Our Wedding Day

Zach and I got married on Monday May 28th, 2007.

We decided on a 7 am wedding time because the sun rises in the east and sunrise is such a pretty time to get married 😉

We also loved the idea of starting our day off as husband and wife and thought breakfast food was a budget friendly option.

It also, we thought, would help avoid any awkwardness of our decision to not have any alcohol served at our wedding!

We had a super fun weekend leading up to our wedding day which you can read about here!

I got up around 3 am to start getting ready for the big day!

All the bridesmaids came to my room and we all got ready together.

Claire sang during our ceremony which meant THE WORLD to me and she joined us to get ready too 🙂

We both ran downstairs to check out the reception area and see everything all set up!

All images were taken by Javon Longieliere Photography!

Booking Javon was literally a decision we made prior to even being engaged.

We legit got home from our proposal and drove to see him and sign a contract!

I LOVE all of our images and am so thankful we have these to look back on 🙂

Javon just published his first book filled with amazing images of destination weddings.

I can’t wait to get our copy as a little birdie told me one of our images is featured 😉 

The boys also got up super early that morning and went to the beach to set up all the chairs for our guests (yup…Zach had to do some grunt work on his wedding day ha! We were all about saying that dough!).

Javon went ahead and did all the groomsmen pics while us ladies were getting ready. It was pretty easy to avoid seeing Zach all morning as we really weren’t near each other.

There was one moment where he was getting ready in my dad’s hotel room that I guess was iffy but we didn’t see each other!

Zach wore a white tux. I wasn’t really a big fan of the whole idea because the BRIDE should wear white!!!

But I ended up loving how it all came together and my dress was such a showstopper that I wasn’t worried about him over shining me 😉

I loved how Candler wanted to look just like Zach did!

Seth is still just as silly, even with 4 kids!

All the handsome guys!

(from the left: Travis, Ryan, Jonathan, Seth, Austin and Brandon with Candler and Zach in the white)

A view of the guys from my room (but I promise I didn’t peek!)

I wanted to talk a minute about my dress. Mom and I went dress shopping but none of the ones we found felt like “it.”

Then one day Katie was over hanging out and we were flipping through a bridal magazine and saw an ad for a dress designer and the model was wearing THE DRESS.

We both knew it instantly. It had to be MINE!

I found out that it was a dress from an earlier season which made it tougher to track down.

A store in Orlando was able to order it for me to try on and Katie, Mom and I went to see it in person and sure enough it was perfect in every way.

My goal was to have a timeless dress.

I didn’t want something trendy and I loved the sleeves, the lace, the overall vibe of the entire thing.

I also LOVED the veil we got to go with it.

And 10 years later I still will have people tell me how great both pieces are.

I think it was a look that will always be “in style” and I’m so thankful for that!

I kept the dress (and veil) and hope my daughters can somehow incorporate it someday into their wedding looks!

I also at some point want to do the photos of the girls wearing it while they are still little 🙂 

Everyone was barefoot for the wedding which carried over to the reception and it was hilarious b/c most of the wedding party didn’t even HAVE shoes and the hotel staff kept getting onto everyone saying it was a health code violation. Oops!

Sweet Nana 🙂 

Zach didn’t see me until I walked down the aisle and my dad didn’t see me until it was time for him to walk me down to meet Zach 🙂

It was a really special moment between Dad and I and I won’t ever forget the tears in his eyes as he looked at me and told me how beautiful I was. 

I love love love this!

Yes. I had a nose ring. And I wore it on my wedding day 🙂 

No. I no longer have it! I took it out when I watched Kaitlyn’s season of the bachelorette b/c I did NOT like hers haha!

We always laugh watching our wedding video. Zach is just a big dude who takes some giant steps haha

The moment!

I was hoping that he’d cry and he didn’t disappoint!!!

As a little girl we all dream of our wedding days.

One of the most important things for me was for my dad to walk me down the aisle and to wear a veil that covered my face so he’d lift it as he handed me off to my husband.

I made sure Javon knew how special this was for me and I love the photos he captured of it!

We wanted to keep the wedding ceremony pretty simple and short and sweet. Mr. Rusty (Zach’s dad) married us which is beyond special.

He did such a great job and I love that when we watch our wedding video that a man we adore so much had such a big role on our wedding day.

Zach’s dad is his best friend and he’s such a strong man of faith and his marriage with Mrs Charlotte is such a great example to us!

