Thursday, October 09, 2008

morning of wedding

Our wedding was at 6:30 pm in another town about 45 minutes away from my parents' home. 

Since we didn't have a rehearsal the night before, we did a walk though around noon with the family members in the wedding and then met for a lite lunch.  Then the girls left to go get hair and make up done. 

But . . . before I get ahead of myself . . .let's talk about the morning of. 

Pre-Wedding Worship and Thanksgiving TimeLawrance decided to include a tradition from Taiwanese weddings into our wedding day in America.  In Taiwan the bride and groom give a gift of appreciation to their parents.  Since we were not going to do this at the wedding, he decided to invite my parents over to our neighbors' home (where he was staying; they are more than neighbors since we've worshiped together for over ten years). 

Lawrance desired not only to thank my parents for how they raised me and for allowing him to become a part of the family, but he also desired to start off the day focused and centered on Christ.  He wanted to calm his own nerves by worshiping the Lord, reading Scripture, and spending time in prayer.  He wanted to remember the whole purpose of this day was to glorify God.

Pre-Wedding Worship and Thanksgiving TimeWe met at the neighbors' home at about 9:30 for a great southern breakfast and then a time of worship and prayer.  During this time, Lawrance presented my parents with a gift of appreciation.  And, I also presented the neighbor couple a gift of appreciation. 

Lawrance led this very special time . . . which left all the girls in tears. :)

It was a WONDERFUL way to start off one the most special days in our lives! 

Oct 9, 2008 5:39:00 AM | culture, family, lawrance, prayer, spirituality, the states, wedding

5 Comments

Leigh

I cried reading this blog. So beautiful! What a blessing to have your husband lead you into marriage with Christ glorified and the center of it all! Thank you for sharing this!

God Bless!

Posted by: Leigh | Thursday, October 09, 2008 at 11:38 AM

Leslie

How wonderful, Amanda!! I hope you will share more.

Posted by: Leslie | Thursday, October 09, 2008 at 12:45 PM

Rose

Amanda, We did a thank you to our parents during our ceremony. It is still something both sets cherish to this day. Both sets of our parents taught us to keep Christ as the center and so that was our goal from the moment we were married forward. Now 9 years later, we are still keeping our eyes on the goal.

And Stephen and I also had breakfast together the morning of our wedding. We didn't include our families as our wedding was at 11 am, so we met at Denny's at 6:00 am to spend some much needed time together and to calm our nerves. Still one of the best decisions made that day.

Congratulations again. I'm enjoying your new memories and being brought back to mine.

Posted by: Rose | Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 02:47 AM

sandy h.

I'm sure there wasn't a dry eye in the room! What a sweet and special way to spend the morning of your wedding. I like Lawrance even more after hearing about this, ha. People always say that a wedding is the "bride's day" but you both truly made it a day to glorify God. Awesome!

Posted by: sandy h. | Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 08:31 AM

Bethany

I have so much enjoyed catching up on your blog! What a beautiful wedding and thank you so much for sharing all the little details! I don't ever get tired of hearing about happy couples getting married and I'm still so excited for you!

You were so beautiful!!

Posted by: Bethany | Monday, November 10, 2008 at 11:13 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

NEXT POST
thoughts about our wedding One of the things I fought during wedding planning was stress. Meaning I made every effort possible to avoid it. I totally wanted to enjoy the preparation and the day of as much as possible. Of course there were a few intense moments--but let's just chock those up to little sleep and an uncooperative-for-the-moment computer. :) In fact, for this self-confessed perfectionist, letting go of so much that I would have wanted "perfect" was both a struggle and a blessing. My mom was great in her constant encouragement of "no second guessing" and "no, you are not allowed to rethink that." Some other things that helped the stress factor was that we planned everything in practically one month. The first month we were engaged I was still in Taiwan . . . I started to look at things online (mostly images of real weddings on flickr and a few blogs about real weddings). And we did decide place and date that first month, but that was about all. Oh, yeah, and I choose the gerber daises--the oh so important gerber daisies which set the mood for everything else I decided! :) The third month, Lawrance was in America, and I wanted to spend lots of time with him, showing him Texas and introducing him to family. So, of that third month, only the last week was "wedding week." We did do a few other "wedding" stuff his first day in the States--got the marriage license, fitted the boys for tuxes, and picked out our rings. But that was it for the next few weeks. It was that second month back home that mom and I did most of the planning. So, I count this as a good thing and not as a stressful thing because I couldn't have it in whatever elusive "perfect way" I could envision. I loved that my choices--due to time and money--were limited. Instead of how in the world could I make this as beautiful as possible, I was limited to "here is choice one, two, and three; which one do you like best?" "Two please, but can we do it in pink instead?" "Yes." Ahh . . . so nice. I also didn't have time "to be married to any idea." There were several times we "cut" stuff simply because to do it in the time we had it would have been stressful . . . and no one but us even knew it was cut. I wanted our wedding to be simple, joyful, and God-centered. I wanted it to be uniquely us, but still have traditional elements. I wanted it to be worshipful and reverent but at the same time a fun celebration. I know it's a dichotomous combination, but somehow it totally worked and came together beautifully if I do say so myself! :) And, Lawrance was totally flexible about so much and OH SO VERY supportive. For example . . . one night as I was picking out songs to use for...
PREVIOUS POST
quasi-rehearsal on site After we worshiped together, we piled in cars and headed north to Salado. Then, we had a lunch time rehearsal with the family members who would be in the wedding. We didn't do a full, formal rehearsal because (1) the day before we were at my grandmother's 85th birthday party, (2) the night before there was another wedding going on, (3) there were only a few people involved--it didn't seem necessary, and (4) the groom's family didn't come to the wedding. Let's talk about that real quick. . . . Since the time from deciding to marry and the actual wedding was very short--three months--that made buying international tickets difficult. Originally it was his father's idea that we go ahead and marry this summer instead of waiting another year, so since it was their idea this softened my guilt of not having them be apart of the day. But really, this entire ceremony was a very Western/Christian thing to do . . . the ceremony we choose to do has little to no meaning to my new in-laws. This does NOT mean it is not important to them nor does it take away the sadness that they were unable to attend, but it does lessen the sadness a little. Also, we are going to also celebrate our marriage in a very Taiwanese way in the spring (6 months after our American wedding) which will be MUCH more meaningful and important to them. All involved felt ok with our decisions . . . and Lawrance didn't mind so (I made sure of that MANY times) . . . so this was what happened/is happening: we celebrate American style in America and Taiwanese style in Taiwan. Lawrance was also comforted by the fact that neither of my grandfathers had their families present at their weddings . . . he felt like he was in great company. :D (We also had another quasi-rehearsal a week earlier for some of the "little people" who would be in the wedding. We wanted them to know what to do, but didn't want them to have to stick around for several hours waiting for the wedding to start.) Here are a few shots from our informal and VERY HOT rehearsal:

amanda p. wu

Ali Edwards
Molly Irwin

Search

My Other Accounts

Recent Comments