Awhile back I saw this Marriage Meme on someone’s blog and I thought it would be fun to do for our Anniversary this year. Here are my answers:
1. Where/How did you meet? We first met at a youth group meeting I attended while home for Christmas break from Christendom College. He was there helping out that night. We were reintroduced by my parents the following summer.
2. How long have you known each other? almost 11 years
3. How long after you met did you start dating? We went on our first (official) date one year later, on January 31st, Super Bowl Sunday. My parents did invite him out with us, a couple weeks prior, for my 21st birthday.
4. How long did you date before you were engaged? Not long, it was only three months! 🙂 After we had been dating 2 months, I prayed a novena to St. Therese to send me a rose if he was the man I was suppose to marry, since I had a feeling he was. On March 17th, the last day of my nine day novena, I opened my apartment door to find a single red rose sitting on my doorstep from hubby. It was the very first time he had given me flowers and he had no idea about my novena!
5. How long was your engagement? Not quite six months
6. Did you have a bridal shower? My friend Trina drove 11 hours to give me a wonderful bridal shower!
7. What was your favorite Bridal Shower gift? This is an easy one!! My Aunt Bridget gave me Our Wedding Anniversary Memory Book
8. How long have you been married? It has been 9 years today! Happy Anniversary my love!
9. How old were you when you got married? I was 21 and hubby was 26.
10. What is your anniversary? We had hoped to marry on either October 1st or October 3rd (the new or traditional feast of St. Therese) but our parish only allowed weddings on Saturdays at the time, so we were married right in between on October 2nd, the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels.
11. Where was your wedding? Inside a beautiful Roman Catholic Church
12. Did your spouse cry during the ceremony? I think he teared up. ; )
13. How many people came to your wedding? Approx 350
14. What kind of flowers did you have at your wedding?
The flowers were a gift from a friend of mine. I wasn’t picky at all, except when it came to my bouquet. I had seen a picture in a Martha Stewart magazine and asked the florist to recreate it… It was perfect!
15. Describe your wedding dress. I am going to skip this one, since I think I have posted enough pictures for you to see it… It did have a nice long train which you can’t see in the pictures, and I loved all the bead work on the front. For some reason it doesn’t look as pretty in the photos.
16. How many people were in your wedding party? Best man, maid of honor, five bridesmaids, five groomsmen, ring bearer and three flower girls. (I also had two more of my brothers serve the Mass, and Hubby’s oldest brother did the readings — he was in the seminary at the time and could not be a groomsman– we did our best to have all (15) of our siblings in the wedding. My two youngest brothers were the only ones not in the wedding party… They were in the picture though!) I could have kept going too… I had a few friends that I really wish I could have had as bridesmaids as well.
17. Are you still friends with them all? Yes, although we have not stayed in touch (other than Christmas Cards) with 2 of the groomsman, and one of my bridesmaids — we did attend her wedding last October though! In fact, one of the groomsman ended up marring my younger sister/maid of honor. The photographer even ended up positioning them next to each other for pictures! (They are just to the right of me in the above picture.)
18. Are your wedding bands engraved? No, but they were blessed again this past summer by our best man, who is now a priest!
19. What did you dance your first dance to? I could Not Ask For More by Edwin McCain.
20. What kind of cake did you serve? Each tier was a different kind: Chocolate, Marble, White with Strawberry filling, White with Chocolate filling. We went with a simple design and extra sheet cakes to help keep it affordable, but it was SOOO YUMMY!
21. What did you serve for your meal? The Catholic Daughters catered, and I really can’t remember exactly what was served… Isn’t that awful!
22. Most special moment of your wedding day? The moment when the priest said “I now pronounce you Man and Wife.”
23. Any funny moments? I loved seeing my father-in-law, brother-in-law, and grandfather doing the hokey pokey.
Everyone also laughed at this same bil’s toast… It was a quote from a movie
24. Any big disasters? Well… About a month before the wedding, my soon-to-be hubby was sent on a 21 day fire assignment. Right before he left he asked me to take the Marriage license to the priest. Well, what I needed to do was take it to the courthouse and have it validated and then take it to the priest… I didn’t realize that, and no one caught the mistake. When we arrived home from our honeymoon we had a message from Father asking us to call him. He said that we were validly married in the church and the eyes of God, but that the state wouldn’t recognize the marriage. We headed down to the courthouse and sure enough, they would not recognize our wedding ceremony as legally binding. I couldn’t believe it. We then had to validate a new marriage license and then “wait 3 days” in which time hubby had been dispatched on another 21 day assignment to another fire. During that time I visited him on the fire and since it was close to Reno, we joked about heading there to “get married”… After the assignment was over we renewed our vows with a couple witnesses once again. So, although today is the anniversary of our marriage, our legal anniversary is not until sometime in November. I bet that will be confusing to some descendant of ours trying to peace together their family tree many years from now!
