Slice of Life Day 14 - Lydia's Wedding Part I

I have written about moving our older daughter, Sarah, from Springfield to Texas but I have never written about our younger daughter, Lydia, our little Rosie.  I affectionately call her Rosie because she has the most beautiful, clear, fair skin and Rosie cheeks.

Her boyfriend, Ryan, came over in June of 2015 and asked if he could marry Lydia.  We told him, "yes" that he could ask her, but that we would rather him wait to get married until after she graduated from college.  However, they decided that they would get married after her freshman year of college, which was after his sophomore year of college.  They both moved away from home that year so that they could begin the process of living on their own before they got married.  Lydia lived in the dorm at Missouri Southern and he lived with his cousins, aunt and uncle.  

We love Ryan.  He is a great Christian kid.  He has a great family who live in Diamond.  His mother teaches at Crowder College and his father is a farmer and retired special education teacher.  Lydia and Ryan were high school sweethearts.  There were no problems with who she was going to marry, but the timing was difficult for this mother's heart.  We had always taught her to wait until she graduated from college to get married.  They set the date for May 28, 2016, which was Memorial Day weekend, the same month that Sarah was graduating from college and just two months after my father passed away and one month before my hip replacement surgery.  There were just too many things going on at once!

Lydia asked Sarah to be her event planner and they worked great together planning it all.  Their daddy built the arch, sand table and picture holder.

I helped them both to get the flowers ordered online.  I worked with Sarah on it when she was home.  Then I had to stay up really late on a school night to work with Lydia to make sure she agreed on the flowers before we ordered that night by the deadline. They had a friend who was going to do the flower arrangements. 

We visited several venues.  Lydia wanted an outdoor wedding which could be beautiful, but we had to have an alternate plan.  We talked about having it outside at our church and having the reception there in the fellowship hall, but the land outside our church is not very level and it just wasn't a beautiful spot for a wedding.  

We went to Spring House Gardens and it was pretty, but there really wasn't a good spot to have the ceremony if it rained and we didn't like the steep uneven path to the room where the bride and bridesmaids would get ready.  And the only place for the groom and groomsmen to get ready was a small bathroom.  

We talked about a place in Carthage, the Civil War Ranch, but Lydia thought that it would seem western-themed and that was not what she was going for, so we didn't even go look at it.   Since then, I have seen wedding pictures taken there and it looked like a beautiful place to have a wedding.  

Finally, we found out about Shoal Kirk Retreat Center.  Our church was having a youth event there which is what made us remember that it was even there.  It is kind of a hidden spot, just a little ways south of our church. We visited the place and knew right away that we had found the perfect place for their wedding.  It was right on Shoal Creek.  There was a long, tree-lined aisle like a beautiful green tunnel with wild flowers growing along the way that the bride could walk through to make her entrance.  If it rained we would have the ceremony inside our church and we could have the reception in our church fellowship hall rain or shine.