My three children showing off their wedding rings
“Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts.” ~ William Shakespeare
The joining of hands led to lots of heart joining this year. Our family’s “Year of the Weddings” is coming to a close. What a year it has been!
We began January 2012 in the middle of planning one wedding – our middle daughter’s – and realizing we must gear up for two more.
Son became engaged the day after Christmas last year and oldest daughter received her marriage proposal at New Year’s.
In the course of the year, I’ve answered a lot of questions from friends about all three of our adult children heading for matrimony.
Here are answers to those questions for my blog readers:
- No, I did not in my wildest dreams ever imagine that all of our children would marry the same year! When they were small, I often thought about their wedding days and prayed they would find godly mates, but never once envisioned this happening.
- Yes, I spent a lot of time in prayer for my offspring to be blessed with marriages. This just goes to show you that old saying, “be careful what you pray for” is true. God answered my prayers…boom, boom, boom.
- Yes, I not only like my new children-in-law, I love them. Each one of them is a joy, an amazing addition to our family. I just told someone the other day, better marriage partners for my offspring couldn’t be found if I had picked them myself. They complement each other and fit together so well.
- Yes, I purchased and wore three different dresses to the three different weddings. And I found each one of those mother of the groom dresses on the sale rack! Fortunate me!
- Yes, each wedding was entirely different. Each one of the three couples has their own style, so different from their siblings. Middle daughter is the nostalgic one. The lover of antiques and old things, simple and practical. She loves to chronicle life with pictures, so her wedding had a simple vintage theme with photography whimsy thrown in. Son and daughter-in-law’s wedding was grand and beautiful, a fairy tale come true with a real life Princess and Prince Charming. Oldest daughter loves elegance and sophistication. Her all-white wedding décor at the reception reflected that, along with bits and pieces of Honduran flair since she and her beloved met one another on a short-term mission trip in that country.
- Yes, I realize that Papa and I may become grandparents in the same fashion. Three in one year. But that remains to be seen because for now, all three couples tell us that is a long way off in the future. Time will tell, won’t it?
- Yes, I cried. A lot.
For the first wedding, I was a nervous wreck and stressed out. Sleep deprivation and worry over wedding details caused me to be a bit numb for middle daughter’s wedding, so weeping was minimal.
Plus she exuded infectious happiness to be marrying her true love, so the tears that threatened to spill out were tears of happiness. I almost succumbed to crying during the ceremony because the two of them just looked so sweet and so much in love, but I managed to squelch the tears.
Son’s wedding proved a little different. My son was ecstatic and eager to take the responsibility of having a wife, so I was proud of him and happy for him. But there’s something heart-wrenching about watching your son marry. At the rehearsal, I found myself choked up and tears flowed. At the wedding, watching my son become emotional caused me to force myself to keep my emotions in check. Not an easy task.
The realization that 
I wouldn’t be the most important woman in my son’s life caused me to shed some tears. But that’s exactly what must happen; mom must step aside and allow her son’s wife to become the most important woman to him and rightly so.
For our last wedding, oldest daughter’s, I was much more relaxed and enjoyed myself immensely at the reception. But still there were tears. A few days before the wedding, I sobbed. Knowing my daughter, who had just returned from far away to live near home a year before, would be moving away again caused some of my tears.
Holding hands with her daddy
As we waited for the ceremony to begin, I glanced at my oldest, my first-born, sitting with her daddy, holding his hand. She expressed to him that she felt like crying and he spoke quietly to her and her alone. She smiled up at him.
I felt emotions well up in me and the floodgate of tears threatened to break once more. So I grabbed my camera and took pictures instead.
So yes, there were many tears. And there was much laughter. And there was so much joy! Our year of the weddings has come to a close.
Now, it’s beginning to look like Christmas and our new family with three wonderful additions, will all be home for Christmas Eve. Eight of us now, instead of five. Our hands will be joined as we pray around the dinner table and our hearts will forever be linked as a family.
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