~My Forever Love part 2~

Note: Since I did not have many comments on part one, you might want to read that before reading this one. It is on how I met my forever love and the engagement.

Today, I am going to tell you about our wedding. Actually part of it is kind of funny and scary! We decided to get married in the temple. We were both worthy and we felt it was the right thing to do. This was a very hard decision for both of us because neither of us had any family in the church who could go to the temple. None of my family were members of the church. Actually my dad is an ordained baptist minister. I joined the church in college and never told them. So, it was really hard for me to explain to them that I was getting married and they could not come. My dad tried to get me to see how wrong the church was and he was even a little mean to my future husband. (They get along great now) I am really glad that I never told them I joined the church until then because I really do not think I would have been able to answer some of the anti things my dad was telling me about the church. I had been in the church for about 3 years and I knew a lot more. My dh's family had just joined the church so they could not go to the temple with us either, but they were very supportive about us going to the temple to get married. Anyways, at that time, we had no temple in our state. Oue temple district at that time was St. Louis Missouri. That is about a 7 hour trip for us. We wanted to get married in that temple anyways because we both felt that it was really the place that we fell in love. So, anyways, we drove to St. Louis to get married. We really did not have a lot of money and I think our branch knew that because they gave us mostly money for shower gifts, because they knew we wanted to get married in the temple. I remember one lady giving us a $100 bill and she said I want you all to be able to go to the temple, this should help cover your room expenses. This was an expereince that really made me know we were doing the right thing. I had invited the sister missionaries who had taught me the gospel. One was living in Kentucky, her dh was going to school and they drove down to the temple. The other one lived in Salt Lake and she and her dh flew down. I was glad I had invited them and they came because I would have had nobody there and I did not know that I needed witnesses. So, anyways we traveled down the day before and got to the St. Louis County Courthouse, which was not the most easiest thing to find. We are from a very rural part of Kentucky, and to us this felt like New York City! The courthouse was also VERY scary for both of us. When you go in you have to go through metal detectors and they wand you. We went and got the license. Next, we had to get it signed by the judge. We were told to go to his courtroom, which we did we sat in the back and there were like 30 prisoners in there. We were both really scared. DH left me there and went to find out what was going on, I was scared to death! Finally, we found the judges chambers. We went to pay the fee and found out that he had waived the fee for the license which was really nice! (We looked back at that expereince and laugh!) The next morning, we left our hotel for the temple. (Just in case you are wondering...yes we had separate rooms) We went through a session first and I am really glad we did that. Well, anyways we got sealed and married all in one day. We had a really neat sealer. He told us lots of neat things, I remember some and dh remembers some that I do not. One thing he said was we need to keep a bucket of water at our back door to remind us to keep out fires. The fires he was talking about was yelling and fighting. He said we needed to become one in everything we do. That is about the best I can remember on some of the things he told us. I think the bucket of water thing is hillarious! After the ceremony, we went outside to take pictures. It was February, but it was really nice out and the flowers at the temple were really beautiful! It was really funny because people from my first singles branch were there and did not even know I was getting married. We spent one more night in St. Louis and then headed home. We spent our week off moving my dh into my apartment and getting settled. The next weekend we had a reception at our branch. Both our families came and it was really neat to be able to include them. We had a ring ceremony and I think that helped them to feel more included. It was snowing all day and we got some really neat pictures in the snow. Quite a bit different weather than we had at the temple!

Anyways that's the story of how I met and married my forever love! We now have three beautiful children and one on the way. We even got twins! What a blessing! I really think the Lord had plans for us to be together, we both just had to be in the right place. We later found out that we got baptised the same year and week. So, the Lord was really working in our lives to prepare us to be together. I am so glad that we were doing the right things and found each other!

Stay tuned for tommorrow's post about our children.....