instead of's

- Instead of a guest book we'll never look at again, Danny and I thought up a creative way to remember who was there to share our special day with us. As you walk into our venue, there will be a big glass jar full of fabric squares. You'll grab a pen, write a little note, bible verse, smiley face, thumb's up- whatever you want. Then the sweet mom of a dear friend of ours is going to sew the squares up with fun fabrics to make us a quilt. And we'll use it for the rest of our lives and remember the happiest day and all who were there with us.

- Instead of dancing to Lovers in Japan's acoustic version like we thought, our first dance is going to be to Jon Foreman's In My Arms. If you remember, he sang this song to me before he proposed. It is a better dancing song, slower, shorter, the lyrics are so meaningful, and well, we just love it. (But we still really love Lovers in Japan, too, so we're using it as our recessional)

-Instead of white cake, chocolate cake, and yes even lemon cake, we went with a carrot cake. Trust me- it's incredible. Don't miss out on a piece.

-Instead of taking our bride and groom pictures after the ceremony, we're getting dressed up again the next day to take them. We don't want to be rushed and we want to have good light and we don't want to be away from our lovely guests for hours while we could be partying it up! So we'll snap just a few on our wedding day with our wedding party and families, a few of just us, and wait until Saturday to take the majority of our lovey dovey pictures. Oh ya, and our photographer is simply the best.

-Instead of getting cold feet, being nervous, or any other scary emotion- Danny and I couldn't be more excited to unite as husband and wife. I never knew love could be this good! Thank you thank you thank you for all your prayers and encouraging words the past 9 months of our engagement. We are so blessed with wonderful friends and families and we are eternally grateful.