a video clip

if you listen closely, you can hear danny choke up a bit...which really helped my tears, let me tell you.

sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters

we wanted our sisters to play a role in our wedding. we decided early in our wedding planning that we'd love for them to do a reading as part of the ceremony. funny thing is that we forgot to ask them about it until about 2 weeks before the wedding...oops! luckily for us, they both agreed. we wanted them to pick their own reading b/c we wanted it to have a special meaning for them as well as for us.

my aunt captured a clip of part of my sisters's reading during the ceremony. she chose love by roy croft:



I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.

I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.

Perhaps that is what being a friend means, after all.


danny sister chose to read an excert from owl sight by mercedes lackey and larry dixon:




A joining is a partnership, not two people becoming one. Two minds cannot fuse, two souls cannot merge, two hearts cannot keep the same time. You are two who choose to walk the same path, to bridge the differences between you with love. You must remember and respect those differences, for they are part of what made you come to love in the first place. Love is patient, love is willing to compromise - love is willing to admit it is wrong. There will be hard times; you must face them side by side. There will be pain - but pain shared is pain halved, as joy shared is joy doubled.Now you will no longer fear the storm, for you find shelter in each other.

Now the winter cannot harm you, for you warm each other with love. Now the darkness holds no danger, for you will be the light to each other's path. Now you will defy despair, for you will bring hope to each other's heart. Where there were two paths, there is now one. May your days together be long upon the earth, and blessed with joy in each other.

a wee bit o'celebration & new hair

because our wedding was small and out of state, we weren't able to invite a lot of our extended family and friends. so, we decided that after the wedding, we would have a casual reception in cookeville in order to celebrate with the people who weren't able to come. it was important to me that they knew that they knew how important they were to us & that we wanted them to be included in the celebration. so we whipped out some invites that resembled our wedding invitations



and divied up food between our moms & voila - a party is born. we had it at my grandma's house & had a good amount of aunts, cousins, and friends show up. it was a lot of fun. lots of food and lots of chatting. it was so great to see everyone.

in other news, i have taken my first step in my go-crazy-because-i'm-married-now plan. i colored my hair last week. i was pretty nervous/excited going into it. i have never had my hair professionally colored before. i've only colored it once in my lifetime. i have always been afraid that once i start, i won't be able to stop...which is probably true b/c it was so much fun & i love it!



i was also going to cut it short but decided that it could be too much change to do the color and length all at once. so i started with the color & just trimmed and thinned, bangs included. the change in length might be happening soon though...

they're here!

the professional photo photos are done! allison took 469 pictures. crazy. i can't post any here because of copyrighting, but you can view a slideshow of some of them. they're great! allison is a great photographer & great to work with, btw. we get 4x6s of all of them which we're going to pick up this week. then we're going to try to pick some to get bigger prints of...that decision is going to be very very hard....

bon bini!

(that means welcome! in papiamento..the language of aruba)

we had an amazing time on our honeymoon in aruba. we spent 7 days not working and not planning a wedding. it was wonderful. we left early monday morning and flew with a plane full of newlyweds on a 4 hour flight from atlanta to aruba. one couple in paticular caught my eye - a couple wearing bride and groom tshirts. yes, that couple. and guess who got to sit next to them on the plane? danny! the bride actually woke danny up to ask him what our wedding colors were. oh yeah. i think danny really enjoyed their conversation. ;)

we were greeted with champagne as we checked into bucuti (resort).

we immediately passed out once we got into our room. the first night we ate a little restaurant within walking distance from bucuti called pizza bob's....very good food & danny's first taste of the local beer, balashi.

we went downtown one day & had lunch at iguana joe's. we had some awesome spinach/artichoke dip & danny had a dish that was basically just cheese & a very good mojito.


we wondered around downtown for a few hours. there are lots of jewelry stores and designer shops.


we managed to find a grocery store where we stocked up on some hot & spciy chex mix, combos, crackers, gouda, diet coke, and balashi which were our staples throughout the entire week.


