth and nose. I not only got bird seed in my eyes, but I got a corneal abrasion that would cause a blurry, watery eye for days.

Now, it was time to clean up. I headed in to change out of my dress, which was a relief. The wedding was over, the dress was off and all the catastrophes were over.

As I began to clean up, I realized that most of our centerpieces were missing. My all too helpful cousin had been giving them away to her friends. There were two left, all was good.

We couldn’t leave as planned for our honeymoon because of the funeral. Both sides of the family met at my grandparents house that evening. There is nothing quite like spending your wedding night with all of your family, right?

Everyone fed on the many, many meals that people had dropped off. We were exhausted, but everyone insisted that we open our wedding gifts.

I think it must have been our exhaustion that kept us from noticing at the time, but some of our gifts were disappearing. I remember unwrapping some beautiful candlestick holders, placemats, crystal vase, photo albums and cookware that were never found. When I found them in the list that was made as we opened gifts, I knew I hadn’t imagined those wonderful gifts. Someone in one of our families had taken our wedding gifts when nobody was looking. It was odd sending thank you cards for gifts I never got!

We spent our wedding night at my grandparents house listening to a relative snore on the couch in the next room.

The next day was the visitation for my grandma. I had stayed busy enough that I missed most of the many weird trips to the funeral home to visit my grandma’s body. During those times, my family left notes, games, and other obscure things in the casket with her. As I walked in, I saw the last missing corsage. My cousin and aunt had made a decision to take one of them from the wedding and pin it on my grandma.

That Sunday and Monday are foggy at best and went fast.

Because of the timing of the funeral, Kent was unable to return the tuxes on time. He had to pay an additional day on all of them. Oh, did I mention my dad refused to pay for his tux and Kent paid for it?

Thinking it must be over? No, there’s one more thing!

We arrived in Eureka Springs, AR on Monday afternoon. Finally, we were beginning our married life with our honeymoon. After checking into our room, we ate at a restaurant that was recommended to us by the desk clerk at the hotel.

Just a few hours after eating, Kent became very sick. We are almost positive that he was the recipient of food poisoning because he spent the rest of the honeymoon sick.

We obviously survived each and every hurdle. But to say the odds were stacked against us getting a good start in married life would be an understatement.

Yes, I have to laugh when I think of the chain of events.

Yes, Kent and I could have given up and walked away at any time.

I have to believe that it was God’s plan for us to be married. Even though I didn’t grasp what it meant to believe in God then, I believe God was working on me. I think God knew I would need a reminder for the rest of my life that when He plans something, He will make it happen.