Yesterday afternoon, I left my office to run some errands for work.  I went through a drive-thru and grabbed a drink and then headed to my next stop in town, a small business that had an order waiting for me to pick-up.  As I waited for the owner to package the supplies, I looked down and noticed that I had brought my soft drink in with me.  I remember thinking “Hmm, that’s odd” but then I just began happily sipping away.  Around that time, the business owner and another employee began looking at me with a horrified expression.  I thought I must have something on my face, but then it hit me.  My drink was safely in the car.

I was enjoying the employee’s Coke.

PS – This is particularly horrifying because my mother raised me to NEVER drink or eat after anyone.

PPS – Her lessons stuck so well that, to this day, I don’t even drink after my husband.

PPPS – My mother also tried to keep me from eating pork but, to her utter dismay, I do enjoy a nice slice of bacon.

PPPPS – Last week, I posted the following to my mother’s Facebook wall:

When you get two emails in one day asking if you’re still alive, it’s time to update your blog.

I can’t believe that I posted about the ceremony and then never put up a post about my wedding reception!  I think we need a regular post saying hello, an update on marriage, etc. but first, let me show you my wedding reception for goodness sakes.

After the ceremony, which you can see in a post below this one, we headed to a different area on campus for the wedding reception!

As you know, I really wanted a morning wedding (mainly because I think they’re sweet, but also because they’re very British and it was a nice way to honor Paul’s heritage).  Since my reception was scheduled to begin around 11 a.m., I wanted to have a brunch.  I honestly can’t remember all we served, mainly because all I ate was a few pieces of fruit!  I know there were various breakfast foods, fruit and definitely scones for our British guests.

For the favors for the guests, I had containers holding apple pies and scones with packets of tea tucked in with them.  There was a sign on the table that said “She’s as American as apple pie, he’s a British as tea and scones; love is sweet, so take a treat!”  In one container, there were small round apple pies with a little bit of powered sugar on top.  In the other container, there were scones with a couple of packets of tea.  I’m not going to lie — I was really proud of my favors, mainly because it appears that my number one love language in life is giving people gifts.

Here’s our cake…

And the gift table.

And the gorgeous drink table.  (And yes, we had hot tea to go with the scones!)

Here we are entering the reception…

Here’s one of my biggest mentors in college who somehow managed to help me keep from losing my mind while trying to get two degrees and run a ministry all at the same time.  I love this picture the photographer caught of her watching me walk in!

I love this picture that shows most of the female members of my family taking cell phone photos while I danced with my dad.  Dancing with my dad was a BIG deal for me.  For my dance with my dad, I had my friend Ashley sing “Mama’s Song” by Carrie Underwood.  The back story is that Ashley is my photography assistant and, awhile back, we photographed a wedding in West Virginia (yes, I shoot anywhere and everywhere — even outside of Tennessee!) where that song was used for the mother and son dance.  In between shots, I looked at Ashley and said “I’m going to use that song for me and my dad.”  We changed the lyrics to reflect a father and daughter and then Ashley just sang it live at the reception.  I think I’ll always remember how kind my father was to me during my wedding planning experience.

Here’s Paul dancing with his mom.  Aren’t they adorable?

I think I’ve already mentioned this but I had no maid or matron of honor.  I didn’t want anyone’s feelings to get hurt or make anyone feel excluded so I just had ten bridesmaids instead.  Ha!  When it came time to decide who would give toasts, it fell on Christan (who was a roommate of mine in college) and Cousin Cate.

This is Cate telling about the time we went to Egypt together for three weeks and survived.  Every once in awhile, I send Cate a random text that says “Can you BELIEVE we went to EGYPT?”

Paul and I got absolutely shown up at our own wedding reception by his best friend Will.  I would give anything to have a recording of Will’s toast to play for you; the crowd LOVED him.  He and his sweet girlfriend flew in all the way from London to be at our wedding.

There’s Kelly and Christan, loving Will’s speech.

