MudEyes

{post by: holly}

Dave + Lacey {7.12.08}

Ryan and I had the privalege of photographing the wedding of his sister Lacey and her man, Dave. We have been looking forward to this wedding for a while because we have first hand knowledge of all the hard work that went into it so we knew it would be beautiful. It also makes a much bigger impact when you know the bride and groom, especially for Ryan as I think he was feeling the pressure because it was his sister and he wanted this to be the best possible for her {and I think he did the best job yet!}. He handled the pressure wonderfully. I just love happy brides and Lacey has such a joyful personality and is so incredibly beautiful that photographing her is an absolute joy!

In the past month we have experienced some amazing miracles. First was our wedding on June 7th. The whole week prior to the wedding it was saying thunderstorms and on the night of our rehersal there were tornados all over battle creek and kalamazoo. We had a lot of people praying and the morning of our wedding the sun was shining and it was perfect. Next was Emily and Josh Tishouse {I will post about their wedding soon}. Their wedding was about 2 weeks ago and was an outside ceremony. The weather was saying thunderstorms and like 40% rain. Again, we prayed and the day was absolutely perfect.

Now, the biggest of all! The wedding we had been looking forward to for so long and knowing that photos outside are so important, seeing that it was a 70% chance of thunderstorms made my heart sink. The night of the rehersal sprinkled a little rain, but not much. By the morning I could hear the rain pounding down outside of our apartment. Ryan and I prayed the night before for a big miracle and when we woke up to that rain, it took some big faith to believe this was going to turn out ok. We left the house at 9am and it was pouring, we thought things might even be flooded. After taking all the girls getting ready photos, we went outside to go to the church were the ceremony was being held at and the rain was completely gone and everything was already drying up! It didn’t rain AT ALL for the rest of the day.

I think it is so fabulous how God looks after us even for such small things. In the big picture of all the pain and problems of this world it never ceases to amazing me that He shows us His love in such a comparitively small way by gracing us with the beauty of His blue skys and sunshine.

On the way home after the wedding Ryan said to me he is happy we have God on our side. I could not agree more. I am so impressed by God and every July 12th I will remember His grace and power over things we cannot control.

So with all that said…here are some of our favorites from the day.

{to start things off….a nice beauty shot of the lovely bride}

{this is ryan’s trademark – the “up-shot”}

{the actual scene for the up-shot}

{this is my favorite “veil kiss” shot we have taken yet….and I took this one even!}

{post veil kiss}

{this is a lot of feet. dave had a lot of groomsmen.}

{I did not take this nor was I around for it. However I did need to find a place to hang laceys dress for photos and while looking for a good location I did look down the hallway and see all the groomsmen without their pants on. I was very confused as to what Ryan was doing, but the result is pretty funny!}

{daven and his men – I love this effect!}

{lacey put individual crystals on each of the placecards – she had some amazing details!}

{to finish it off…the beautiful bling!}

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Ryan and I chose to write our own vows for the wedding. I highly recommend doing this as it makes the ceremony so personal and intimate. When will there be a better time to open your heart and share how much you love your future spouse in front of everyone you know and love. As you can see, our writing styles are very different but showcase who we are and how we communicate. I love weddings that are a little less traditional and a little more real and personal.

So for all of you who either could not make it to the wedding or just could not hear them – enjoy! :

HOLLY’S VOWS
Ryan,
It was really hard for me to summarize what I vow to you. It is unbelievable what God has brought each of us through to get to this place right now. I feel like my words are so small and just can’t express how thankful I am that God made you for me…and as of today, I get you forever.

There is nothing in this world that can hold us back but ourselves, and I promise to put forth my best effort to be strong when your not and lift you up when things get frustrating. I feel like our dreams and ambitions are so strong and clear that God has a purpose greater than ourselves. His plan is why we are together and I promise to faithfully be by your side every step of the way to fulfill it. I promise to trust you, lean on you, and be there for you no matter what.

I promise to always be open and excited to travel to new places as that will be a huge part of our lives and God’s plan for us. I promise to be willing to try new things even if they terrify me. and to trust that you wouldn’t put me in harms way and that you just want the best for me.

I know that there will be difficult times or things just won’t go right, but I promise to try and always be thankful for all the amazing things we do have in spite of what life brings our way. I hope that in the times that I forget to be thankful, you will be there to remind me and I will be there to remind you as well so we never take anything for granted.

I promise to put you before myself and do everything in my power to be there for you and help you in any way possible.

I know that I will just be human and that I will make mistakes. but I promise to always be open to learning from them even when I am being stubborn.

You are my best friend and now your going to be family and that means the world to me. I am thrilled to experience life with you because everything just means more when you can share it with someone you love and the thought of that gives me an unmeasurable amount of joy in my heart. It is so comforting to know that there is a reason we are standing here today. You are a rare find and only God could have created a man so unique that fits perfectly with me.

Most of all, I promise you will always be my #2 and God will always hold His place as the first love of my life. I know that it is only with that that our marriage will be filled with love that only He can give us the ability to have, give and experience.

I love you Ryan and i’m ready to be your wife and your helper and to love you sacrificially and unconditionally for the rest of our days together.

RYAN’S VOWS
Holly,
You are my prize of patience.
God has always promised me reward if I honor his will
His will isn’t easy and I wasn’t perfect, yet he still showed me his perfect grace.
When I cried out to find you, he challenged me further.
He challenged me to know him first. To love him first.
It was the biggest test of patience I have ever faced.
The reward was great… and the responsibility, even greater.

