Dawn and Travis Marry at Duke Gardens!

The weather was beautiful this past weekend for the three wonderful weddings I officiated. The first wedding of the weekend was Dawn and Travis' wedding at Duke Gardens--always a beautiful spot for a wedding. It was at 4:00 in the afternoon on June 6.

Dawn and Travis are a really neat couple. I learned quickly in dealing with Dawn that she is a determined young woman. She hired me to officiate her wedding before we even met face to face. When she makes a decision she moves forward fast and gets things done. When we finally met, she had a big notebook with all the ceremony material I sent her printed out and organized into sections. She had already put together a wedding ceremony that we only needed to tweak a bit to get just right. The biggest dilemma was getting in the solos she wanted her friend Cheryl to sing during the ceremony. So the final decision was for Cheryl to sing two songs before the processional and then one during the sand ceremony and that is what we did. Dawn has a 10 year old son, Jaden, so we wanted to definitely include him in the ceremony. He and his grandfather escorted our beautiful bride.

The wedding took place in front of the fish pool down from the pergola. At the rehearsal on Friday we were nearly drowned out by the croaking of what must be giant bullfrogs although we never really saw a single one. The frogs actually sounded like cows mooing! They seemed to quiet down on the wedding day--I guess they were a bit shy with all the guests present--but while Travis was repeating his vows after me, I did not hear him say a line because the bullfrog was drowning him out. It was funny and everyone had a good laugh.

The wedding went smoothly even though it was a bit lengthy and the weather became hot. The attendants wore differing shades of teal and I wore my teal prayer stole to match. Cheryl did well with her songs. Dawn's sister, Ashley, read a funny poem entitled "Love is Like Owning a Dog" by Taylor Mali. Jaden came up for a family hug. Travis and Dawn wrote secret vows to each other and had them memorized although I had the words in my book flipped vertical for them to refer to. We did the sand ceremony. Travis was sweating like crazy in his tux. Dawn had to keep mopping his face during the ceremony and when I told him he could kiss the bride he stopped and wiped his face off first. I know Dawn was grateful and the guests thought it was hilarious! We got them married and then took some photos before Marty and I dashed off to the Renaissance Hotel in Raleigh for the next wedding.

Many thanks to Patrick Cooke, DJ, for providing the music and Lisa Brewer, a friend of Dawn's, for photographing the wedding. Thanks to Tracy Adams, our wedding director, for keeping us on track and for being so organized and remembering every little detail. See her in the photo nudging the adorable flower girls down the aisle!

Many happy years of wedding bliss to you, Travis and Dawn!