We had a couple bible verses read, a poem recited, Claire sang (“As The Deer” our favorite church song).

We did the traditional vows and also wrote our own.

Zach’s were precious because he talked about the National Championship wins and the wedding video caught his dad laughing at that part 😉

I promised to always strive to give him a home he’d want to come home to.

A home where God would be first, our marriage second, and our children third.

I even talked about being a stay at home mom.

They are vows I try hard to think of often and truly strive to live by the best I can! 

The rings!

My height has always been a running joke.

I’m 5’1″ and Zach’s 6’6″. Madeline (who I babysat for daily and who was my jr bridesmaid) said that we should have a stool for our first kiss so I would be able to be tall enough to kiss Zach.

She and I decided it’d be a super cute touch to our wedding ceremony so Mom had a stool under her seat and when it was time to “kiss the bride” Madeline yelled out “wait!” and ran the stool up to me.

No one knew about it (including Zach) and it was super adorable!

Officially Mr and Mrs Parker!

I’ve always loved this picture. Just all the joy and everyone hugging and being so excited! 

After the ceremony guests headed in for the reception and we were pretty fast with taking all the photos we needed to take!

Z and I both don’t like when weddings have a huge lull of time between the ceremony and reception so we did our best to keep it as short as we could!

Big Daddy…such a stud 😉 

 The wedding party!

My husband haha

We did some group shots on the beach together which were super fun!

And the boys did this?!?! 

When we entered the reception area we went straight into the dances.

Zach and I danced to our song (“The Blowers Daughter” from the movie Closer…it’s an awesome song if you’ve never heard it!), my dad and I danced to “Love Me Tender” by Elvis (Dad is a HUGE Elvis fan…this is also the song I now sing to Tess) and Zach and his mom danced to “The Perfect Fan” from Backstreet Boys (super fitting!). 

Our traditional dances was the only dancing we had at the reception but it still sparked a good bit of controversy.

Y’all. The bible isn’t anti-dancing. It’s anti-lust.

And slow dancing as husband and wife and sharing a dance with your parents is farrrr from lustful 😉 

There are several photos like this one where everyone is looking at something and clearly it’s not a good thing haha.

I’m not sure if it’s something to do with the little kids we let blow bubbles while we danced, something random that I haven’t ever heard about happening, OR if this was THE moment when the wait staff began handing out CHAMPAGNE.

Remember? DRY WEDDING.

We met with SO many people over the course of planning our wedding and reminded them over and over that we did not want ANY alcohol served!

They passed out champagne flutes for a toast.

And when we realized it Zach had them go around and pick them back up from everyone (which is also hilarious because there were plenty of people chugging them real quick before handing them back haha).

On top of their huge mess up, they also tried to CHARGE US the $1800 fee!!! Um no.

We didn’t pay it and we def weren’t happy about the mess up. BUT it was also so, so hilarious.

Of all the things that they could have messed up on, they served alcohol at my husband’s wedding who hasn’t ever even had a sip of alcohol his entire life. Classic.

We did Hawaiian names on each name card to bring in the beachy theme 🙂 

My Uncle Spear said the blessing for the food which was very special to me.

I’m thankful we had it on our wedding video and it is one of my favorite parts when we re-watch the video each year 🙂 

I mentioned in another post that our wedding day was AMAZING but that it wasn’t the best day of my life. A LOT went wrong that we weren’t happy about.

The alcohol was a mix up but it was pretty funny.

The DJ though? Nightmare. Dude totally forgot to bring along the microphones that we were promised.

So I have no clue if any of the guests could really hear the ceremony.

He also dropped the ball and played totally random songs for our reception when we’d specified certain songs we wanted played. Basically he was a joke. 

Then the cake. Which is my personal worst moment of the day.

We had worked with a wonderful cake lady and she had sold her business and this new woman we felt bad for because she had purchased the business and was struggling.

So, duh, we tried to be nice and told her we’d use her.

Well. Lesson learned.

Don’t “be nice” when it comes to your wedding 😉

We were supposed to have sheet cakes IN THE BACK to give enough cake to serve all of the guests.

The lady instead put them on display on our cake table.

And then the cake itself was AWFUL looking.

She made these super ugly shells with some pink marble look to them.

They legit reminded me of soap you’d see in a little beach motel.

On top of that she put the cake on a bright gold plate and put that on top of our cake stand.

