Almond Valley CRC

Ceremony 

Reception

<p style="text-align: left;">Thank you, thank you, thank you for all of the sweet gifts, gestures and support throughout our first year of marriage! We appreciate every one of you more than you know! Please do not feel the need to bring a gift - We simply want to celebrate with you! </p>

Our Wedding

well, didn’t see that one coming. 

life is freaking crazy, and i don’t think anyone could have anticipated what these past couple weeks have held - and it’s basically impossible to know what the immediate future will hold, either. 

as most of you, if not all of you know, zac and i are engaged and are planning to get married on april 18 of this year. however, due to the announcements from the government & cdc, and our desire to help keep all of our friends and family safe, zac and i have made the decision to postpone our wedding reception and honeymoon. 

we understand that this could sound to some like a decision made rashly, based on emotion, fear and impulses - but trust me, it was a decision that neither of us wanted to make, and was not made lightly. it was made out of love for the people who we truly want to be a part of our special day and through a supernatural peace from, and trust in, god.

i might sound calm, but believe me, this decision was impossibly hard. i have had days in the past couple of weeks where i cried so hard and so often that the skin around my eyes literally turned raw and bled. this was not something anyone could have ever prepared for. 

i know that it could be worse. i know that there are people who are gravely sick. i know that people have been devastatingly affected by this, financially speaking. and we ARE rescheduling. we WILL have a day with our people gathered around us. we ARE even still getting married on april 18, come hell or high water (an intimate ceremony with only immediate family.) 

but i am still so sad. and that is okay. for anyone who has had experiences ripped away from them by this pandemic, or carefully dreamt up plans go terribly awry - it is okay to be sad. it is okay to grieve and to process something that doesn’t make sense to you and that shouldn’t have worked out this way. it is okay to grieve a day or experience that you have dreamt about and longed for, for weeks or months or years. 

and it is also okay to, in your grief, continue to move forward and to make new plans. or to simply try to breathe and allow things to unfold how they may. it is okay to embrace and accept what is, while still acknowledging the pain stemming from the things that were unable to happen. 

i can honestly say that my heart and my mind are so conflicted - i feel sadness and a sense of loss for something  that feels ripped away from me, yet i am
still elated and longing for april 18 when i will become mrs dewey, and hopeful for a day when we can celebrate our love and the works of god in my and zac’s lives in the future. i don’t know how i will feel 6 months or 5 years from now when i look back on this time. i don’t know what the long term affects of all of this will be. 

but i know that god is sovereign and good.  i have a god that understands grief and provides comfort and refuge. and to that i cling. in that is my hope. 

“‘what is your only comfort, in life and in death?’
that i am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful savior jesus christ.”

Bailey & Zachary

Bailey & Zachary

Photos