4 Month Anniversary

With today marking 4 months since Joshua and I were married and sealed for all time and eternity, our wedding day has been on my mind. While that day was wonderful and beautiful, truth is it was also one of the scariest and most stressful days of my life! I knew that I wanted to be married to Joshua. He's my best friend, the only person I can stand to be with all of the time (it's true, I get tired of most people pretty quickly so I can only take them in small doses, whereas with him I wanted to and continue to want to be with him everyday). We're highly compatible having enough similar interests to easily have fun together. We're different in many ways which keeps it interesting and allows us to learn and grow from one another (often we learn patience because differences do lead to annoyance at times). We had the same goals of living our lives according to God's will and raising a family in the gospel. I had no doubt that when it came down to just him that this was the man that was right for me.

However, I did have my doubts because when it came to everything else that came along with him I wasn't sure I could handle it. We got married in the midst of adversity. All of our friends and my family were supportive, but his family wasn't. What made it worse is that we were apart for most of our engagement and we're not good at having serious discussions on the phone. So a lot of what was going on with him and his family I didn't know the full details, but I knew for certain that he was unhappy and they were the source of it. So we made the decision to get married without them knowing and without their attendance. We wanted a small temple wedding anyway with a huge reception later, so this decision fit into what we had wanted. We didn't want to exclude his family, but we did want to exclude any negativity. They chose to be negative so they left us with no choice but to exclude them.

If that weren't enough, Joshua had just barely moved out on his own all the way to Texas. Moving out is hard as it is, leaving the state even harder, being seperated from your fiancee the worst, but dealing with the emotional baggage of his overbearing family (and them regularly calling to nag, guilt trip, and put him down) was too much! He was trying to work, go to school, get his own apartment, while dealing with a dark roller coaster of emotions brought on by seeing the truth of his family and himself. He was in the pits and I had the strongest feeling come over me that I needed to visit him. I booked a ticket and a week later was in his arms once again. It was just a couple of days before I came that he called me up and said, "November 7th! We have to get married on November 7th! I finally know when we have to get married." Honestly, I prayed and didn't get a strong feeling either which way, but felt like I should trust him and we should get married on November 7th. The visit was wonderful but all too short being only 2 days. I kept it short to limit temptation. As I went through security and got on the plane to return to Virginia I fell apart in a heep of tears. It tore me apart to leave him and he most certainly did not want to let me go. But we knew we'd be together again in 3 weeks and would finally be married!

Soon after I left it was like the demons were let loose and the already scary situation grew into a full blown nightmare. Joshua was wavering on where he stood, I was terrified he'd back out on marrying me but at the same time with him not behaving like himself I was questioning who he really was and not sure if he was still the right one for me. I turned off my emotions, closed my eyes, and kept going on faith because I knew deep down he's the one I'm meant to marry and this is the adversary trying to prevent us from fulfilling God's will. He also had to do his best to go numb and carry on in faith.

When I got my temple recommend, President Brassell informed me there's a rule in our stake that once that temple recommend is signed the couple is not to kiss until the altar in the temple. Ever since they've instated this rule they haven't any "slip ups." (Abstinence until marriage, which I whole heartedly believe in.) I agreed to the rule, albeit I knew I'd resent not being able to kiss my fiance at the airport. When Joshua arrived we hugged each other tightly, then looked at each other longing to kiss. The following few days were terrible because we were finally together again but we couldn't kiss and were feeling terribly stressed by the negativity that forced us to be secretive about our wedding. Kissing would've helped relieve some of the tension. It always had before. Instead, we couldn't kiss so it felt like we were fighting so the tension was amplified.

On Tuesday morning we left for the temple. Joshua and I in our rental car, my Mom and Han in the other rental. Han had suggested my Mom go with him so the lovebirds could have their alone time to enjoy each other on this special day. You know what happened? We fought the whole way up there. That's 3 hours of snipping at each other, giving each other the silent treatment, and arguing. Though he finally told me the truth about some of the things that were bothering him, including the fact that his dad had told him that if he moved to Texas I would find someone else. Real nice of him, huh? So in the end we actually understood each other better and by the time we got to the temple we had made up and were done fighting. Thank goodness! We went through the temple for the first time (both of us) and left about 5 hours later feeling exhausted. We were both unnerved because it wasn't what we expected, so we were left dreading our sealing for fear it would also be different than we expected. On top of that, we still weren't allowed to kiss which added to the tension.

Wednesday morning when I woke up and realized it was my wedding day, while I had hoped to be full of joy and excitement, instead I found I was cranky. I was tired from the lack of sleep spanning the past 4 nights at least, I was feeling uneasy about the temple, and worst of all I was still afraid that Joshua would back out at the last minute. I knew he loved me, I knew he wanted to marry me, but I also knew the fact that his family didn't approve of our marriage was weighing heavily on his mind. I was afraid he'd give in and call someone in his family and they'd give him every reason why he shouldn't get married (as they have before) and he'd get scared and back out. I was afraid that he'd decide that he did want his mother there afterall and would postpone the wedding, leaving the opportunity for her and the rest of his family to get him to back out. I was afraid that he would go through with the wedding but would mope all day because his family didn't approve so we couldn't have them there, which would ruin our wedding day AND our honeymoon. On a lesser degree, I was afraid something, anything, would stop us from getting married such as a car accident or a mix up at the temple, or who knows what. So on my wedding day I was full of fears... but I couldn't turn to my soon to be husband because I knew that he was full of pain. He had expected his wedding day to be this glorious rejoicing event with his mom and sister in the temple and the rest of his family awaiting him and his bride outside all gleefully accepting her into their family and everyone would be happy. To his horror it could not be this way because his family made it clear that no one would be good enough for them. Truth is I had hoped for in-laws that would be like his fantasy and I too was hurt that they didn't accept me. But what was more devestating was that he had come to realize they didn't accept him either, at least not for who he really was. I also didn't like that we were sneaking around to get married. He didn't exactly like it either, but he knew that this was the only way to cope with his meddling family, to leave them completely out of it.