25. If you were to do your wedding over, what would you change? It was perfect, but there are two things I would change… Although I loved my dress, I wish that I would have chosen one with sleeves… I also wish I would have asked my favorite auntie to be a bridesmaid. :o)
26. Do you have a favorite wedding gift? Yes, lots of favorites, actually! One that stands out particularly in my mind is the beautiful Pieta statue carved by Santini that was a gift from one of our groomsmen… (The groomsman that, shortly after the wedding, started dating and then married my sis!) It is absolutely beautiful.
27. Where did you go on your honeymoon? We went on a cruise to Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlan, and Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
28. How long were you gone? Just over a week.
29. Greatest challenge as a couple? Finding time to talk to each other… (As well as finding babysitters!)
30. Greatest strength as a couple? Our Catholic Faith.
I so enjoyed being reminded of all these wonderful memories through doing this meme! Have a great day, I will see you all sometime tomorrow.
Jessica
Happy Anniversary{{}} Many many blessings:)
Once again I’m amazed at some similarities between our courtships.
Happy Anniversary Jessica!
Lovely post. What a huge wedding party and guest list! Nothing but admiration for including the entire family in the day though, fabulous! Our married kids did that too, everyone was always honored to be part of the celebrations. Happy Anniversary to you and your hubby.
Jessica, Happy Anniversary! You were a lovely bride. Many, many years of happiness with your husband. You mentioned that you attended Christendom College. If I may, I’d like to draw attention to a story about the former athletic director at the college. The man, Thomas VanderWoude, died last month after rescusing his 20-year-old son who has Down’s Syndrome. The link to the story is A Lee in the Woudes. That site is run by one of Mr. Van derWoude’s daughters-in-law. His story is truly inspiring, and this man lived a life of heroic virture.
wonderful post, Jessica! Love your stories in your meme.
Happy Anniversary! It’s ours too! And we also went on a cruise for our honeymoon – how funny!
Happy anniversary! May God bless the two of you with many more wonderful years and memories together.
What a beautiful post! I absolutely loved reading this! I laughed at the part about the marriage license. Now that it’s years behind you, you must be able to laugh too? Happy anniversary to the two of you!
What a great post! I was there (I was wasn’t I?)and it was a beautiful ceremony. ☺ What a funny picture of grandpa!
happy anniv! i am totally babysitting tonight so you guys can go to dinner…in spirit of course
r
YEAH! Happy Anniversary! I LOVED the pictures. One of the pictures I got really confused. It must have been Jamie, but I thought it was Mary and I couldn’t figure out how she looked so old… not wanting to tax my brain overly much (lol) I went on to see the flower girls, that is when it clicked!
Also, when Isabel saw the picture of Mr. Jessica on the boat she refused to believe that was your hubby!
Here is to an eternity of joy and love for you both!
Oh and you know you have a babysitter over here, any time! If not me, you have Becca. She asked, when she saw the Little Flowers meeting on the calendar, if she got to babysit for you again and when I said I think your Hubby will be home, she pouted and said, “Oh man!”
OH MY! I love love love that Edwin McCain song… sigh…
Sorry, just had to add that. So if you see in sitemeter that someone kept popping on your blog during the day, it was probably me listening to you song! lol
Happy Anniversary! I loved reading your wedding meme.
Hi! We don’t know each other, but I stop by from time to time. Just wanted to say what a nice post you had. My husband and I just celebrated our 15-year anniversary. I was also 21 when I got married! Everybody thought I was so young, and I really was, but when you know, you know! Very sweet post! Congrats!
Hppy Anniversary! Your beautiful story and the music with it brought me to tears! I am very sentimental and love to hear a happy story with such wonderful people 🙂 What a wonderful story about the rose!
I am so happy you and hubby have each other.
You are so blessed!
Oh, this made me cry!! How beautiful.
Happy Anniversary! May God continue to richly bless you both.
Warmly,
Eileen
Happy anniversary, Jessica! What a great way to do this Meme.
Happy Anniversary to a most beautiful couple who have grown into a most beautiful family! May God bless you with many more happy years together!
Loved it!! That post was a labor of love. You probably had to scan in those pictures, huh? You guys looked so cute and happy!
Happy anniversary. Here’s to many more. 🙂
That was SO beautiful!!! Wow, that song made me cry through the rest of the post. OK, I’m a big cry baby, I have the gift of tears.
Thanks again for the great talk today, I love you!!
Happy Anniversary
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!!!!!!
You two are such an awesome part of our lives! And we are so proud and happy that you have built this life together! Thank you for all your wisdom and inspiration with my faith. And so so much for the gift of life that you have shared numerous times with Shawn and I. We love you and wish you many more blessed years together. A.B. & U.S.
