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I started dreaming of my wedding day when I was just a little girl. I always wanted to get married in the same room my parents did, the chapel in my home church. With my best friends standing by my side. All of my friends and family there to watch my become a Mrs. Every little detail would be perfect.

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When Matthew proposed, we knew he would be deployed at some point but we thought we had plenty of time to plan my dream wedding. The day after I got our personalized napkins in the mail we found out his deployment had been bumped up by 6 months and we would have to change our wedding date.

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We finally decided on January 16th, 2010. With only 4 months to plan, we had to move quickly. It also meant that a lot of our family and friends could not make it to our wedding. We invited a little more than 100 people. Which for some people is big. However, with the size of my family and the number of friends we have, we wanted to invite over 300!

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A lot of the small detail we worked out the way I wanted them. My flowers and my sister’s flowers. The colors we used. The paper lanterns in the reception room. The purple shoes with my lime green nail polish.

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One big thing that didn’t happen. My grandparents weren’t there. My dad’s parents have both passed away. My mom’s parents are still alive and very much a part of my life. Due to their health, they were not able to travel to my wedding.

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We had our ceremony in the foyer to the chapel. I loved how it turned out! The candelabras are the exact same ones that my parents used in their wedding.

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Matthew’s brother Keith was his best man. My sister Hannah was my maid of honor. Matthew’s daughter Callie was our flower girl. Our friend’s son Ty was our ring bearer. Matthew’s best friend Rodney sang for us. The rest of the guys Matthew asked to be groomsmen couldn’t make it. That’s why we decided to just have a best man and maid of honor. We did have ushers who were (from Left to Right) my cousin Eric, our friend (my “brudder”) Brian, our friend (My “brother”) Toye, and my best friend Josh. My best friend Kelly was my honorary Matron of Honor. I felt bad about not having my other bridesmaids stand up with me. I didn’t even get pictures with them. That’s definitely something I would have changed.

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These center pieces were EXACTLY what I wanted. My mom did such an amazing job with them! We only did half of the center pieces like this.

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I absolutely loved the cupcakes we had. They were adorable and SO yummy! Probably the best I’ve ever had! But I think I would have a cake at the next wedding.

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I had a vision of my reception being in a beautiful ballroom with chandeliers galore. I am very pleased with the way it turned out though. I think the only big thing I would change about the room itself would be: No Fluorescent lights!!

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Here’s a big detail I would change. We originally wanted to have our “guest book” be a signature picture frame. When we have our “BIG” wedding, we will do that.

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We decided to do a “unity candle” in our wedding. Since we plan on having a bigger vow renewal ceremony for all of our friends and family, we are going to do a sand ceremony. We didn’t want to do that for this ceremony since you can only mix different colored sand once! LOL!

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When I look back at our wedding, it was really the perfect day. There were things that didn’t go as planned. There were details I will change for our big ceremony. But the day I married the love of my life was absolutely perfect. I will never think differently.

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This was prompted by Mama Kat’s Writing Prompts. “If you could do your wedding over, how would you do it?”

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