My American Life Part 2 –The Wedding

Our wedding was nearly perfect. Ok it was perfect. That’s a joke…I’ll explain it later.

As I’m sure you know the planning and preparing for a wedding is stressful. Ours was no different. Quite frankly I could not wait for that part to be over. I just was ready to be married!

We decided to get married on Harstine Island. Harstine Island is a special place to Tim as he spent his childhood years on the island for many school breaks. His parents had a cabin there and they went quite frequently.

Harstine is one of the very first places Tim took me to after we met in person. In fact he had planned for us to have our 1^st kiss there but he didn’t hold out and he ended up kissing me in the customs area at Seatac. Ha! But that is a story for another time.

Tim and I at Harstine for the 1st time.

 

Tim had friends from church who live on Harstine now and we asked if we could have our wedding on the pointe as it is a private area. Sure enough they agreed and booked the venue for us.  Thank you much Doug and Carol!

It really was perfect….But there was a catch. We could only have 50 people at the wedding. That was VERY challenging for us. Tim and I know a lot of people and we both have a lot of family. There are so many DEAR people to me that I would of loved to have at our wedding. If I lost sleep over anything this was it. It was such a hard process but we tried to stick to people who had loved us through our ups and downs and people who were actively involved in our lives at this time.

We had dear friends and family come from all over. New York, Florida, Colorado, California, Idaho, and even my sister and her family from New Zealand. It was a WHIRLWIND the week before the wedding.  I barely remember it. But it was great….in fact I want a do over as I feel like I did not have enough time with everyone!

The day of the wedding was SO lovely. The weather was perfect. I felt so blessed to be marrying Tim. I was just in awe of all that God had done and EVERYONE was so happy for us.

Our friends, my sister and daughter-in-law worked their buns off setting up and making everything perfect. I could go on and on about how our friends and family went beyond the call of duty for us.

The most important part of the day to me was our ceremony. I wanted to honor God more than anything. I wanted everyone to know…GOD DID THIS!

Chari and Hannah were our darling Flower Girls!

 

I walked in on my Dad and Son’s arms…It was so special.

My childhood best friend Shannon and her daughter Elli were singing Holy Spirit you are welcome here as we walked in.

I remember feeling so beautiful. That was mostly due to the way Tim was looking at me. He just had pure love in his eyes…and I felt like his beautiful princess. Ladies… Hold out for a man who looks at you like this. This is what it is supposed to be like. Don’t settle!!

Our Officiate was Peter Kopp! Does that name sound familiar? It should because I spent the last two years with him and his wife Mary Jean in Swaziland. Yes it just so happened that Peter and Mary Jean (MJ) were home for a short furlough and Peter could marry us. That was like the icing on the cake as MJ and Peter had been so supportive of Tim and I as we dated long distance. I had many evening walks with MJ (and Louie) talking about this man Tim Rogers that seemed to pop into my life out of nowhere.

 

An important person that was missing from our wedding was Tim’s Father. He is not well and in an assisted living home. Tim, his brothers, and his uncle surprised Tim’s mom by honoring him and singing one of his songs he used to sing when he was in a singing group called the Swordsmen. It was nice to see the smile on Tim’s moms face as she remembered her husband.

Towards the end of our ceremony we asked some of our friends to read scripture over us and our marriage. If there is anything I believe in it is the power of God’s word.

 

Tim surprised me after this with a song. Shannon along with Tim’s brothers Danny and Phil sang… Give Me Jesus. This is a very special song to me as every morning in Swaziland I listened to it. It truly helped me push through some very long hard stretches while I was there. It is my anthem. It was so beautiful and sweet and Tim even became a bit emotional during it.

At the very end of the ceremony we had our children join us for a family prayer. We wanted to signify not only were we joining as husband and wife but two families were also joining together.

Then it happened…. We were pronounced husband and wife.

I am in fact… Mrs. Rogers.

The rest of the evening was so fun as we just hung out….ate food, drank wine, made S’mores and visited with each other. We pretty much did nothing traditional at this point. No cake cutting, No throwing the bouquet. We just enjoyed the beautiful scenery and each other.

 

At the end of the night Tim and I drove off on a golf cart… My son, Courtney, and my sister  with a few others were decorating it. My ADORABLE 4 year old nephew Ayrton from New Zealand came up to Courtney and said in his ADORABLE Kiwi accent. Wow…This is going to be so special! It’s nearly perfect! Courtney said… Oh, why is it only nearly perfect? Ayrton responded… I haven’t put my glow stick on it yet. Then he popped his glow stick off his arm and put it on the golf cart and declared…. NOW it’s perfect.

SO there you have it….Our Nearly Perfect day that did indeed become Perfect.

Shout outs…

Loree Durham (Super woman!) and Jen Harthorne who met with me and planned with me on multiple occasions to make the day perfect. They also were in charge of set up…tear down and drove crazy amounts of stuff to Harstine Island for me. LOVE YOU!!

Courtney Chaffin (My daughter-in-love) who designed our lovely invitations, programs, and our signs for the wedding. You are THE BEST! Love you!

My beautiful sister Kristie and my beautiful daughter-in-love Courtney who came up the day before to Harstine with me and scrubbed tables and tied ribbons on pies. We also drove around in the golf carting yelling…SPRING BREAK! Love you!

Jaylin Lopez who did my hair and makeup and made me look like a princess.  She drove all the way out from North Seattle and trust me when I tell you that was a LONG drive!  Thank you to her Auntie- My Bestie Teresa Ayers for making it all happen.  LOVE you two!

My awesome Bro Eric Bodeutsch who made our arch for us. I just showed him a picture and he got’er done. Love you!

Jen Harthorne… AKA.. Jens Blossoms. Thank you for my amazing flowers. You went way beyond of what I ever dreamt of. Thank you for your beautiful heart!

Allison Fox.. My friend who said to me…I know I’m not getting an invitation to the wedding so I’ll do anything to be there. Put me to work… and boy did we. You made me able to REALLY enjoy the day. You have no idea what a lifesaver you were. Love you Mama!!

(SUPER UPSET WE DO NOT HAVE A PHOTO TOGETHER!!!!)

Allison is in white pants and working her tail off!  You rock Mama!!

Paulette Bodeutsch… I don’t know what I would do without you. You are always so willing to serve. Thank you for running to the store with all of my frantic requests! And helping the whole entire wedding! (Before and after I might add!)  You have a heart of gold. Love you!!

Paulette and I on a girls trip.  Once again I can not believe we didn’t get a picture together at the wedding!

Tim’s college buddies Brian and Michael… Thanks for being work horses… You guys were amazing and the burgers were delish! Seriously we do not know what we would of done without you!! If I wrote what you did to help it would be longer than my blog. You are THE BEST!

Our dear families… You all helped in SO many ways…Thank you! We love you!

The Rogers Family

The Bodeutsch / Chaffin Family

And of course thank you  to our amazing photographer Steve Schmidt @Olyphotos  who really caught the essence of our day.  Thank you so much for your time and care.

Now please hang on because I am getting to the good part and what I really want to share with you and that is our honeymoon.

Trust me when I tell you this is no normal honeymoon.  It will be my final part to this blog and all about our trip back to my beloved Swaziland.

God is good …all the time.  Thank you once again for love and care.