Carol
and I both agree that our wedding day, December 20, 1997, was one of the best
days of our lives. When the doors opened for Carol to proceed from the
rear of the church Carol often says. "it was as if I could feel a whoosh
of love coming out of the church". The video offers proof that I
was noticeably tense at the beginning of the wedding, but when my friend arrived
and we sat down together, I could relax.
Between the two of us we had been to hundreds of weddings (Ok, let's say 71 weddings). Carol often sang at weddings so there were many aspects that were so familiar it was almost tiring. For our wedding we chose to go with the French tradition of not having wedding parties but having the parents be the witnesses. We are just French enough to plausibly get away with it and I think it helped relieve many wedding day pressures with the result that it was a totally enjoyable day. The picture to the left shows us sitting, another aspect of the French ceremony that was worth adopting - the bride and groom are allowed to sit and watch the show until it is time to say vows.
After
the ceremony we left directly for the reception while our guests were still
being distracted by the choir. There we received our guests, took a few
pictures, and sat down for the dinner and program. I loved David's story
about walking to and from piano lessons with his sister (and the reaction it
provoked in Carol), all the Christmas-themed songs and costumes, and having
Jireh there with us (our best friends). Pictured to the right are (left
to right): Sharon, Teresa, Rex, Valerie, Jenny and Wendy singing "O Come
All Ye Faithful"
We barely had time to play the three or four songs we had chosen for our wedding dance and the official festivities were over. Our photographer took a few more pictures afterwards and then we were on our way to a cozy little place in Old Montréal.
Below is a wonderful picture that Carol took on the beginning of my first full day as a married man and another of the two of us sprawled in front of our Christmas tree upon our return from honeymooning in Colombia.