Before long, it was time to cut the cake.  I remember Paul feeding me a piece but I have no idea what it tasted like.  Everything was kind of a blur.

Three of my childhood best friends came a very long way to be at my wedding.  I have known these girls since I was a toddler (literally) and I cannot believe they were there for my big day.

I threw the bouquet and one of my college roommates, Sarah ‘Beth, caught it.  And yes, it was hilarious that a Sarah ‘Beth and an Amy Beth lived together in college.  What can I say?  It’s the south.  We believe in double names.

The reception wouldn’t have been complete without a Starlite picture.  If you’re new, I ran a ministry for around seven years called Starlite.  We basically took college girls and placed them in public schools to mentor younger girls.  We served in ten different schools and ministered to thousands of girls.  A huge group of our college volunteers, who I love deeply, were able to come into town for the wedding.  I absolutely love this picture!

After the reception ended (and my cousin pinned up my hair for me), my bridesmaids had a little surprised for me coordinated by the loved Cara.  They all wrote letters to me and placed them in a notebook filled with pictures of us over the years.  They know that words are my love language and now I have their words FOREVER.  I wish you could read through the pages in this huge notebook.  It covers a whole lot of my life.

Here I am with Melanie and Anneke, high school best friends.

And here I am with all the bridesmaids who served in Starlite at one point or another.

That’s more like it.

And here is my handsome groom!

That’s a whole lot of love right there.

Everlasting love, too.

Bonus picture: can you figure out which DVD case we’re replicating in this picture?

It was time for the wedding ceremony!  We chose to have a morning wedding.  I have always wanted a morning wedding and morning weddings happen to be very British, so it worked out well for us.

Here’s my cousin Israel, walking one of my grandmother’s down the aisle.  The grandmothers and mothers walked in to Iris and Jasper by Hans Zimmer from the movie The Holiday.

And then escorting my mother into the chapel…

Bridesmaid Ashley, one of ten.  The bridesmaids walked in to Love is Waiting by Brooke Fraser.

And bridesmaid Christan, bringing up the rear.

After the bridesmaids had entered, the chapel doors were closed and the song Holy Lord Carry On by Sandi Patty began playing.  This song came out when I was a child and, for some reason, I used to play it on repeat while walking around my bedroom with my bed sheets tied to me like a wedding dress.  I must have practiced that “walk down the aisle” hundreds of times as a child, with that song playing in the background.  So, naturally, that’s what I chose to have for my real walk down the aisle.

The girls entered first…

And then I entered.

This picture of Paul as he watched me coming down the aisle makes me feel so loved.

The ceremony was great.  The pastor began by mentioning my time with Starlite, the fabulous five and my foster children and how all of that had led to this day.  I didn’t know he was going to be talking about those things until that morning.  It was such a good surprise and it made me feel like the fabulous five were, somehow, represented that morning after having been such a major part of my life.

Paul’s vows to me blew mine to him right out of the water.  Here’s a shot of the pastor right as he remarks to the congregation that, in case they couldn’t hear, Paul’s vows were good.

And then, before we knew it, it was over!  We walked out to This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) by Natalie Cole.

As guests headed to the reception, we stopped to make a few photos.  A picture of me, my mom and my dad all in the same shot?  I’ll treasure having it forever.

And of course these little ones were still around!

So sweet of Paul and his mama.

And, a couple of pictures that mean so much to me, that I can’t even begin to describe it.

But the fun wasn’t over yet.  Up next was the reception!

My wedding day started very early when I woke up sick.  It was definitely due to nerves (not about marrying Paul, but about wondering if everything would go off without a hitch).  Luckily, my sweet friend Kelly was staying with me and helped me calm down.  I honestly don’t know what I would have done without her being there and without my friend Christan, too.  They kept me sane and did so much to help me that week.  When I came back from my honeymoon, I found my home perfectly clean, fresh food waiting for us, etc. thanks to Kelly and one of my supervisors at work (both of whom had keys to my house).

