Lin and Nate's Wedding (Part 1)

 

 

I have known my sister as Linda since the day I was born. I never knew, till a few months ago, that Linda really doesn't like her name. She told me that the day she was named, they took "Linda" and nailed it into a coffin and buried it forever. No one has been named Linda since. She decided no too long ago that from then on she would begin training people to call her Lin, and anyone who she is introduced to would never even know that her name is Linda. I have a real hard time getting used to calling her Lin. It used to be a "sibling" thing, we had nicknames for each other. My brother Kirby, was "Kirb", Laurie (Linda's twin) was "Lar Par", I was "Su Pu", and Linda was "Lin Pin the big fat hen", a nickname that we were totally allowed to voice since, as you will see, she doesn't have an ounce of "fat" in her. There was that one exception, we were still allowed to call her that, lovingly of course, when she was out to here carrying her three precious babies, yes, all at the same time.

You can understand why it is very hard for me to call he Lin without adding at least Pin.

 

But I will.  

 

I told her at her rehearsal dinner this is not the end of a chapter, and the beginning of a new, this is the end of a book. Tonight you get to slam that old one shut; tomorrow you open up and begin writing a new story.

 

I will from now on do my very best to honor her new story and call her Lin. But be warned everyone, Lin Pin may slip out every once in a while. ;)

 

***

 

I am notoriously bad at taking pictures. All three of my siblings are great photographers, but they are incredibly annoying ones too. When you have three crazy photographers with -compared to mine- state of the art cameras, that insist on taking pictures of everything and everybody all the time, adding my simple little camera to the mix was both embarrassing and unnecessary. To have one more person yelling wait! wait! just to pull out my rinky dink camera would be asking for more sighs and humphs than I was willing to listen to. Unfortunately, years of the same old song and dance trained me to never take the initiative to capture priceless moments, I was only conditioned to step aside and let others do the work. I really hate that about me, and I have tried and tried to get better at being a more proactive picture taker. Before we left for this trip I told my boys: This weekend is not about you. You will endure the 12 hour trip to and from Nashville without complaining, and you will gladly pose with a genuine smile on your beautiful faces for every picture that you are asked to be in. Go it? They did, and they were awesome.

 

 I did better than I usually do. But I really did a poor job at getting pictures of Lin and even worse of her husband Nate. After spending two hours curling my nieces hair, you'd think I would have at least had a record of my beautiful handiwork. But no, I don't have a single picture of them. Sigh...

 

But without further ado, here we go with what I was able to capture on this beautiful, perfect day.

 

 

 

Laurie, Lin and me

Grace, me and Kelsey. (my nieces, Laurie's daughters)

Kelsey, Laurie, and Grace

My mother passed away in January 2000. Although we are all very glad that she was not around to witness the heartbreaks Linda went through, her absence that day was deeply felt and was very difficult. Lin did a fabulous job, however, to weave her memory into her big day. My mom made the cross-stitch of the Samford bell tower with Lin's favorite verse, Proverbs 3:4-5. This is the verse that Lin and Nate chose as their Wedding theme verse. The picture Lin chose is of my mom at age 14. The reason she chose this particular picture is because the necklace that Lin wore that day is the same necklace my mom is wearing in that picture. It is probably the most beautiful and unique necklace I have ever seen. Scroll up and you can see it on Lin. So sorry, I don't have a close-up :(

As if not having my mom there to watch Lin coming down the isle was not hard enough already, Lin had all of the guests stand and sing my mom's favorite hymn "Great is thy Faithfulness". I believe that this is one of Lin's favorite hymns, if not the favorite. The stories wrapped around the lyrics of that hymn are a testament to the faith and legacy that my mother left for us, and filled with promises for the new life that Lin and Nate will begin to share. I have never been able to sing that song without crying, May 25th was no exception.

After that the tears did not stop. Without telling me, Lin had picked the same wedding song that Mike and I had sung at our wedding almost 22 years ago. I was tearing up really bad, then I had the urge to look at Mike lovingly, only to find him tearing up as well. I amost fell appart, but I barely kept my composure. The song was I Will be Here, By Stephen Curtis Chapman. It was performed by my niece Grace, and an amazing up and coming country music singer, Paul Bogart. (it will be worth your time to follow this link. Paul sang the song, It all Started in the Kitchen, at the reception. It's a super cute song!)  I'll let you know when my niece becomes famous. And trust me, she will, she is unbelievable! Grace wrote a song for Lin and Nate and sang it at the reception, but as my very bad luck would have it, I was in the restroom and missed the entire thing. I'm still trying to recover from the disappointment.

Picture time was short and sweet. In the meantime I had a few pictures taken of my family. I'm really pleased how they turned out, so I will share some with you.

Me and my dad. Yes, we look ridiculously alike, I know.

Elijah -12, me, Mike, Isaac-14

Another favorite family picture


 

Me and Isaac
I left this photo extra large on purpose. It was the best way for me to show off my son's amazing eye lashes. Most women would kill for these!

It's Reception time! Join me tomorrow for the rest of the story...