Monthly Archives: October 2017

The Day We Wed

September 8th of 2017 dawned bright and early. It was our wedding day, finally. πŸ™‚

We had a few unexpected situations happen that morning- car issues, clothing issues- if you can name it, it probably happened! I am thankful that the Lord carried us through, and that all of the last minute details started falling right into place. πŸ™‚

Thank *you* to all of our family members and sweet friends who pitched in and helped get everything set up and ready to go! My family and several close friends helped finish getting the food together, cleaned up the last couple of things inside, got the decorations finished outside, made sure the littles stayed seated until it was time, directed people down to the eating area, got the cake layers stacked up and that sucker decorated in record time- I will never fully be able to thank everyone as much as they deserve for the incredible feats that were accomplished to pull everything together. πŸ™‚

2:00 arrived and with it, several of the helpers and the photographers. While I was finishing hair, makeup and such, they went ahead and started taking photos of the area, of my dress, and other pretty little details. πŸ™‚

 

The wedding programs
 

The dress and the old goat shed
 

The dress hung up from the arbor
 

My bouquet, the boots Daniel sent me from Australia, and my engagement ring
 

My dress, the boots, and the bouquet, artfully arranged in front of the arbor
Once the photographers had finished taking photos of some of the ceremony elements, it was time for me to retrieve my dress back and finish getting ready.

My dear Mama handmade my veil. <3

 

Veil arranging
 

More veil arranging
 

Quiet reflection
After getting the veil arranged and ready, it was time to go ahead and knock out some of the photos that could be taken before the ceremony. I made my way to the back yard to get started….I never realized how heavy my dress actually was until then! πŸ™‚

 

My girls and I….the photographers told them all to look at me, :p!!
 

That’s better. πŸ˜€
 

My Mama and I. <3
 

“Joyful Noise”and I- these girls were such troopers and had been practicing the music for our wedding for very nearly a year!!<3
 

Instruments close-up
Once some of those were knocked out, it was time to get the bridal portraits done. πŸ™‚

It was nearly time for the ceremony to start, so the very last last-minute details were taken care of, and I went back up into the house to wait. At this point, I was fighting tears- there were so many emotions swirling in my heart. I was so thankful to finally be marrying this wonderful man whom I love more than I ever thought possible to love anyone- the one that God had chosen and made *so* very perfectly for us to compliment each other as we traverse the path of life together- better together than apart. <3 On the other hand, I was melancholy at the thought of leaving my family home; of not living day-in and day-out with those folks whom I had been with my entire life. I knew it would be an exciting change, but it was still bittersweet.

Folks were beginning to arrive….

And then it was 4:00, and time for the processional to start. πŸ™‚

 

Videographers ready to go!
 

Grandaddy and our honorary Grandma, Ms. Ruth
 

Josh, Kylie, Gabriel and baby Derek
 

Meredith and Darby
Now, Jackson had a special mission to deliver a very special note…

 

On the way….
 

Some minor confusion on Daniel’s part because we didn’t rehearse this…he didn’t know it was coming! πŸ™‚
 

But I think the note made him happy. πŸ˜€
 

The rest of the family coming down…
 

The guys getting the runner ready!
 

And waiting! πŸ™‚
The next several photos are of my Daddy leading me down to the arbor. <3

Once I saw Daniel in the distance, the tears ceased to flow. I was walking towards the man of my dreams…my husband-to-be, and we would be getting married in just a few short minutes! No more days of a 10,000 mile separation….<3

And it was time to get started. My former employer and an elder at our church kindly did the opening portion of our ceremony. He and his wife have been very special to me over the past several years, and it made perfect sense that he open the ceremony. This worked out perfectly, as I wanted my dad to give me away and perform the marriage ceremony. πŸ™‚

 

Please be seated
 

Let’s open with prayer
 

Who gives this woman?
And so, my Daddy proceeded to marry us. <3

And then we shared our very first kiss.

We were finally married!! God is so good.

Now it was time to go to the reception and take the remainder of the pictures that couldn’t be taken before the ceremony. πŸ™‚

 

Mama, myself, Daniel, and Daddy
 

Grandaddy, myself, and Daniel
 

C and D and Ms Ruth!
 

The couples <3
 

The guys!
 

Family picture try #1
 

Family picture try #2
 

Family picture try #3
 

All the siblings!
Next, it was time to go and cut the cake. πŸ™‚ As mentioned earlier, Mama and Jess did the cake, and it was so beautiful!

After cake, we slipped away with the photographers to do the couple pictures. <3

Now it was time for the send-off! I had spent hours making bubble wands to use for our reception. They turned out much better than I expected! πŸ™‚

And we were off!