Therefor I promise to love you as he loves,
To guard you     as he guards, and to grow us in his love forever more.
I promise to stand above the world’s standard of effort, loyalty and patience.
I wont cease to try knowing you will love me if I don’t.
I will seek your love everyday.

I promise to defend you from those that mistreat you
I promise to guard your sensitive heart God has given you.
I promise to appreciate your whole being. All that he has made you.

Mostly I vow to put him first, and you second. And I pray you do the same.
I promise to love you more tomorrow then I do today,
as long as God blesses me with life, I will love you.
Through stress and pain, Angst and apathy
I will be yours and you will be mine. Forever, so help me God

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So as many of you know I am in fact engaged as of this last saturday the 16th of February. This is the weird story. For anyone with a short attention span that doesn’t care about the details, skip to the end I will make a shortened version just for you.

It should be noted that I buttered her up for valentine’s day as I have never been able to celebrate with someone I love, or possibly with anyone for that matter! So anyway, there are photos at flickr.com/hollyjlynn. I made it look real nice, and I cooked a nice steak, corn, and my infamous mashed potatoes. I scattered 80 tea lights around the room and a few big candles so it was pretty nice. I figured she thought I would do it then but she was one step ahead when i was forced to tell her we had plans for Saturday.

Anyway! To start the morning Saturday before Chicago, I woke up early so that I could make her favorite cheesy eggs and fried potatoes. When i got downstairs and she realized i made her breakfast she gave me a loving slug on the arm and said “your nice!” And then she realized she hit me a lot when i did nice things =)

So at this point I still had to pick up the ring, since I was late getting home the night before, so i had her take a shower so I could wash the car, and do some “errands” once I had it i came home took a shower put on a nice shirt and tie and left with her to chicago. We arrived in the windy city (literally it was freezing) at 1:30 where we parked the car for the day near Geno’s east Pizza, where we had some deep dish pizza with was great. It was a cool restaurant, it had peoples writing and graffiti covering every wall seat and pillar. After we ate, I thought it would be nice to take a walk.

When we turned the corner to go back to drop of leftovers we were asked if we would share those same leftovers with a talkative guy who looked like he had a rough life, so we gladly gave up our extras, and had a chat with him on the way back to the car.

Anyway we started down the road toward a movie theater where we were to see the movie Juno. With the theater in sight and an hour to go we stopped in a grocery store with a Starbuck’s inside to get a hot chocolate, as we were pretty cold from walking only a few blocks. I gave holly my wallet, and had her get a hot chocolate for us, so I could use the restroom, and after a while warming up on we went the rest of the way to the theater.

The movie is actually quite funny, i recommend it much more then the shock value humor that has been more prevalent in resent times. Anyway after that we hailed a cab to take us to the Sears Tower. I was hoping to watch the sunset from the top but as I learned an hour and half long line of people had the same idea. So unfortunately we didn’t make it up in time. The line was very long, and I don’t know if I would say I would do that again. I mean its cool if you don’t have to wait, because then it was almost as long just getting back down. What a waste of time when time is short!

She later told me she thought I would propose up there, but then she remembers I wouldn’t have liked the attention of the 200+ people around us!

I had a big finally in mind where I would take her to the navy pier and do a cool night shot with both of us with the ferris wheel in the back round. With me tricking her into thinking we were just taking a photo of us in Chicago, when really I wanted to propose to her and catch it on “film”. My Plans were thwarted when number 1 the ferris wheel is not running in the winter for obvious, un-thought of reasons…and number 2 as we got a cab back to the car we had to use the GPS because the driver didn’t know where Jeno’s was. And Holly Dropped one of my $20 bills so i had to run to the car to pay him, and then we grabbed our things and left the cab. Then I went to find the GPS so i could go to the navy pier and salvage a cityscape photo, but when i went to get it I couldn’t find it! I was a little more then upset that the whole day could be thrown out of whack because l left the GPS in a car that we would never see again. While we were pulling out I found a quick way to the highway, and didn’t want to risk going into the interior of metro chicago and decided to head for home, severely disappointed I went to all that effort for it not to work out like I wanted.

I was thinking on the way home and praying, God what the heck am I supposed to be learning from this and why do I have to learn stuff when I just want to give Holly a great way to propose to her. And I guess I just kind of got from it that things aren’t going to always be perfect as you would like. That’s just life. This world isn’t perfect. Are you going to let it ruin things or are you going to make the best of what you are given?

So I pulled over in a hyundai dealership of all places, and told Holly I wasn’t upset with her, I just wanted to have a special day and I didn’t want it to end like this. I told her how much I loved her and how much I loved her heart for how she was dealing with conflict and disappointment. It’s really rare to find someone who hurts for you because she knew how upset i was.

I said I didn’t really want to propose to you in a car but this is what we have been dealt. I am going to love you even when things aren’t perfect and things don’t work out as planned. And I asked her to marry me. And she said, “I would marry you if we were covered in mud” =)

It wasn’t the most perfect story, but it’s ours, and we are thankful for what God has given us.

 

Short Version…
Went to Chicago, Had a great day, took a cab back to the car where I was going to drive to take a photo of us both, and surprise her by proposing while taking a photo. Couldn’t do that because we lost the gps. Was very pissed….

But didn’t want to end the weekend that way and pulled over and proposed to her there…..she said yes.

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