Wonderful Wedding Weekend

The pictures before the words...

The 3 Musketeers

Jessica's beautiful centerpieces

"I see you over there"

The groom, Tess & Rachel... dance break!

our sexy faces

beautiful Tess and Daisy making "beautiful" faces

Kellen & Yvonne... no longer the newly weds of the bunch

Great flowers huh?

Jess & I

Rachie and I... classic self taken shot

Demi's Cousin Jason... got to spend good time talking with lots of the wedding party including Jason and his wife who came from San Diego.

I was able to stand beside some beloved friends as they got married this weekend. About a year ago (almost exactly) I started a small group for people at church in their 20's & 30's at my house on Friday nights. It was a few people I knew really well and then a few people I barely knew. The ones I barely knew were this strange mix of different types of people and I really wasn't sure how it would all work out. The first time we met we all went around talking about what we were interested in getting out of the group. A few of us talked about the idea of community and then when it got to Demitrius he said, "I am really not into the whole community thing." A few weeks ago we were laughing about that because Demi spends half of each small group talking about the importance of community. God has done a really amazing thing in bringing a group of very different people together to really love and care for one another. Many of those in our small group have been through some pretty big life changing events over the last year. Yesterday I was able to be a part of one of those life changing moments and watch Demitrius and Jessica get married.

In the Fall our friends Yvonne and Kellen got married and it was so fun to celebrate with them because God had transformed them from a non-Christian couple who were living together, to a couple willing to do the hard thing and live separately, and get marriage counseling, and be in a community that challenged them. Their marriage was such a celebration because of the redeeming power God had already shown in their lives. Demi and Jessica have also had an unusual love story filled with themes of redemption and healing and hope. Demi has been divorced and has kids from his first marriage. They have had a very intense and interesting journey already in their relationship but through all of it they have wanted the Lord to be the predominate force in their life. God had allowed their relationship and the community around them to blossom as everyone has had the joy of knowing one another and being humble and honest before each other as we live our lives. The whole process of their wedding was such an opportunity to bless them in ways they have never been blessed before. It was such a delight! It was a beautiful wedding and I even felt blown away by the beauty of two of my good friends, Linda and Tess, who I shared the honor of being bridesmaids with. They looked dazzling! On top of it all there was great dancing too, which always makes a wedding a great success in my books!