July 5th was Amy and I’s first wedding anniversary.  We celebrated, in part, by attending (I officiated) the wedding of two friends in Ohio.

Nick and Rachel were two of my students when I was a youth pastor at RiverTree Christian Church.  It’s nearly impossible to believe that I we have been in each others lives for the last 10 years!

Here’s us on our way to the rehearsal.

The ceremony and took place on the stunning grounds of Stan Hywet in Akron, OH.

I honestly don’t think I could have invented a more meaningful way to celebrate our first anniversary than to participate in the wedding ceremony of these friends.  Not only were Nick and Rachel the first couple that Amy and I had the opportunity to help walk through some pre-marital counseling, but they are going to be living in the Chicagoland area and we are looking forward to many more years of sharing life with them.

And this was just the beginning to our anniversary celebration.  After a couple days in Ohio, Amy and I got to head up to Pelee Island with our friends Matt and Sharon. More on that in the next post.

This weekend will mark year one of marital bliss for Amy and I and it’s be an incredible year in more ways that I can possible say.

To celebrate, we’ll be heading to Ohio so that I can officiate a wedding ceremony for 2 of my former students who will be living in the Chicagoland area and then we’ll head up to one of my favorite spots in the world, Pelee Island, with our friends the Matt and Sharon for some fun and relaxation.

For anyone who remembers and enjoyed the recap from 2008, Amy and I are working on a recap of 2009 and hope to have it finished by the time we come back.

So, you married veterans out there, as Amy and I reflect on our first year as husband and wife and do our best to ask some helpful questions of ourselves as we charge on into the future, what words of wisdom do you have to offer?

A wedding between our friends Matt and Brianna last weekend gave Amy and I the opportunity to take our first trip to San Francisco.

The wedding was held at the Guglielmo Winery in Morgan Hill and was one of the most beautiful weddings I have ever attended.

Thursday and Saturday we stayed in Gilroy, just south of Morgan Hill and apparently the “Garlic Capital of the World.”  Sounded pretty ridiculous to me until we drove into Gilroy and all we could smell was garlic – seriously!

After the mandatory trip to In-N-Out…

We of course felt compelled to visit the Garlic Shoppe.

Amy was even brave enough to taste the Chocolate-Garlic Ice ream.

We spent Sunday with our friend Jeanelle seeing some of the sights around the city of San Francisco including Hyde St. Pier, Ghiradelli Square, Chinatown, Golden Gate Park and the adjacent beach.  We also took the perfunctory trip across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Sunday evening, Amy and I went to see Wicked at the Orpheum in the Union Square district of downtown.

~~ Lots more pictures here and videos here

Now, Amy is a musical buff, she’s seen em all (multiple times in many cases!) but this was my first time seeing Wicked and I loved it.  It was probably one of the highlights of the trip for me.  Why? Because Wicked bore a striking resemblance to one of my favorite TV series’ of all time, LOST. Let me offer a quote I heard recently as a prelude to my explanation of that observation.

“Strangers and enemies are merely people whose stories we haven’t heard yet.”

More on that in my next post.

“We want pictures!! We want pictures!!”

Has been the refrain for the last 2 months since our wedding.  Well, the wait is over.

After sifting through more than 2000 pictures from 8 events over the course of our weekend celebration of marriage, we have created a website featuring the best of those pictures, a bunch of short videos from the course of the weekend, a guest book we’d love for you to sign and several other treats for your enjoyment.

Now, back to those thank yous!!

From 2 days to just over 2 weeks, the last 18 days have been some of the best of my life.

Our wedding was amazing – everything we had hoped it would be and more.  I don’t think I mentioned this before, but in stark contrast to horror stories I have heard from others, Amy and I had a blast putting our wedding together.  Much of that was thanks to the fact that we both get a kick out of infusing stuff with as much meaning as possible so we really enjoyed thinking imaginatively together about the elements of what we called a weekend celebration of marriage (hope to share more about this in a future post).  Aside from that, we are just fortunate enough to have a lot of friends and family that were excited to pitch in and help.

Our wedding photographer/videographer, Tim Miller, who you should definitely check out if you are in need of some mad skills, is sending Amy and I 2,300 pictures to sort through.  Until we have the professional stuff all put together, here’s a slide show of random pictures from some of our friends and family.

Right before the wedding weekend kicked off, Amy and I invested in a Sony CyberShot that shoots video in HD.  Here’s some of those videos.  (Hint: If you have the time – just under 30 mins. total, they will automatically play in order.)

Amy and I both want to say a huge thanks to everyone who contributed to and attended the most significant weekend of our life together – much love.

I am less than 48 hours away from being a married man.  We just finished the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.  They couldn’t have been better.  In just a matter of hours people were descending on Davenport from all over the country, anxious to help get last minute things done, reconnecting with friends and family, and working on getting know new ones.  As we walked through the rehearsal I kept thinking, “I love how this is coming together.”  I would look around and see people that Amy and I have known from different seasons of life meeting and talking for the first time and I loved that see how Amy and I’s hope and dream of our wedding being about something bigger than just us was unfolding.