But back to the morning of the wedding.  I got up, took a shower, packed a few more things for the honeymoon and then headed off to the chapel to begin getting ready.  On my way there, I saw my dad unloading sound equipment at the reception site and got to stop and see him for a minute which will always be a special memory from that day.  Seeing my mom show up at the chapel with a Sprite and banana for me was pretty great, too.

Here is where I got married…

I found my dress at a specialty wedding shop in Chattanooga.  It was here in plenty of time before the wedding, which was good because it needed quite a bit of alterations.

For my veil, I wore my grandmother’s wedding veil, which is over 50 years old.  She pulled it out of storage for me and we were so happy to see that it was still preserved well.

My garter and the headpiece I wore later on in the day (I didn’t want to wear my grandmother’s veil all day because the netting was very delicate)…

Here’s an up-close shot of my engagement ring!  I chose to not have a wedding band.  I just felt like my ring was complex enough without adding an extra band to it.  I LOVE my ring!

And here are my earrings for the day…

Here is a great shot of the save the date cards we sent for the wedding.  I loved picking these out because I absolutely love stationary, design, etc.

And here are the wedding invitations…

(You can click any picture in this post to view it full size)

For the altar, I wanted very simple decorations since I was having so many bridesmaid.  I went with two vases of all white flowers on each side of the altar.  One represented Paul’s father, who he lost while he was still an infant.  The other was in honor of my deceased grandfather, aunt Sarah and uncle David.

My bouquet!  Again, I just wanted really simple and classic.

Before long, it was time to start getting ready!

Soon, it was time to start putting my dress on.  I was so excited that my photographer captured little Ella’s reaction when I turned around in my wedding dress.

I was so happy to have my stepmother there with us.

I got a very special delivery.  I had told Paul that all I wanted on our wedding day was to have a letter from him.  So much of our relationship is contained in written words (emails, airmail letters, etc.) that I imagine we have quite a legacy to give to our children and grandchildren to read one day.  I wanted one more to add to that list, written on the day of our wedding.

Meanwhile, down the hall, someone was starting to get ready for the day.

For Paul’s wedding gift, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  When Paul was a child, he collected an entire series of books.  As he prepared to move here, he separated his books into two piles — one to sell and one to bring over.  He decided that the only ones he would bring over was this particular series.  Then, by accident, someone took the wrong box and sold the series he had collected for years.  He couldn’t recover them and was pretty upset about it.  I told him that, once he moved here, we would work together to rebuild the collection.  He thanked me for the idea but told me the books were irreplaceable because they were out of print (which was, for the most part, true).

What Paul didn’t count on, however, was my internet sleuthing skills.  I immediately began searching for the books and, though it took many weeks and a whole lot of time, I found all 52 books.  I had them shipped to my office (where my student workers and I gleefully checked each and every book off the list as it arrived), so Paul had no idea.  I asked Kelly to deliver them to him before the wedding began and this is what happened.

I think he liked them, don’t you?

Meanwhile, back in my room, my grandmother Josie came to see me.  It was the first time she was seeing her wedding veil on me.

And then my dad came to see me…

And then it was time for me to pass out gifts to the bridal party and flower girls!

Meanwhile, everyone was getting ready upstairs…

… because it was time for the ceremony to start!

(All photos by my wonderful photographer, Amanda Suanne.)

Well, I’m still uploading wedding pictures to show you so it looks like it is going to be Monday before I can show you the entire group of photos.  In the meantime, here’s a little sneak peek.

Can’t wait to show you the rest next week!

By 48 hours before my wedding, I was so stressed that I wasn’t enjoying anything.  A couple of days before, while Paul’s mom flew to America, her partner (who was back in England because he had a heart attack a few months prior and subsequently couldn’t travel) had a second heart attack.  His son called us and we had to break the news to Paul’s mom when she got off her flight.  We had other guests arrive from England that same day and I was just beyond my stress limits.  I wanted so badly to be a good hostess to everyone, but at the same time, I was still trying to deal with all kinds of last minute things as well as keeping Paul’s mom in touch with the hospital back in England.  I can’t even describe how stressed I felt; just writing about it is making my heart race.  Ha!