Tacky. I hated the entire thing but what can you do?

We walked in the reception and saw it and just had to roll with it at that point!

At least the grooms cake turned out!

As a favor to each guest we did a box filled with salt water taffy as a nod to Maine (where my dad is from and where we have so many great memories).

We had a kids table with lots of crafts and activities

And did a scrapbook guest book.

As people sent in their RSVPs we mailed them out the elements they’d need to make a little scrapbook page for our guest book.

We had extra materials on hand for anyone who may not have made one in advance and the finished product is really awesome! 

Chatting it up with Nana!

Seth did some epic balloon animals for everyone too! Jolee was so cute

This is my favorite picture of Nana! We have it hanging in our living room 🙂 

Our wedding party snuck out during the reception and went all out decorating Zach’s car

Remember when weddings had disposable cameras at each table?

Can I also add I love how thrilled Brad was to be there? haha

I joked a LOT about my wedding dress to throw Zach off while we were engaged.

I had him pretty convinced that I would be a Disney Princess on my wedding day with a HUGE ballgown and massive tiara.

Just to be silly I made a tiara and wore it when we did the bouquet toss. 

I had to toss my bouquet three times to finally get someone to catch it…I’m not an athlete. I even hit the ceiling at one point 😉 

Mom made a super cute VSU garter for the toss!

I love this because you know Zach had to GRUB!

Austin’s girl friend at the time (Alden) caught the bouquet and Travis got the garter.

She was like 16 so they did a switch and she put it on his leg 😉

This is my sweet cousin, Amber, who passed away a couple months ago in a car accident.

She was in her early 20s. Thank you all for continuing to keep her family in your prayers.

I’m thankful I have pictures of her from our wedding and it breaks my heart for her sweet sister who is getting married in a couple months and who I know will be missing her sister being there. 

My annoyance at the cake def carried over into the cake cutting moment haha. 

When the toasts were given by the maid of honor (Taylor), best man (Ryan) and my dad I always remember how Ryan joked and said “raise your glass of WATER” after the whole champagne debacle haha.

My dad’s was also pretty classic because he ended it with “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Which was pretty perfect!

Dad has had his share of marriages (but I’m SO thankful he’s happily married now to Audrey and that the 5th time was the charm!).

I love this of Mr Rusty! I’m so glad everyone had such a great time!

We were finished up by about 10:30 which was perfect timing as guests were able to get checked out of their hotel rooms and saw us off as they headed off themselves!

My dad has always loved Corvettes and my Uncle Chip let us borrow one of his Corvettes to use as our exit car and to have some photos taken with it after the ceremony! 

The great thing about getting married so early in the morning was that we had ALL DAY! We took a couple hours with Javon taking lots of bride and groom photos! 

Gotta love a random tourist in the shot 😉 

This is also funny because we walked through the hotel bar and it was so awkward for us haha

Had to end where it started…the beach! This is the beach where I grew up. Where Zach first told me he knew he’d spend the rest of his life with me. Where he proposed. And where we got married!

We tossed on some bathing suits and had some fun to finish up our photos with Javon!

A bunch of our family met up at my aunt and uncle’s home to hang out post-wedding so we headed over there and decided to get messy with our left over wedding cake.

I’m not into the whole “smash it in the bride’s face” thing so we made up for our clean eating when we were at their house 😉 

After we went over to my mom’s and opened all of our wedding gifts!

So funny…we thought this ice scoop was such a random gift but we have used it!

We didn’t end up getting to our hotel room for our wedding night until 11 pm!

We brought a pizza with us to finally eat dinner and were surprised with fruit and sparkling grape juice waiting for us in the room 🙂 

We spent our first night as husband and wife at the Double Tree where we got married.

I set an alarm (to Zach’s annoyance haha) for 7 am so we could go sit out on the deck and celebrate our first 24 hours as man and wife! 

Good morning HUSBAND!

I totally think we should have a re-wedding now that Pinterest exists!

I know now-a-days weddings have SO many cute, fun details and I’d be all about it if I was a bride today.

Overall though I really love how our wedding came together.

I love that we did something so different and unique with getting married on the beach in the morning.

I am thankful to all of our friends and family who made it so special and such a FUN weekend.

Aside from a couple vendors we really wouldn’t have changed a thing and it’s C-RAZY to believe it’s been an entire decade ago!!!