When Joshua came over to my hotel room, we ate breakfast together while my Mom finished up the buttons on Joshua's tux. She asked us if we were excited and we both gave her, "We can't wait to get this over with" responses. We both had such painful feelings within us but this deep eternal love for one another, so it was this horrible mix of emotion. We both just shut off our feelings and tried to treat our wedding day like it was no big deal. We kept telling ourselves, "We're just making what we already have official. That's all."

We made it to the temple on time (but just barely). We seperated to get dressed, then reunited to meet with our sealer, then before we knew it we were in the sealing room about to be married. We had my Mom, Brother and Sister Donley, Brother and Sister Jinnette, and Sister Redfern in attendance. The room was fairly large with 20 something chairs. Joshua and I say that the room must have been full of angels and spirits from the other side that have been helping us along the way rooting for us to get married. The ceremony was very simple. I remember the look on Joshua's face as he said yes to marrying me. It was a look of pure joy. I remember how I felt when I said yes to marrying him. Despite how detached I felt from my emotions that day, my heart leaped for joy when I looked at him realizing he was about to be my husband, which is what I wanted more than anything in this life. When I said yes to marrying him I felt a rush of excitement, with a hint of nerves, then a feeling of peace that I had done the right thing. In a matter of minutes the ceremony was complete and the sealer pronounced us husband and wife. It was finally time to KISS!!! Joshua and I leaned in and kissed and it was heaven! The kiss was passionate, not a simple peck, and grew more passionate as the moment went on. So much so that Joshua started to make out with me right there over the altar! As much as I love kissing him, I was worried that we were making everyone else uncomfortable, so I pushed him back and said, "We don't have all day!" and laughed. Then we exchanged rings and everyone congratulated us.

We went back to seperate dressing rooms and changed out of our temple clothes into our traditional wedding attire. I was still a bit tense with fears, but was growing more at peace. I got all dressed and asked both my Mom and the temple worker to check and see if my groom was ready. He wasn't so I waited in the dressing room. I waited, and waited, and waited. I think I waited a good 20 minutes from the time I was dressed and ready to the time Joshua was finally in the hallway. When I got word that he was there then I came out of the dressing room. He was preoccupied by Brother Donley telling him about the history behind the painting there in the hall. Brother Donley saw me and said to Joshua, "Oh look, Joshua. There's your bride." Joshua then turned his head to see me and a huge smiled flashed across his face. But then Brother Donley kept talking about the painting! Fortunately for me, Joshua did leave Brother Donley and came over to me and told me how beautiful I was. This was the first time he saw my wedding dress and here I was his brand new wife! To his dismay he discovered my blouse was covered in glitter, haha.

We walked down the stairs together and to the front door of the temple. We had everyone else go outside so we could exit the temple together and get pictures. As we were about to walk out the doors a lady came through, so we stepped backwards as she said, "Sorry, oh I'm sorry." Then we started to go through again... but my Mom wasn't ready with the camera! So we stopped and waited. Then she had the camera so we came out of the doors. Unfortunately, my Mom was off to the side instead of front and center (I don't know why) so those photos didn't turn out well. Sad too because I was really looking forward to those first photos of us being married. Fortunately, the other photos DID turn out well including numerous photos with the temple in the background. It was a crazy feeling finally being there on temple grounds in my wedding dress in the arms of my husband having our photos taken on our wedding day. I had fantasized about this many times and here it was real, but in so many ways it didn't feel real! Funny, I know, but it felt like a dream (lack of sleep adds to that feeling). And even when it kind of felt like reality, it felt like we were pretending to be married. Once again, crazy I know. It was exciting but also overwhelming. Though we loved that our day was truly about us. It wasn't the usual come out of the temple, hug your friends and family, obey the photographer's demands, and referree the family member's squabbles in between appeasing their selfish needs. We walked around the temple grounds, were really cutesy and cuddly with each other, joked around with the Jinnette's in between taking photos, and did everything our way. My Mom and the Jinnette's took photos and helped with everything. They made sure this was all about us, not them. It was peaceful and simple. We wanted our wedding day, our sealing, to be about us. The reception is for everyone else anyway. In fact, every single person that was at our sealing had offered that if we decided we didn't want them there, even after having invited them, they would not be offended because our sealing is about us not them (that includes my Mom). That is exactly why we invited the people we did because we knew they supported our marriage and wanted to help, not hinder, and had no selfish desires to appease.

After taking a lot of photos (funny how I look back and wish we had taken more even though I know how tired and cold I was at the time), I hugged my Mom goodbye as she left with the Jinnette's. Then Joshua and I got into the rental car, as husband and wife, and made our way back to the hotel. We were so tired and emotionally spent we just wanted to eat and rest. We stopped by Arby's but they didn't have a drive thru, so we went inside, wedding dress and tux. We got a whole lot of attention for that as we proudly answered the questions of, "Did you just get married?" with "Yes! We JUST got married!!!" wavering our the wedding bands on our fingers. They prepared our orders but when Joshua went to pay they said, "Nope, it's paid for. That guy right there just paid for you." The guy in the line next to us added our tab to his. We turned to him and said, "Thank you for the wedding present!" Then we took our food and went to our hotel room. And yes, we ate our food...