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Issacharian Daughters #088 - Wedding Reception Part 1
By admin | November 19, 2008
Issacharian Daughters #088 - Wedding Reception Part 1
Dear Girls,
The next newsletter is attached. (because there are no notes this time I am adding this below instead of in a pdf)
Warm regards,
Genevieve
Dear Girls,
The next newsletter is attached. (because there are no notes this time I am adding this below instead of in a pdf)
Warm regards,
Genevieve
ID088 - Wedding Reception - Part 1
10 Nov 2008
In the weeks leading up to the wedding people would ask my family and I, “Are you stressed?” And in the week before the wedding people would say to us, “Now, don’t tell us that you aren’t stressed!” Days before the wedding someone bought us all little stress balls to squeeze.
And yet these comments had my family and I all flummoxed. We weren’t stressed. Rather we were really enjoying this time leading up the wedding.
We were not relieved of stress because we had handed the whole wedding over to a wedding planner and were now simply sitting back sipping pina coladas while waiting for the big day to arrive.
No, the wedding was a project that my whole family took on and we were blessed with a great deal of help from our church and from friends. We did the wedding on a budget and tried to be resourceful and creative to keep outgoings minimal. Friends donated bunches and bunches of lavender which was made up in bundles for each table at the reception.
More lavender and help was given to make wedding favour lavender bottles as well. And a friend also helped us to make chocolate cameos which were put at each place at the reception. We fashioned the reception meal after a very successful Reformation Day party dinner our church had put on. The dinner was fresh breads and buns, cold meats, cheeses and soup-very simple, but hearty, and much talked about. We figured it was the perfect menu for our reception since we would be self-catering and needed to keep preparation as simple as a meal like this allowed. Dessert was wedding cake, fresh fruit, fruit kebabs and after dinner mints. A baker at our church made all the fresh bread for us and women from church and other places made the soups-big jobs considering we were catering for 350.
One of Dad’s friends heads up a church youth group which is very service-oriented. He said that under the oversight of a talented woman he knew, the young folks could prepare and serve the food at the reception-that it would be a great service activity for the group. We gladly accepted this offer of help. It was a real blessing.
Our church loaned us lots of tables, chairs, plates and cutlery for the reception dinner and a friend with a flat-bed truck along with a crew of others helped us to transport it all to the reception venue the day before the wedding. Another friend was just closing up a portable and homebased cafe and catering business. She loaned us screeds of equipment to make life easier for the folks who were preparing and serving the food at the reception.
Our family was ever so grateful for all this help. And delighted because it made the wedding so much more of a community affair. It was very significant to me that the community I had grown up in and been influenced and nurtured by would take part in so important a step in my life.
Apart from all this help-and we couldn’t have pulled off the wedding without it-my family and I believe the occasion was so pleasant and stress-free because of:
A. Dad’s leadership. He initiated all the strategy meetings and kept things underway.
B. The way my family embraced the wedding as a family project. We had worked together on things before and enjoyed working together. It was natural to now work on the wedding together.
C. The way my sister, Charmagne, and I were at home. We weren’t having to juggle outside work. We could dedicate a lot of time and energy to the wedding in the relaxed atmosphere of our home. This was pretty key. Charmagne did a lot towards the wedding. She made and decorated the wedding cake, designed and made my wedding dress, her bridesmaid dress, the flower girl’s dress, my sister Gracie’s dress, the 14 maiden daughters dresses (drafted and cut out all though only sewed up two), cravats/European ties for Pete and his groomsman, boutonnieres for these two and Pete’s and my mothers, Mum’s outfit and she put together a feather basket for the flower girl and with the help of another friend assembled all the flower bouquets for herself, myself and the maiden daughters. And this is just the beginning! If either of us had been out working 9-5 then I think the time before the wedding would have been stressful. But it wasn’t and this was a wonderful and unanticipated blessing of being daughters at home.
Friends and enthusiastic supporters of Pete’s and my
courtship, the Schultz family, wrote and recorded a
blessing song for us. They couldn’t attend the wedding but
we played the DVD of the song at the reception.
May the Lord be Glorified
(Pete’s and Genevieve’s Song)
Groom (imagine a male voice singing):
From this moment till I die, I will love you as my life
(Ephesians 5v28, 33)
I will leave my family, and will cleave only to thee
(Genesis 2v24, Ephesians 6v31)
With God’s Word I will wash you, I will lead and protect you
(Ephesians 5v26)
As God’s faithfulness is true, with His strength I will be too
(Lamentations 3v22, 23; Psalm 119v90)
Bride (imagine a female voice singing):
From this moment till I die, I will be your chosen bride
(Romans 7v2-3; Proverbs 18v22)
And these vows that I will say, bind our hearts in Christ
always
(Ephesians 5v31, 1 Peter 3v7)
I will love and reverence you, and I will submit to you
(Ephesians 5v22, 33; 1 Peter 3v1)
As God’s faithfulness is true, with His strength I will be too
(Lamentations 3v22-23; Psalm 119v90)
Together:
Now our hearts are one in Christ, and heirs of the grace of
life
(Malachi 2v15; 1 Peter 3v7)
What God has joined together, let no man put asunder
(Matthew 19v6)
With God’s blessing we will seek, to raise Godly offspring
(Genesis 1v28; Malachi 2v15)
Now as we live man and wife, may the Lord be glorified
(1 Peter 5v10-11)
May the Lord be glorified
Pete and I treasure this blessing song, particularly the
prayer it contains that the Lord would be glorified by our
marriage.
During the reception my brother, Zach, initiated toasts to Mr and Mrs de Deugd and to my parents as well-honouring and thanking them. My brother, Alanson, toasted Pete and I. We also had speeches by Mr de Deugd, Dad, the best man and Pete. And Dad read out some blessings from people who had played a significant part in my life and who were unable to attend the wedding. I hope, Lord willing, to share these in future newsletters.
For the Greater Glory of God through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
Genevieve de Deugd
Issacharian Wife
Topics: Issacharian Daughters |