The day before my wedding, there was a bridal luncheon.  I wanted the luncheon to be about the women there celebrating with me and the influence each of them had in my life at some point or another.  I wanted to create something for them to take with them so I decided on little clear boxes filled with vanilla bean scones (thank you, Starbucks, for being willing to sell me them in mass).  Luckily, my friend Christan came into town several days early to help me.  We had so much fun working on crafts together.

In addition to the scones, I had bought containers of tea from a British line of tea products.  Aren’t they precious?

I also wrote a personal note to each woman at the luncheon, thanking them for the different ways they have helped me get to this point in my life.

We set up everything in the corner of the room before the guests arrived.  Here’s what it looked like when everything got put together:

Before long, it was time for the luncheon to begin.  Here’s the table set-up:

I had a very special guest at the luncheon.  I have mentioned before that Aviean has a half-sister, who is named Ella.  Ella and Aviean are the daughters of my cousin, Israel.  Unfortunately, because Ella lives so far away, I don’t get to see her frequently but you better believe I love her just like that little Aviean-bug.  I just have to show my love to Ella in different ways — mainly through various trips to the post office since we’re so far away from each other.  You can imagine how excited I was when I found out that she and her mother were coming to my wedding!  I have never bought a second flower girl dress and basket of rose petals so fast in my life.

Later that evening, we had the rehearsal and then the rehearsal dinner.  It’s a shame I don’t have any pictures of the rehearsal dinner because it was really cute — it was themed as a “Love is in the air” type of thing and focused on how much of our dating relationship was trans-Atlantic.  Here are the darling invitations:

(Click to enlarge)

Don’t you love the hearts over Tennessee and England?  I loved these invitations.  The tables at the dinner were decorated in various travel items and then, as guests left, they were able to take a travel-themed favor with them.  I had a section called “baggage claim” where they could pick packs of pretzels, Biscoff cookies and other things you might receive if you were flying.

After the dinner, we had a little girls only event at a local bridal store.  It was part lingerie shower, part Starlite reunion.

I left the party to head home and get some sleep because the next day… was wedding day!

I got a little ahead of myself yesterday and told you about my bachelorette cruise before my wedding showers, which actually happened about a month and a half before the cruise.  My bridesmaids gave me two showers and, in an effort to make it easier for the different bridesmaids coming in from out of town and for me since so many of my weekends are spent doing photo shoots, the showers were held in one weekend, back to back.

The first shower took place on a Saturday afternoon in Cleveland, where I live.  Look at what these girls did…

Yes, it was a bridal tea!  It was such a perfect mix of me and British culture that I couldn’t believe my eyes!

This was the guestbook area.  Instead of just having everyone sign in, they had various scrapbook materials where people could write down a date suggestion for me and Paul and sign their name to it.  I just recently went through all of the suggestions I received and am thinking about how fun it would be if I chronicled (here on the blog, of course) Paul and I trying to do each and every date suggestion we received.

The food at the shower was absolutely gorgeous.  Can you believe they did this for me?  I can’t.

Here’s a view of the room before guests began to arrive…

And here’s Paul and I as the shower got started!  I asked Paul to come to the shower with me because there were several extended family members and out of town guests that hadn’t had the chance to meet him yet.  He was the hit of the shower!

As Marisa would say, “cousin power!” That’s my first cousin, Marisa, in the blue and my distant-we’re-pretty-sure-we’re-cousins-via-marriage-we-think cousin Cate in the tan.

Here I am with Christan, who is 99% responsible for keeping me sane the weekend of my wedding, but that’s a story for another time.

The girls had a corsage for me and had added a little British flag to it.  I loved it!

