November 16, 2019 Birmingham AL
Our Wedding Day was not your typical fairytale. Although a beautiful story and treasured day, I pray I never have to relive it.
Never in million years did I picture my wedding day scared to death that my husband wouldn’t make it to our ceremony. I never pictured my wedding night in a hospital room…
Let me start from the beginning. My husband, Luke, had a really bad bacterial infection that took over his body the day of our wedding. He had asked a couple of us to be praying for him the night before and that morning. By noon, his body was borderline septic with a 21,000+ white blood cell count, high fever, and vomiting. He was already on antibiotics for a recurring infection, but that day he required immediate IV antibiotics, fluids, and pain medicine that were strong enough to fight the strong growing bacteria.
His doctors can not explain why bacteria grew like it did that day and why the antibiotic pills he was taking were not effective. They assured us that the “bacteria take over” was not stress-related and probably not caused by any injury, but it was just one of those “fluke things that can happen,” perhaps even from an earlier water skiing weekend at the river. But we believe in God’s sovereignty, so we know He was writing this story.
Luke was in the Emergency Room all afternoon. By God’s grace and by the God-given determined will power, Luke made it to the church 10 minutes before the ceremony with the father of the bride pushing the wheelchair. The guys in the family dressed him.
But really all day we felt the body of Christ surrounding us. Our family and friends did everything in their power to make that day happen- mostly prayer. Everyone brain-stormed bounced all kinds of ideas around.
Should they have the ceremony in the hospital & just live stream it at the church? Would there be a groom at all today? Would there be a wedding at all today?
SO many questions and about 100 different ways the rest of that day could go & yet God knew the whole time what was going to happen. In retrospect, this was our greatest peace.
I have never in my life felt more desperate or helpless.I needed the Body of Christ to encourage me. I needed God’s Spirit to comfort me.
Earlier that afternoon, just moments before what was supposed to be our first look, Luke called me to tell me that he wasn’t going to make it for pictures and needed to go to the ER.
All the planning suddenly meant nothing. None of it mattered. All I wanted was to marry him. All I wanted was for him to be okay.
In the midst of all of this, I’ve never felt more protected or cherished than I did that day- by God, friends, and family. I believe everyone who was a part of our wedding day was hand-picked by God to be there. I also never could have imagined how cherished I could feel the moment I walked down the aisle to my suffering groom. How powerful! My groom suffered to marry me, just like Jesus suffered for his Bride. Luke has never looked more like Jesus to me than he did right then. I could not even begin to imagine the pain he was experiencing that moment, that day. What strength he needed to be there! Yet, in that moment, all I could think of was how BLESSED to be the woman chosen to marry this God-fearing man.
We had fervently prayed that God would be glorified during our wedding and that he would be magnified because of our union. We believe the circumstances of that day are exactly how God orchestrated it to glorify Himself.
Praise the Lord, Luke has made a full recovery. Although he was on antibiotics for a few months after our wedding, we still got to enjoy our honeymoon. The hospital even gave us a bigger room the first three nights so that I had a couch to sleep on while Luke recovered. We have quite the story to tell and a whole lot of gratitude here almost 4 years into marriage. He continues to show me more of Jesus every day. He is truly my greatest earthly blessing.
A year later, our sweet and wonderful wedding photographer, Rebecca Long, took our couples portraits. Since all of the pictures with my groom on the wedding day looked like he was high on who knows what… we finally got our very own wedding portraits. Which is a huge reason why I love what I do. I know what it feels like to have everything go perfectly wrong on a wedding day. Yet, our sweet photographer was a undeserved peace that day. Someone I pray to be to each bride who hires me as her Wedding Photographer.
Ceremony Venue: Oak Mountain Presbyterian Church
Reception Venue: The Club
Photographer: Rebecca Long
Videographer: Four10 Films (Evans Smith)
Florist:
Cake: Christian Terrell
Wedding Day Coordinator: DeAnna Morgan
