Our Story: Made for You

After all of our planning it was quickly time for our wedding day. There was a lot of prep work to do, and looking back I should have had a larger team to help, but I basically floated through the day without a care in the world. I went and had my hair and make-up done, then went to the church to get ready. We did each side of family photos before, but didn't see each other.

Getting ready for our big day. My sister getting lipstick, and the boys being...boys.

 



We had a small wedding party. I invited my BFF Ashley to be my maid of honor, and my sister was my bridesmaid. Manly chose his high school BFF Ace to be his best man, and had another friend, Brandon as his groomsman. Our flower girls were Merritt and Allison(the girls I had been a long-term nanny for).

The wedding took place at The Summit Church. I would have been married in the church I grew up in, but it didn't have a center aisle. The Summit had been my home church for the last several years, so it was a great fit. Since it's a very large worship center we roped off the two side sections. I am not really in to floral froo-ha-ha, so we skipped on flowers and decorated instead with candles. I had probably 200 tea lights and other candles on the stage. I loved the simplicity of the stage, and the candlelight looked great for the ceremony. We also had tea light luminaries outside to show guests where to enter, so I guess you could say the theme of the wedding was candles. Ha!

This is just some of the candles. There were more...

 

My friend Leigh Ann stood at the table and tried to get people to take their kids to the childcare we provided.

 

The female attendants wore gun metal dresses, and the male attendants wore silver vests. All the ushers wore silver ties, and all the other servers wore solid black.
To start the service we had some friends of ours from school(Angela, Dane, and Branson) play chimes to ring the hour. They did a great job and I was so glad we'd done that because I don't see it done much anymore.

My friends Dane, Angela, and Branson.

 

After that everyone was seated, and the attendants walked down the aisle. Before I walked down we had the ushers(two of my cousins and my brother) pull down an aisle runner. It had been borrowed from a church, and we had NO idea there were still petals in it! Ha! They started falling out as they slowly(because it was a little knotted up too) pulled it down the aisle.

The ushers doing their best to get the runner down the aisle.

 

Once they were finally able to get it pulled down the aisle my dad and I started to walk down the aisle. My dad was really nervous, and was giggling most of the time we were waiting. That actually helped to calm my nerves, and when the music started and we began the walk down the aisle I was calm and excited.

Me and my dad.

 

Manly immediately started crying when he saw me. I loved the look of contentment on his face as I neared him and the pastor(my childhood pastor, Charlie Winters) asked, "Who gives this woman to be married to this man?"

The ceremony.

 

We had a pretty quick ceremony which included our own vows. Manly's vows were BEAUTIFUL. He took them from the "love chapter" in the Bible. They turned out SO great! Mine on the other hand, where a total flop! No, seriously. If there was a site for vow failures my vows would be on there. We got through those, then lit the unity candle.

After the Unity Candle(that I almost blew out on accident.) 

 

After that we sang to each other. Yes, I know it sounds a little cheesy, but it was a really special moment, and I wanted us to do it. We sang a song called "Made for You." We got all of our crying out on rehearsal night, and ended up making it through the song without a hitch on the actual day of the wedding. Once the song was over we made our way over to a tall stool where we washed each others feet.

Singing together.

 

Foot washing isn't a really popular practice for weddings, but we loved the picture of servanthood and humility that foot washing gave, so we did it. So many people told us afterward that their favorite moment of the ceremony was when I got down to wash Manly's feet and my gown came billowing around me. While we were doing that we played "A Page is Turned," which at that time wasn't popular, but has since become a staple at weddings. We loved the lyrics, because one of the verses says, "And high upon that mountain he asked her for her hand." Sine we were engaged on the top of a mountain we thought it was a perfect fit.

The water was FREEZING. The bowl we used was borrowed from a couple who used it at their wedding. It was really special to be able to use it.

 

Once we were done with the foot washing there was a prayer, we were pronounced as Mr. and Mrs. Scotty Smittle, and we KISSED! We walked back down to the Halleluiah Chorus.

The prayer.

 

Tha KISS!

 

Us with the ushers. Danny, Michael, Levere, and my brother, Scott.

 

Us with our ladies. Ashley on the left, my sister, Emilie on the right.

 

Us with the men. Brandon on the left, Ace on the right.

 

My girls! These sweet girls were my first "children." They taught me so much about how to be a good mom. I love them both so so much!  Merritt on left and Allison on the right.

 

Our reception followed at the Maumelle Community Center. I wasn't really very happy with the location, but because we were married so quickly all of the best locations were already booked. Since we were on a small budget we chose this place and it worked out just fine. At the time they had a nice window area where we set up.

My lovely servers. Wendy, Heather, Rachel, Angela, and Stephanie.

 



I decorated with white table cloths, red rose petals, candles, and silver ribbon. We(ie someone besides me)also blew up a bajillion silver balloons to be hovering over the dance floor. A family friend made our cakes, and I decorated the big cake with red roses as well. Manly had an enormous chocolate cake, chicken wings, and little smokies on his table all at his request. I had fruit and veggie trays as well as petite sandwiches, nuts, and mints on the food table. We wanted a clear punch, so we made up some concoction of apple juice, white grape juice, sprite, and ginger ale. That stuff could have choked a GOAT it was so strong! Ha!
We were announced, then came in and had our first dance to Nora Jones "Nearness of You." We did all the traditional couple things like cutting cake, drinking punch, and tossing the bouquet and garter, then we danced the rest of the night away with friends and family. It was SO MUCH FUN!

Our first dance.

 

Yummy cake!

 

Punch. Look how sweet.

 

Always SO much fun to do these at weddings where there are LOTS of college students! Ha!

 

Ace and Ashley doing a toast.

 

Our friend Brandon brought a sound system, and they played all of our favorite songs from Michael Jackson to YMCA. Even my grandmother and the pastor got out on the dance floor for a while.

DJ Jazzy B cranking out the hits!

 

Dancers young and old!

 

Me and my dad dancing.

 

Loving that man of mine.

 

Dancing with my man!

 

Manly and his mom.

 

My mom with her sisters Becky and Brenda. There aren't many pictures of mom from our wedding because she was running around like a mad woman trying to be sure everything turned out just how I wanted it. Her sisters were right there with her the whole time helping her. I love this picture because this was at the end of the night and I know she had a weight lifted off her shoulders. Ha! She and her sisters are so silly!

 

We ended the night by playing "Let's Get It On" by Marvin Gaye. Ha! I know! It's tacky, but we had waited for a long time! I'll say this, for any young readers who are waiting for YOUR story to begin: Holding off for sex until after we were married was hard, and it seemed to take FOREVER for the day to finally come. There were times when we likely let our physical relationship go too far, but we were faithful to wait until marriage for sex. It was SO worth it for both of us when our wedding night came.  OK, off my soapbox now...
We had bells and balloons to send us off. We just took the balloons that had been used for the dance floor and gave them to everyone. When we ran through everyone released their balloons and rang their bells. We jumped into our car and headed off for the rest of our life!

Driving off into the future.