 

All in all, it was perfect. <3 All of the family was able to be there, the weather was absolutely perfect, the little decorative details made me smile each time I saw them, I was FINALLY marrying my very best friend….it was all so beautiful. I am so thankful for how the Lord made each thing fall into place. <3

My friend, Lydia, did a special highlights video of the wedding that you can watch here:

 

My friends, Sydney and Denalyn, did the photos which were so beautiful!! A big thank-you to them and anyone else I’ve forgotten to mention over the past few posts….we couldn’t have done it without y’all! <3

More about our “honeymoon” adventuring to come soon! πŸ˜€

~Mrs SuperShevy

Counting Down

Now that Daniel was officially in the country, our 90-day countdown had begun! We had a number of different things to take care of now that he was here, but before we got married.

One fun thing we got to experience together was attempting to view the solar eclipse. Daniel had sent me a special coffee calendar for my birthday last year, and one of the dates I had penciled in was watching the solar eclipse with him. At the rate the visa stuff was processing, we weren’t sure if that was a reality, but were absolutely giddy when we realized he would actually be here!


Solar eclipse day fun….<3

One of the first orders of business was to find somewhere to live. We had been praying that the Lord would open up the perfect door and we would know exactly where it was we were to go. We both wanted to stay in my home county, if possible, so that we could live close to my family and close to the church folks, and that we could stay close to my music students and just be able to continue to participate in the community in general. I posted in some of the local Facebook groups asking about the possibility of places to rent, and received an unexpected message from some friends of ours. They were letting us know about one of their houses they would be willing to rent to us, if we were interested. Daniel spoke with them the following Wednesday evening, and then we went and looked at it a little later that week. It was a perfect little house for our needs, and in the perfect place as well! We spent some time praying, thinking, and discussing it, then Daniel called to let them know we were very much interested in moving forward. After the rental agreement was drawn up and signed, we got our utilities hooked up, and we were given the keys to our first home.

Now that the house hunting was knocked out, it was on to other important projects. But, of course, in typical Lambert fashion, we took some time for goofines amongst all the planning and preparation….


Guess who everyone is!

And this was taken shortly after chicken wrangling with the 4H crew!

But, it was time to get back to business. We started looking at possible wedding dates that would fall before our 90 days were up. Between my dad’s schedule, my brother and sister-in-law’s vacation, and my younger brother’s participation in a national 4H competition, we realized we had two possible days available for a wedding. One was 13 days from when we started trying to pick a date, and the other was at the very end of our 90 day deadline, not leaving much time to file the next set of paperwork.

Could we pull together a wedding in time to try for the earlier date? It was time to find out! πŸ™‚ Neither of us wanted a big wedding, nor a super-complicated one. My mama had also been very diligent to be working on different things that would be needed for some months in advance, so we already had a lot on hand that would be necessary. My dress had been found and altered last year, we had already gotten many of the flowers, a cake design was in mind, the layout for where things would go in the backyard had been decided, and I had my little music group practicing for many months in preparation for the wedding that would happen “at some point”. πŸ™‚ There were, however, still a lot of logistical things that needed to be done, so it was time to get to it!

The wedding was to be in my family’s back yard. I wanted an arbor and enough seating back there for our guests to be able to sit during the ceremony. Some friends of ours at a local lumber company blessed me immensely with a deal we could not pass up for the wood elements. The stumps of the benches were from trees on our property, but all of the rest of the wood for the benches and the arbor were from the sweet folks at the lumber company.

My family, Daniel, and another sweet family who attends our church got the back yard all cleaned up and ready for the wedding. Grass was cut, weeds were trimmed, trees were cut down and cleared out, immense clearing was done in preparation for the ceremony and reception areas- it was amazing to see what many hands could accomplish! Here are a few snapshots from getting the area prepped and ready!

In the meantime, I found the most perfect wedding announcements online, and had them personalized and sent. They would arrive with just 5 days to spare until the wedding date! πŸ˜€

I also designed fans for our guests to use during the ceremony that had the lyrics for “Come Thou Fount” on the back, and spent a few hours fighting with the printer to get them printed. A wonderful lady at our church (an adopted grandmother for Daniel and I), and my friend, Lydia, worked on the finishing touches for the fans, tying the ribbons and getting them glued down and ready.

My mom and sister made the cake- they experimented with the recipe and were baking and tweaking and baking and tweaking for days…it was THE BEST wedding cake I have ever tasted, and I’m not even biased!! πŸ˜€

Daniel and I went and applied for/received Daniel’s social security number- we were both so thankful that the application process went so smoothly, and we weren’t given any issues whatsoever. I had read horror stories where the process doesn’t always go quite as smoothly, so I was VERY thankful! πŸ™‚

We also went and applied for our marriage license. It was almost surreal- he was finally here and we were actually doing this and WE WERE GETTING MARRIED SOON!! πŸ˜€



License in hand!

