A Beautiful Wedding Day for Katie and Joel Despite the Rain!

It was such a pleasure to work with Katie and Joel and officiate their lovely ceremony on Sunday May 17th at the elegant Preston Woodall House in Benson! They are the sweetest couple and really worked hard to make their wedding dreams come true. This was the last wedding of the weekend for me and Marty, my "roadie." We were so sorry that the weather forecast was correct but Katie and Joel took that into consideration and were prepared.

Fortunately at the Preston Woodall House couples have an automatic Plan B in case of adverse weather. We rehearsed on the Friday before and the weather was hot and sunny in the 80s and their wedding day Sunday was in the 60s! The Cora Lily Ballroom was transformed to accommodate the 125 guests with the chairs placed in a large semi-circle in front of the dance floors. Their flowers were beautiful on white pedestals on either side. Lenny Fritts, their DJ for the reception, was there when we arrived and plugged my microphone into his system and the sound was perfect! Thanks, Lenny! (It is so important to me that the guests be able to hear all the words of the ceremony the couple and I worked so hard on to create for them.) Matthew Kanon on guitar and Vhondy Strickland on flute provided the pretty music for the ceremony. Mike Phongsa was the photographer. We worked at the same site last November together! Cinda of Cinda's Creative Cakes provided the beautiful wedding cake. Katie did the cleverest thing for the tables for the guests. She is a school teacher and she had her school kids draw pictures which she put in pretty frames and put one on each table. How creative! Here are some pictures of the tables.

We had to delay the ceremony by 20 minutes. Seems there was a traffic accident on I-95 which held up the arrival of some of their grandparents. Since I did not have another wedding scheduled after this one, I was happy to wait. The grandparents finally arrived and were seated. And then we began. Joel's Aunt Lee was our director. I had trained her how to direct the wedding at our rehearsal and she did a fantastic job!

And so we began with the seating of the mothers and stepparents. Joel and his best man, Andre, and I processed in followed by the bridesmaids ushered in by the groomsmen. Their flower girl, Annie, entered, then a beaming and somewhat tearful Katie was escorted in by her father who transferred her hand into Joel's as I asked "Who supports Katie and Joel as they come to be joined in marriage?" All the parents answered "We do." The guests were seated and I began with a warm welcome to all. We remembered those who were not able to be with us then gave a tribute to the parents and stepparents. Katie and Joel each selected a reading for each other and their readers presented the readings. Words on Love and Marriage followed then Katie and Joel read from my book the special vows they had written to each other. They exchanged rings and I pronounced them married. They kissed and then I presented the newlywed couple to their guests. The music began and the wedding party recessed. The guests were invited to have refreshments and social hour while the wedding party took photos and the ballroom was transformed into the reception area. Everything went very smoothly and Joel and Katie were so thrilled! We took some photos and Marty and I headed back to Raleigh but not without having to detour on back roads as I-40 was a parking lot, probably due to an accident, but we never found out for sure. Congratulations, Katie and Joel! May all your dreams come true!