Our wedding day was hectic. Mike and I have survived so much together in the short years weve been together, including surviving loss from a hurricane and tornadoes the day of our rehearsal. The week of our wedding, Mikes fathers health took a quick decline; he ended up not in attendance for our wedding and he passed on the last day of our honeymoon. We were unsure until the morning of our wedding if his mother could even leave the hospital in time to make it to the ceremony. We were so pleased to just be getting married, but it was a lot of stress making sure his family was taken care of.

The moments before our ceremony the wind and rain rolled up and was so cold! My father described it as a cleansing of our past, leaving behind every hardship we had endured and starting renewed as husband and wife.

The theme for our wedding was Antique Garden. I wanted to use a lot of antique gold and brass items in my centerpieces and adding a lot of white flowers and greenery made everything look fresh yet still timeless.

One of the most unique elements of our wedding was the arch that was under the tree for our ceremony, hand built by my husband. We took it home with us to attach a swing to it. Looking back, I would not change anything about our ceremony. The photos under the great oak tree, exchanging our vows under the arch that my husband built for meit is all a beautiful chapter to our story, even given the cold wind and rain! ~ Kristen