Today is our 6th anniversary!
These are two of my favorite pics from our wedding, tho i've posted these pics before. I wrote of our wedding last year. I went back & tried to edit the pics in this new format to make them larger, but it won't cooperate. So, thus it is.
Here are the links: Our Wedding/Our Anniversary Saturday! The Story of my Dress
Then pics from our honeymoon: Honeymoon 1 Honeymoon 2 All of the pics from our honeymoon were taken by Duane. I wrote lots & lots (much about baby struggle) too, but i'm linking so you can see the pics.
We are going to our favorite "nicer" restaurant tonight, The Peppercorn. (I'm usually not too bad at spelling, over all, but i can never spell "restaurant" correctly & have to use spell check every single time!) No other real plans. Duane is going for a SAR training tomorrow.
Edit, a few more links: Duane My dress The church Our priest
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Y'all are so sweet!
I did love my dress. Its story is rather mundane, but i was proud of it.I have blogged about this before. In fact i had to spend some time searching for it. I've not used labels - i'm finding that was a mistake. At some time in the future i may go back & add them. If i do that, you can disregard the notification. I think if you are notified about things, it alerts you to edits, too. So you might end up with a lot of old posts in your box.I did post on our wedding, mostly back in March. Most of these pics are the same as those i just used. But i had to post again for our anniversary, for this is the first since i've begun blogging! Anyway, i did about 5 posts with pics. This one with some details is the most extensive. (If you're interested, you could just go back to the March archives.)
My sisters shopped for the dress with me. We found it at an outlet store for $44. It was just a rather plain, strapless dress but the back with the gold roses was so pretty. They tried to talk me out of it, for it was a little tight. But i was SURE i could lose some weight before the wedding. I talk about that in the "confession/TMI" part of the "some details" post.
I had seen a dress a i fell in love with online, but it was more than i wanted to spend, so i set out to make this one similar. It had deep, long lace over the bodice & arms. So i purchased some lace & beads. Spent about as much on them as i did for the dress. I tea-stained the lace to match the dress, & then hand beaded the lace. I did it at work in "down time" of which i had quite a lot in those days. The beaded fringe is mostly cream beads with a gold one to match the train at the end. And the rosettes of the lace are outlined in beads. Then i put a braid of gold & cream over it to use to attach to the dress. I did the same for my shoes, too. I tea-stained some simple white ballet slippers & beaded them with lace & embroidery. They are not visible in a single pic. They did have a silver sixpence tucked under the lace to fulfill the " . . . something blue, with a silver sixpence in her shoe."
Sis #2 attached the lace to the bodice of the dress for me the AM of the wedding. I had been working & planning for months, but a lot of things happened at the last minute. The dress also did not have a train. But it was too long for me, so Dear Friend Brenda hemmed the front of it & that created the train in the back.My sisters were right (thus the TMI story) & i didn't realize how this dress would look on. We had a lot of pics not for public view because of the amount of cleavage shown, & so sometimes i remember our wedding with some embarrassment because of that. But hey! It is long over, we had a good time, & we're MARRIED! The wedding is only a day. An important one, but only the beginning of a life together.Sadly, that dress is no more. 
I wasn't careful in its storage, & the kitties evidently used the smooth satin as a ladder to the top shelf in our closet. So i decided there wasn't much i could do for it. I removed the hand beaded lace & the lace with gold roses at the back. I think i saved the buttons, too. And then the dress was discarded.
A couple of pics of handsome Duane for good measure. And one of the wedding flowers. My bouquet was daisies with baby's breath around them. The bride's maids were daisies with Michaelmas daisies (purple asters).
I did push myself really hard when my family was here. And then went to work for a couple of days. Sadly, i've spent most of today recovering. But we are planning a dinner out together tonight. Duane is treating me to horseback riding for an anniversary present, & he created the most beautiful & thoughtful card. I didn't do much. He bought something he wanted & we're calling it an anniversary present. (Well we DID do something . . . :P)
I keep editing this! Just a post script . . . daisies are delicate. They last a long time in water, but as a boutonniere they looked sad at the end of the night after Duane had been hugged over & over!