Do you recognize these two shower guests who drove in from quite a distance to celebrate with me?  Of course you do; it’s J. from Lots of Scotts with little K!

I received so many beautiful gifts at my shower!  One of my favorite things to do in life is to give gifts but I’m not the best at receiving them — I always feel guilty that people went to so much trouble for me.  We were so blessed with so many things for our little home.

Loved, loved, loved seeing my future name…

Cate had this made for us… again, the future name.  I loved it!

Here I am again with cousin Marisa and with my mother.

These two girls have worked in my office as student workers for awhile and are two of my favorite college-aged girls on the planet.  That’s Kim in the blue and Hannah in the white.  I love this picture because, literally two hours before my shower began, we finished the biggest event our office does all year long.  We literally finished work, all raced home to change clothes and were back in two hours for my bridal shower.  The guests had no idea that, just hours before, we were running around making things happen at work.  This picture will be framed on my desk at work for years to come; I love that they’ve been my girls in the office and out of the office.

Okay, get ready for something sweet.  My paternal grandmother, Josie, made this quilt for me when I was young.  She’s had it displayed in her house for most of my life and has always told me that, when I got married, I could have the quilt.  Then, as my wedding began approaching, she mentioned that she might wait to give it to me until I was a little older and “would take care of it better.”  So, you can imagine how excited I was to learn that she was just “faking me out” and to actually receive it at my shower.  In fact, I did an ugly cry in front of all of my guests because it meant so much to me to have something that came from Josie’s hands and heart.

My stepmother, Charlene, came to the shower, too.  My stepmother was so good to me during the whole wedding planning process and the wedding in general.  I am very lucky to have a stepmother who conveniently forgets the definition of the word “step.”

The next day, the girls held a second bridal shower for me in Knoxville, where I lived during middle and high school.  Look at how beautiful the food set-up was!  I actually bought the flag bunting from a British store here in the states and loaned them out for the shower.  I now have them tucked away in hopes of having a baby girl one day.  Wouldn’t they be darling in a nursery?

Here I am with Erin, one of my sweet, sweet Knoxville friends.

And there’s bridesmaids Ashley and Cara!

The gift table.  I was so, so blessed.

Paul came to this shower, too.  Here we are opening gifts…

And here I am with my step-grandmother, BJ, another person who has been so good to me over the years.

My grandmother Josie came back for another day of bridal showers.

And so did my mom.  Here I am with her and my maternal grandmother.

And here’s the “future-son-in-law” picture.

Wasn’t I blessed with great bridal showers?!

I did NOT mean to go so long without posting!  I uploaded my last post, where I showed you one of the first pictures of me as Mrs. Gardner, while Paul and I waited to board our honeymoon cruise.  I had every intention of blogging when I got home.  What I didn’t count on was being physically, emotionally and mentally WORN OUT by my wedding.  I remember waking up on October 15, a month after our wedding, and thinking “Well, I’m starting to feel a little rested.”  I just had no idea how truly life-changing it is when, well, everything in your life is changing.  Between the visa process to get Paul to the US, helping him acclimate once he arrived, getting used to being in the same country, planning a wedding, bringing in guests from England, several intense weeks at work, running my photography business, helping as a caregiver for Aviean and actually getting married I was just worn out.

One thing I wish I could change about my personality is my reaction to change.  Even when there are good changes in my life — and marrying Paul is definitely a good thing — I still got very emotional as I felt a lot of relationships with family and friends shifting as I married Paul.  I have had changes in almost every area of my life — family relationships, friendships, my work, etc. — over the last few months and it really shook me up a bit.  Honestly, I still feel like I’m finding my footing in my “new world” but I am very, very happy to be here and wouldn’t trade it for anything.  Marrying Paul was one of the easiest decisions I’ve ever had to make.

