4 years ago today!!

Four years ago today I married my best friend, soulmate and by far my better half. Come along with me as I take you through our wedding day in pictures. We were married at our favorite place in the area, The Genesee Country Museum. Be aware there are a lot of pictures, this is a very long post.

Here I am waiting for my groom. The girls and I got ready at my sister Missy's house. The guys got ready at our house.

Here I am with my Mom and Dad. I was so excited to get to the church.

This is a picture of my sister Missy and my sister Sherri (this was a few months after her brain injury)

Here are the girls and I, looking at this picture I realize how much Katie and Hannah have changed in just 4 years.

Here is a picture of the guys, my brother Matt, brother in law Steve (our best man), Matt's nephew Dan and Andrew who was being a stinker...ha ha.

I love this picture of Matt and Andrew. This was about the only time Andrew was still! Cracks me up!!

Here is Katie. Boy has she grown up in the past 4 years. She has gone from child to young lady.
This is a picture of Hannah, she also looks like a child in this picture. She has grown into a young lady as well.

My parents sang for us. I love hearing them sing together. This is a picture taken from the balcony in the church.

Our minister forgot to tell Matt he may kiss the bride. But we didn't remember and as he was pronouncing us Man and Wife we stole a smooch!!

The leaves that year were so colorful and bright. The very next day we had a rain and wind storm that knocked all the leaves off the trees. Thank you for coming along down memory lane with me. I LOVE YOU Honey! Thank you for a wonderful 4 years. I look forward to many many more.

Are you kidding me????

While reading the paper the other day there was an article on weddings in our area. They said that the average amount that people pay for their weddings is $30,000!!! How can anyone justify paying that much on a wedding? Call me old fashioned but my Husband and I decided before we were married that we would keep everything simple. We would rather put the money into our home. So I decided to give everyone a break down of our wedding costs. You will see, at least we thought so, how beautiful a wedding can be done on a very small budget.

My dress: We had done some shopping for a dress but I couldn't find anything I liked or could afford. Some of the dresses were well over $500! My Husband and I were coming home from Walmart and we saw this small wedding dress store. I didn't want to stop because being a small store I thought it would be more than the big stores I'd already checked out. So I said OK we can stop but you sit in the truck! I walked in and they showed me the dresses, guess what...the first dress I saw was the one I wanted....it was only $99! Right in our budget! I tried it on and it fit great. Just need to be taken in a small bit on the top.

Next was the Church. Since we were newly saved we didn't belong to a Church yet. So we had always talked about getting married in the Living History Museum near our home. This ate up most of our budget. It was $900 but we had the museum all to ourselves. For the reception we rented the fire hall in our town. That cost $100 with $50 returned upon clean up.

We paid for my daughter's dresses which was a total of $100 and my son's tux was $70. My Husband's tux was free. We had a friend of the family do the alterations for $20 for all the dresses!!

Then came the flowers. Thanks for my wonderful Sister in law we saved a ton of money in this area. We went to the local craft store and bought fake flowers. She put them all together for a very minimal amount of money. I think we paid $75 for all of them including the ones to decorate the church and the ones the girls carried. The arch was one that was used in my Aunt and Uncle's wedding. We borrowed it to use at the alter.

As for the food and cake. The food we just did simple sandwiches with chips and a baked pasta. Along with some finger foods. This all together costs about $200 which my parents paid for. It was a big hit and we didn't break our budget. The cake we made cupcakes a couple of days ahead of time we made cupcakes. Cake mixes are very inexpensive and easy to prepare. This way we could make a variety of kinds and there was something for everyone. Another reason we did cupcakes was so we didn't have to cut and serve the cake. People could just come over to the table and take one. This is only a portion of the cupcakes. There you will see the cake we were keeping for our first anniversary. We cut a cup cake to feed one another. Yes we were nice to each other!

We did have a photographer and DJ who were also friends of the family. We paid $500 for both. We received a CD with all the pictures from the wedding for us to make copies as needed of pictures.

So the grand total of our wedding was $2000 including a night in a hotel for our honeymoon. We didn't take a big trip because we really wanted to come home and be with the children. We didn't just get married, we became a family on that day as well. So as you can see it doesn't have to break the bank to have a beautiful wedding.