Then, it was off to the rehearsal dinner.  It was stunning.  A semicircle room with an all glass outside wall with a picture-perfect view of the Mississippi River and Downtown Davenport.  The food was excellent, people were busy in conversations and greetings.  Amy and I got to distribute a bunch of gifts that we had tried to put some thought into for the people who are helping with the ceremony and such.  There was a time for some of our friends and family to toast us and I soaked it all in as though I were having an out of body experience.  Amy and I made small speeches and introduced a slideshow of our pictures from growing up and then together that a good friend who couldn’t be with us had put together.  As we finished, a major fireworks display began over the Mississippi for everyone to enjoy.  Stories were told and connections made throughout the evening.  We wound down and person after person commented on how beautiful and special the evening had been.  Amy and I commented to each other on just how lucky we are to share in so much love from all angles and all we could do was smile in in grace-washed humility.  I simply can’t wait for the fun to continue tomorrow.

It’s Thursday morning.  Family and friends will begin pouring into Davenport beginning this afternoon and evening.  Wedding festivities begin tomorrow.  Everything that is happening seems very surreal – like a movie playing out that has been in production for years and years.  I am loving every moment and can’t remember the last time I felt this excited about anything.  Just when I am sure time is about to start spinning out of control, I am wishing for a slow motion button on life.

Oops!!  Update:  As my brother pointed out, Amy is actually Wonderwoman, not Superwoman.  Props to his lady Michelle catching that one.

OK, not quite yet really, but it’s coming quick.  For the last month and a half I have been staying in Amy’s apartment in Elgin while she stays with friends.

(mailman decided to add my name to the box since we only have 1 address)

So here I am in this apartment, surrounded by girl clothes, girl decorations, and all other manner of girl things and I think to myself, “Wow, girl stuff is not like boy stuff.”  And I am confronted with the startling (though welcome) reality that “mine” is becoming “ours,” “I” am becoming “us”, and “me” is becoming “we.”  You’d think that for who has lived independently as long as I have, this would cause me to break out into a cold sweat as I crawl around in the darkness of stress-induced blindness searching for a paperbag to calm my hyperventilating panic attack, but I am happy to report that this hasn’t been the case.  Why?  Mainly because Amy is just about the most amazing woman ever!

Seriously, Amy amazes me.  I have totally hijacked her apartment, separating her from all the comforts of a place you call your own while she stays in a simple bedroom with friends 20 minutes away.  She keeps most of her clothes and stuff that she needs on a daily basis largely in the trunk of her car since our lives are so sporadic and she never quite knows what she will need.  When we spend a day together, no matter how late we’re together, she’s the one that has to get in a car and make the drive home.  She works full-time while I look for work and do what I can to help plan for the wedding.  She does it all with a smile on her face and a bounce in her step.  She radiates grace and compassion and her presence is a constant reminder of God’s great love for the world and little ol’ me.  If you need any more evidence, here you go.

Case closed.  Amy is Wonderwoman… only cuter.

Because you were all so helpful with wedding music suggestions, I thought I’d throw out another major feature of the wedding planning to get your thoughts on – the honeymoon!

What ideas/suggestions do you have?

Where did/would you go and why?

What do you think is most/least important to consider?

Not asking you to think about us in particular necessarily – feel free to try and convince us.

Of course Amy and I are going to want to add our own personal touch and flare to the music during our ceremony and reception, but we wonder what kind of great suggestions others might have.  Is there a song you just love?  Something you were really glad you used for your wedding?  Feel free to add any suggestions by way of comment.  Let us know: artist, song, whether you think it’s good for a ceremony or reception, and anything else you want to say.

I proposed to Amy at the end of February and ever since the main thing on both our minds and the question we were asked the most was, “So where are you going to live?”

It was an ineviatble question (well, for most people anyway) and one we were anxious to hear from God on in the context of community.  We prayed a ton, talked a lot, asked those we respect for wisdom and advice, and in the end, felt like we had our answer, Chicago.

This was a really, really hard decision for both of us.  Neither of us had a good reason to leave the places we were.  I have been in Memphis for just a year, Amy in Chicago since October.  Both of us liked where we were living, our jobs, the people around us, and the opportunities God was giving us to serve.  We kept hoping something might happen that would essentially make the decision for us, but that never really came about.

So, Amy was in Memphis this past weekend and was with me when I shared the news with the body of Living Hope.  This was very hard to do, but brought with it a sense of relief as we begin to make plans for the future together.

I am in Chicago as I write this – we brought all my stuff up here this past Monday and have been busy looking for an apartment since then.  I have no leads on jobs as of yet, but I’m actually kind of excited for the search (networking and connections always welcome!)

Amy and I are off to Davenport, IA (her hometown and the location of our wedding) for Easter weekend to see her family and do some wedding planning and then it’s back to Memphis for me to enjoy the remainder of April with good friends and the Families on Mission Seminar that we have been planning for the end of the month.  I will be in Chicago full-time as of May 1.

So the really big question, do the Bears, Bulls, Cubs/White Sox have what it takes to make me a true Chicago convert?!