Another reason I’ve held off on blogging was because I wanted to wait until I had my professional wedding pictures back so I could actually show you something other than just my words.  The pictures arrived late last week so I thought that, this week, we could do a bit of catching up.  Over this week, I’ll share pictures with you from my wedding day, the honeymoon and maybe even a little of what we’ve been up to since we started settling in after the honeymoon.

First up, the bachelorette cruise!  I may have explained this before, but back in the Starlite days, several of my friends and I had a joke about how, one day, we would go on a cruise together to relax from all of our years of serving processed nacho cheese to middle school girls.  Of course, we never really made it happen so, when it so happened that most of my bridesmaids were some of the many girls who really helped Starlite at different crucial times, it just seemed like a good idea to try to make it happen.  We did make it happen, with seven of my ten bridesmaids being able to go (three others had to stay home with their young children).  We found an extremely affordable cruise and were sailing towards the Bahamas before we knew it.

Unfortunately, because of my work schedule between my “real” job and my photography business, I couldn’t really take any time off for the cruise until… the week before my wedding.  That’s right; a week before my wedding, I left the country.  If you’re shaking your head at your computer screen right now, I completely understand.  But, I will say this — being literally unable to do wedding tasks for about 72 hours was a really, really good feeling.  I probably could have used one last weekend of planning and errand running, but I would never trade the time I had with my friends.  It is getting more and more difficult for us to see each other as people move, have babies and continue evolving into whoever we’re going to end up being.  I’ll always treasure the fact that, for a few days, we were together in one place.

Here we are as we waited for the safety drill.  Kimberly made us veils (yes, made them) and brought a sash for me and beads for the other girls!

From left to right, that’s Brandy (college roommate); Kelly (college friend); Melanie (high school friend); me; Christan (college roommate); Cate (college friend); Cara (college friend) and Kimberly (college roommate)

We had just a little fun before the safety drill began…

After the safety drill, we headed upstairs to “tour” the spa.  They were giving away some free spa treatments and you know we were all over that.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that the girls had chipped in together and had actually paid for me to have an amazing hot stone massage later that afternoon!  I cannot imagine a better gift for a stressed out bride-to-be.  I almost cried because it meant so much that they did it.

I don’t have a lot of other pictures from the cruise, unfortunately.  We had a good time together and it was amazing to see how everyone’s lives are still connected but still going in separate directions as we get older.  I was emotional for a lot of the cruise because, in the midst of everything changing in my life, I was recognizing how, really, all of our lives have and are changing.  Friendships are evolving and somehow, we’re already talking about “the good ‘ol days.”  I am hoping that we still have a lot of good days ahead of us, too.  I can’t imagine that we’ll ever find ourselves all swimming in the clear waters of the Bahamas together again, but I hope we have a lot of other good moments to come.  Maybe it’s Pollyanna-ish for me to hope, but I can’t help but think that there are still babies to be held, weddings to be attended and Target runs to be made no matter how many miles — or evolving lives — separate us.

Tomorrow — my bridal showers held this past summer!

Naturally, Aviean would like to share her thoughts with you about her role as flower girl.  Be sure to watch until they end when Paul does an imitation of Aviean’s voice for you.

Is my favorite part where she says “I love you, Amy Beth” or the part where I realize I’m seeing two of my favorite people in the world on the same screen?

PS – My future mother-in-law arrives from England today and there are at least three dead rodents in the walls of two rooms of the house I rent (it’s a long story).  This is the exact thing you want to have happen when your mother-in-law is coming to see your home for the first time.

PPS – I got up at 6 a.m. today to work on wedding crafts because it was my first day off on vacation and who doesn’t like having their internal body clock scream “YOU WILL NOT SLEEP IN!  I DEMAND BLACK CIRCLES UNDER YOUR EYES!”

PPPS – I woke up to a message from Gosling saying he got permission to leave his teaching position in El Salvador to fly up for the weekend so he won’t miss the wedding.  He is ushering, and I’m contemplating listing him in the wedding program as “Nicholas Gosling” just to see what happens.