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I'm thankful i've a place to rant. Thanks to those who are so supportive, too. Most of that post will soon disappear.
Amrita in North India said from my wedding post that Praveen sounds like an Indian name. And so it is. Here we are with him after the wedding.
We love Fr. Praveen. He is warm & delightful. He no longer is at that church, & we miss him.
Here is another pic of Praveen during the service, one i already posted. (Click on pic, it will enlarge.) I think it is blessing the ring. And here is one of the church. St. James in Newport Beach. I had attended there since 1990, until we moved to BB two years ago. Isn't the church beautiful?
As an aside, isn't the internet wonderful? It is putting folks who never could have met otherwise in contact. Amrita has a little cartoon in her sidebar that says, "I love my computer because my friends live in it." I've now friends all over the place. I saw a poll recently asking if the internet is a good thing or a bad thing. I was confused by that until they explained "bad thing" as pornography & online gambling & other things that destroy people's lives. So, i guess it depends on who you are & how you choose to use it. But i'm certainly grateful.
Oh, check out Bobkat's blog with a post on smiling. It will put one on your face! So much to be grateful for in this wonderful world God created.
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My dear friend Dawn checks out the blog, but doesn't comment here. She loves the pics! Thanks Dawn! And requests Duane & i together on our wedding day. I've a bunch. It will be hard to stick to just a couple. (If you click on the pics it will enlarge to see details. It doesn't work on the sidebar pics.)
Ok, i held myself to four, no five. Duane & i didn't do the traditional "don't see the bride before . . ." I'm glad we didn't. See, the wedding was at 6 PM. Father Praveen promised a short service, but it didn't work out that way. And nearly everyone took communion to our surprise, so it was dark when we got out, & several of these pics wouldn't have been possible. 
I didn't intend to do a veil, but i had saved the baby's breath from the first flowers Duane ever gave me. It dried nicely & i planned to put it in my hair. It was forgotten & left in a cabinet at home. 
I've a confession to make. (This maybe TMI, but it is kind of funny.) I was disappointed i'd not lost more weight before the wedding. When i'd tried on the dress, i'd always done the bra/corset on the outter hooks. But the day of the wedding i was so disppointed i used the inner hooks, trying to be thinner. This did two things i didn't realize. One, it pushed up my considerable bosom making that part of me look a lot larger. Second, it allowed the dress to slip slightly . . . see where this is going? I was mortified at a number of the returning pics, for it showed much more of me than was . . . er, kind or appropriate. I like the pics where i'm holding up my bouquet. Still, we had several turn out nice.
This is one of my favorites. I did "something old" - my necklace & earrings, "something new" the dress & shoes, "something borrowed" - a bracelet from my friend Brenda, in the pic below, "something blue" - my L pinky nail (i always have it painted some color, story for another time), & "with a silver sixpence in her shoe" - i had it slipped into the lace i added to my canvas ballet slippers.
Our wedding was 10 September 2004. So we're coming up on 5 years! It seems like only yesterday, & it seems like we've been together forever. Both in the nicest ways, of course.
Now, if only blogger will accomodate me. Friend David (thanks David!) said that you can move the pics around by dragging them. Which is true to a point. Maybe because i've the posts set to wide, they rarely publish where i put them in the draft.
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Duane talks with his hands. I've often wondered what he was telling Joseph & Greg in this pic. He doesn't remember.
Our wedding day.
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Our wedding day! All the girls & women wore inexpensive ballet slippers. I was trying to get the little girls to pirouette, but they wouldn't, so i did!
I hand beaded the lace that we added to my dress.
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I think our church (down the hill) is absolutely stunning. I don't think i really appreciated how beautiful it is until we got these pics back.
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