Thank you to EVERYONE!!!! I so enjoyed hearing from you all!
Renee ~ I couldn’t have had it any other way! I had to do the best I could to include all my siblings 😉
Gail ~ I had heard. That was such tragic news, and he was such an amazing man! We are praying for him and his whole family!
Aubrey ~ Yes… It didn’t take too long to be able to laugh about it. It really was very funny!
Meg ~ YES, you were at our wedding!! (Thank you again for making the trip!) I have a super cute photo of you and Greg that someone gave me.
Amy ~ I *LOVE* that song too… I would have thought I would be tired of it by now — my taste in music is often changing, but that song just reminds me of happiness and bubbles each and every time I hear it! 🙂
Happy Anniversary! What a beautiful couple you are!
I stumbled across your blog the other day while searching for ideas for the feast of St. Therese. I have enjoyed reading your posts especially the one on your anniversary. The wedding photos were beautiful. I love big families and I thought it was awesome that almost all your brothers and sisters were in the wedding. It looked like the priest in the photo was wearing a cassock. Did you have a Traditional Catholic wedding? Thanks for sharing with us.
Pax Christi
Thank you Becki!
Actually my brother-in-law that was wearing a cassock at the wedding was only a seminarian at the time (He was ordained 4 or 5 years later.), so we were unable to have the Traditional Mass. We tried to incorporate as much Latin into the Mass as possible, which was really nice.
Since my bil’s have been ordained, we have been able to have our last 3 children baptized in the Tridentine Rite, and our oldest received his First Confession and First Communion from his Godfather/Uncle at his 1st Mass this past summer. (If you’d like, you can see pictures under the label Nebraska Road Trip in my bottom right sidebar.) That has been such a blessing!
We keep praying that our bishop will allow the Latin Mass here in our diocese, or that we may some day be able to move to an area that offers it, but neither has happened as of yet! 🙂
I just finished reading ALL the posts under the “Nebraska Road Trip”. I’m very sentimental so I cried all the way through the first one–thinking about how special it would be to see your brother ordained AND witness his first Mass. Then I laughed all the way through the rest of the posts. I’m sure it wasn’t funny at the time but you can’t deny that you and your husband must have killed yourselves laughing later over what took place at your son’s First Holy Communion. I have a few years on you, my oldest is 20, so your stories bring back many memories.
I was very humbled after reading your posts and realizing you don’t have a Latin Mass to attend at least once a week. I often complain to God that we only have the Latin Mass once a week and on Holy Days. We’ve had to travel 5-6 hours away to a bishop who would welcome us and offer our children the Sacraments;you had to travel days–I should be more thankful. You have a beautiful family.
Did I read your post correctly?–3 of your husbands brothers have become priest? Even if it’s just 1 that’s an incredible feat in the world we live in today.
And were you homeschooled all the way through?
Pax Christi
Becki ~ I’m glad you enjoyed those posts! I keep meaning to go back and finish posting about our trip… (We continued on to my hubby’s old hometown to attend Father’s 1st Mass at his childhood parish, before heading back home.) But I just haven’t had a chance! It was absolutely beautiful though, and I so would like to share the photos, so it may take me awhile, but I most likely will finish it up sometime! And yes, we did have quite a laugh — and so did everyone else! — over that crazy First Communion story! We won’t forget that one, will we?!? 🙂
You are very blessed indeed to have a weekly Latin Mass. As it is, we travel 1 1/2 hours each Sunday to attend a more “traditional” Norvus Ordo Mass. The closest Latin Mass (in line with Rome) is about 5 hours away over a couple Mountain passes, and is really not an option at all. Thankfully we have my brother-in-law’s to help us out when it comes to the sacraments. What a blessing that has been!
And to answer your other questions, My husband has 3 brothers (and one sister) and all THREE of them are priests with the Fraternity of St. Peter! (I couldn’t ask for better brother-in-law’s, could I?!) And as for being homeschooled, my mom started homeschooling when I was in the 5th grade. I fought it the whole way. In fact, when I was a teenager, I use to say there was “NO WAY” I would homeschool my poor children! 😉 It’s funny how being a parent changes your views on so many things! 🙂
Have a great weekend! God Bless!
I will keep you in my prayers that someday you will have access to a TLM closer to home. We have two that are somewhat in our area–only an hour away in different directions–and we make that trip every week to attend that beautiful Mass. Your in-laws have certainly done their part to help bring it back for the people. Please pass my gratitude on to them.
I look forward to seeing more photos when you get around to posting them.
May God continue to bless you and your family abundantly.
Aw Jess I love this one so much!!
You and Sean are truly a beatiful couple… I hope I get as lucky!
=) these pictures bring back so many memories!
I love you Jessica, I love having such a great roll model as a sister!
I’m a bit late but…happy anniversary! Beautiful post! 🙂