we rented a jeep another day and explored the island.


we drove from one end to the other. we drove to baby beach which is a sort of lagoon where local moms bring their children to teach them how to swim. we stayed on the less crowded side & danny went snorkeling.


a huge portion of the island is a national park, so we drove all over the park. we even did a little bit of off-roading to get around some fallen rocks

and then almost got stuck in the park, but we eventually found an exit & made it back to bucuti.

one evening, we took a sunset sail down the coast of the island. we met a couple from long beach. it was beautiful & the sunset itself was amazing.


we went horsebacking riding at rancho notorious another day. we went on a 2 hours ride through the state park to a cliff overlooking the ocean. there was only one other couple on our tour with us, so it was basically like having a private tour. me and pocohontas (my horse - awesome, huh meg?) took up the back of the line & definitely moved at our comfortable pace. when we got to the ocean, we took a short break & then we got to gallop through the sand (just me & danny and our guide...the other couple was too scared). it was so much fun.


the rest of the time was spent laying at the beach, eating, or sleeping. we spent a lot of time just laying around the beach and relaxing. the sand on their beaches is amazing; it's so soft and white. the water is gorgeous.

i have never seen water that color before. we had perfect weather the whole time. it rained one night, but the sun was shining by the time we got up for breakfast.

the food on the island was really good. we didn't have a bad meal while we were there. madame janette's was beautiful with very yummy food. wacky wahoo's was recommended by a girl who worked at bucuti & then we ended up seeing her there! wacky wahoo's had the best seafood i have ever had. it was all cooked perfectly. perfectly. just about every one of my meals contained some kind of refined carbohydrate...pasta or croissants...so good! we did end up at taco bell one night. it was late & everything was closed. it was a great experience though. danny ended up speaking way too fast for the guy working the window...he rattled off our order & the employee's response was, "...yes....hello." danny had to start all over. it was hilarious.

i also discovered a very yummy drink called a brown lady. it's like a mudslide but with coconut. it was basically a chocolate smoothie with alcohol. yum!

sadly, we had to leave eventually...we were told to get to the airport 3 hours before take off, so we got there four hours early & then ended up having to wait an hour for the delta desk to open (they were precise about that 3 hours), but we were the first ppl in line when the desk opened! we had to go through mutliple security check points & then had to get our shoes thoroughly cleaned because we went horseback riding. luckily, my suitcase did close again after being opened. we landed in huntsville around 10 &, of course, immediately went to pick up the pup from jeff & heather's where she'd been staying.

we had a fabulous trip & would highly recommend a visit to aruba to everyone. it was really hard to adjust to having to go to work the next week...hell, it still is.

one month!

believe it or not, today is our one month anniversary. danny and i have been married for exactly 30 days. it's hard to believe that much time has passed. of course, a week of it was spent on the honeymoon & the next week was spent adjusting to not being on a honeymoon anymore. it's been a very good 4 weeks & we're enjoying the whole husband/wife thing. :)



still no professional photos yet but hopefully soon!

i've got a new last name

i realize it has been weeks since my last post, but i had no idea how busy and exhuasting the weeks leading up to the wedding would be. i couldn't concentrate on anything. the only thing i could think about was what i needed to do before the wedding. but we survived with no major mishaps & i now have a new last name!

the wedding was fabulous. the ceremony was wonderful. i think we really succeeded in having a wedding and ceremony that was truly us. the entire weekend (starting thursday) was so much fun. it was amazing to have almost all the people i love and care about in one place at the same time celebrating our marriage. i mean, really amazing. everyone was there for us; everyone was willing to help and actually wanted to help. it was so sad on sunday when everyone had to go home...i've been trying to think of a way for everyone to live in one place, that place being wherever i happen to be. guess maybe i need to start a commune?

weddings are surrounded by so much love, and i just want to take a moment to thank everyone who helped with planning, setting up, crafting & assembly, moral support, time, thinking, food, wine, coordinating, baking, shopping, keeping me calm, and making sure we had the very best wedding weekend possible. thank you.