It wasn’t too many more days after getting our marriage license that Daniel dropped down on one knee and asked me to marry him. <3 <3 <3 He then slipped the most beautiful and perfect engagement ring unto my finger- it was a surreal moment, and one that I will treasure for all of my days. Once again, it was getting very real....WE WERE GETTING MARRIED!! We also went ahead and announced our ring engagement at this time on Facebook.

We were nearing the end of the backyard preparation when it was time for the rehearsal dinner! πŸ˜€

Everything was so pretty. It was Mama’s idea to do grilled, loaded hamburgers fitting with the more country and laid-back theme of our wedding, and goodness…..it was so so so good!! I don’t have a whole lot of pictures because I was a little busy. πŸ™‚ My daddy also put together a really sweet look-back video for Daniel and I with photos from childhood on up to then- when we were preparing to get married! We were both crying- it was so sweet. <3 The other funny thing that happened was as we were walking down to the ceremony site to practice the walk, it started pouring rain with lots of thunder! We simply proceeded to practice anyway… memories!! <3 Next up- our wedding day!

New Beginnings

Just thought I would take a minute to say “hi!” while stock is simmering away on my stove in preparation for cooking dinner.

I’m not entirely sure where to begin….my last post stopped where my Daniel and I had both agreed that a formal courtship was where we were headed. We had been seeking the Lord as to where He would lead, and were very comfortable continuing to get to know each other.

His visa waiver expired last September, and he had to fly home to Australia. We planned for him to come back in October, but when he arrived at LAX, they sent him back to Australia. According to the U.S. government, it was too likely that we would get married on the visa waiver, which is not allowed.

With his visa waiver rights revoked, we began a series of discussions with my dad, with our now-lawyer, with other folks who had done international visa processes, and prayed a whole lot! With new information in hand, it was decided that we would pursue a fiancΓ© visa. πŸ™‚ We became engaged on October 21st, 2016. This caused a bit of confusion for folks who didn’t know what we were doing, because the first question was always “where’s the ring?”, haha! The response I would typically use most of the time is that the country didn’t allow my fiancΓ© in the country to put it on me yet! ;D

FiancΓ© visas are a bit tricky- they require a LOT of paperwork. Like, a LOT of paperwork. The stack of paper I mailed to Daniel for the interview at the consulate was easily 6″ tall! After you fill out the necessary documentation, you also have to prove that you have a bona fide relationship with the foreign fiancΓ©. This meant that we had to send them copies of all of our emails, texts, phone records, etc., and include photos of us together, letters stating our intent to marry, letters from friends who observed our relationship and knew that we were wanting to get married, etc. It was a LOT of work! We got everything filed in December of last year, and then began the long wait on the government to get their act together.

On April 12th, 2017, we received the news that our petition had been approved!

How we told Daniel that the petition had been approved

It was time to wait on an interview date, which ended up being July 25th, 2017. Daniel was nervous, I was nervous…everyone was nervous. It was the moment of truth….and up to the Australian consulate as to if we would have an approval or not!

After hours of waiting, I got a very happy text from Daniel….APPROVED!! It was time to make travel plans. πŸ™‚ The only thing I could think over and over again is about how good God is. I will never understand all the reasons why we had to wait on the visa as long as we did, why Daniel was denied entry in the first place, etc. I’m sure there are countless other reasons we won’t know on this side of heaven, but one thing is for sure and certain: God’s timing is best. God leading us together in the first place, God having us both wait to bring us to the point of marriage, God putting together each and every detail before we were ever even born…His timing is perfect. <3

On August 16th, 2016, my baby came back home to me.

There are no words to describe what it was like just to *see* him again, much less to be able to interact in person once more. <3

First photo after being reunited!

We spent the next week or so just enjoying the time together. It was so indescribably good to be back with my darling again. Long-distance relationships are hard. They test every ounce of patience in you. I am thankful for my Lord, who listened to the many late-night prayers and tears shed while praying over the process…I’m thankful for my parents, who would listen to my ramblings and hold me while I cried. I’m thankful for the friends who would text just to make sure I was doing okay, and ask how they could be praying- y’all know who you are, and your friendships are an immense blessing to me.

Now, the fiancΓ© visa had one particular requirement….the U.S. petitioning citizen must marry the fiancΓ© visa beneficiary within 90 days of them entering the country! πŸ™‚

The next post will be about our marriage ceremony preparation and some of the special things that happened as we were counting down to the big day. Stay tuned!