THE WEDDING!

The Wedding -- the only one we will ever host! Why didn't we have more girls? This was fun!
Above, of course, Dad dancing with Bride Jenni. They had fun, didn't they? But of course, this was the reception, we are supposed to have fun!

The week before the wedding was a whirlwind of last minute activities. We had guests from Chile at our house -- Kani - Rod's friend from childhood, and Cristian -- Rod's brother. We also had Lindsey -- Jenni's bridesmaid and friend of Rod from Chile. We worked on wedding stuff and ate way too much!

Decorating the church was actually easy -- we had lots of help. We decorated on Wednesday evening. On Thursday, we finished up by adding trees to the auditorium. And, dumb old me, I have absolutely no pictures of it! I can only hope our photographer took some!

Table Decorations at Rehearsal dinner -- Cute!

Friday night -- rehearsal dinner. Wow! The Rehearsal went great. Decorations -- provided by my sister and our friend Sue Tate. The food -- awesome! We had Freebirds cater it. So everyone had lots of burritos made to order. And dessert -- Banana Pudding. Homemade by my friend Barbie. She even made some without bananas for Jay! A good time had by all. It was so fun seeing family and meeting folks from Chile.


Saturday -- the Big Day! We planned it to be relaxing. It mostly was! I have no idea what the guys did. I do know Mike and Rod took care of the honeymoon hotel and cleaning Jenni's ring. The girls started out with breakfast at The Raven. We were lucky enough to get the Treaty Room, so it was private. (Mike and Jay and Ava ate in the regular dining room. We could hear Ava talking sometimes.) Below, the Bride and her Bridesmaids after Breakfast.

Next up for us -- hair and make-up. My appt was first, the others came about an hour later. Kristin took pictures of everyone getting their hair done. I chose to take a picture of the Bride only. See below.
Next, the girls headed to the church to get dressed. Now that was a process! The dresses were all corseted in the back, so they each had to be laced in to their dresses. Time consuming. However, Jenni had to be laced, too, and that looked harder. It took two bridesmaids to get her laced in. And they had practiced before, so I know it went faster than for the bridal portraits.






































And of course, we had to get Miss Ava ready for her performance, too. She looked so cute! And no one really saw her bloomers -- Sarah had put ruffles on her cotton panties to match her dress!

Now, the wedding is about to begin. I stopped taking pictures! Mike and I were downstairs greeting folks. It was probably the hottest day of the year! The church had left the a/c on for two days, but the foyer was still warm. However, the auditorium was cool. Both in temperature and in atmosphere. All the lights were off, except for the stage. We had hanging lanterns down the aisle, along with tulle and lights down the side of the pews. We had 10 trees on each side aisle, and lights in the trees. It looked great and felt good. As mentioned -- no pictures.

I was so impressed with the ceremony Jenni and Rod had planned. Very thoughtful, very spiritual, and very fun. After the bridesmaids were down the aisle, the wedding party stood at the foot of the stage and there was congregational singing led by a singing group -- members mostly of the missionary team in Santiago. Jenni and Rod walked up the stage and turned and faced the audience. Their minister, Kelly Grant, stood at the foot of the stairs. He began by talking to the audience, giving us background on this lovely couple, then turned to face Jenni and Rod for the actual vows. The ceremony was in English and in Spanish. It was just a great wedding ceremony.

Last stop, of course, the reception at the Cacharel Ballroom in Arlington. Oh my goodness! What a great place! Below is a picture of the decorations. Jenni and I and bridesmaids made the centerpieces. The pink and red ones are made out of cherry sours and strawberry whoppers (used toothpicks and hot glue on those).











The dinner was pecan crusted chicken in a wine sauce, green beans almondine, whipped potatoes. Totally awesome. I am using that word too much, but it was! The food was actually hot! And there were a lot of people to be served. Dessert, of course, wedding cake, and groom's cake. Both were absolutely delicious. If you look, the second from the top layer had Jenni and Rod's monogram. It was a white cake, very moist. We plan to order one soon just to savor the flavor again!

The groom's cake was quite a show stopper! Rod loves oreos, so the cake looks like an oreo! They decorated with oreos around the cake instead of the usual strawberries you see on groom's cakes. When Jenni and Rod toasted after the tasting of the groom's cake, they had big glasses of milk!

The top view does not do the cake justice, though. Below a picture of the cake from the normal view.
From here, I stopped taking pictures. I didn't even take one single picture of Rod and Jenni together! Can you believe it? But, two more pictures before I close. One of Jenni and her favorite niece, and one of Jenni with her favorite brother.




































Truly an unforgettable evening. A real celebration of love. We are so thankful so many friends and family members were able to share in this joyous occasion. We were so thankful to see so many friends from Chile there. We are so thankful to have Rod as a member of our family now. I believe he and Jenni are truly a match made in Heaven. We look forward to getting to know him.

"So now we can rejoice in our wonderful
new relationship with God--
all because of what our Lord Jesus Christ
has done for us in making us friends of God."
Romans 5:11