Hello. I know that this update has been a long time in comming. For some reason 2003 was very busy. Denise and I got married, took a honeymoon, vacationed in Hawaii, I was in another wedding and we had a third to go to. In between all that it seemd like everyone we knew was moving this past summer. So, that's my excuse for taking so long in getting wedding pictures posted.

Okay, so it's not the best excuse but it's all I've got. Now on to the wedding.

I don't know how many of you have actually been part of a wedding but it was my first (and hopefully only). Every day that passed brought more questions than answers and I would be lying if I said it wasn't stressful. We tried to keep it simple but even simple weddings have a ton and a half of details. Fortunately, we had help. Denise's mom and sister-in-law were fantastic. They did all the flowers (artifical, which looked beautiful) and her sister-in-law Rachel took on the role of Wedding Cordinator, for which we are very grateful. She basically took over and told us what to do and when to do it. If it wasn't for Rachel I think that we would still be standing there wondering what to do.

My guys took me to Atlanta for a Brave's game and entertainment for my bachelor party and Deinse's posse took her to an all-male review. Then it was time to actually get hitched. I just want to say that everything about getting married scared the hell out of me. I wasn't afraid of being married, far from it. I was looking forward to being married but the getting married part terrified me.

First we had to get a marriage license. It was nice to go to the court house without having a ticket to pay and the people were very nice. However the booklet we had to read was a little disturbing. The first half was all nice stuff, this is that you do, marriage is a good thing... Then you turn to the back which went along the lines of: "However if you're marriage doesn't work, this is what you do..." And it went on and on and on about divorce and the procedures of getting divorced. We are not concerned about getting divorced but it was a little disconcerting.

So we had a license, we arranged catering through Classic Fare Catering who were just wonderful. They understood our needs and everything that wasn't meat was vegan.

Then we ordered a cake. Now we were concerned becuase vegan cakes were a little hard to come by and vegan Wedding cakes doubly so. Denise did some look and came across Cake Classics here in town. This bakery (as far as we can tell) is a one woman operation. She has a little store/bakery in Gainesville and does superb work. We met with her, told her that we wanted a vegan cake and she knew exactly what we wanted. She even asked if white sugar was okay because she knew that some vegans did not eat white sugar. We were sold. The hardest part was deciding what the cake should look like. The cake lady (as we came to know her) is a true artist. There were no set designs to choose from, we had 100% complete freedom to design our cake the way we wanted to. Not only that but she produces a list one page long of different flavors of cake and I think all but two or three could be made vegan. We ended up with a 3 tier cake made up of white, banana and carrot cake (one tier per flavor). If you need a cake in the NC Florida area, I highly reccomend Cake Classics. The price was good as well, we paid $400 for a cake to feed 100 people.

Everything was set. We had rehearsed, I had my tux, she had her dress, the cake and catering was set, we were ready for the Big Day.

I was basically nervous the whole day. When my best man picked me up I almost forgot my tux. Then before I knew it it was time to get dressed and take pictures. It was a hot day (unlike the day before which was nice) but we got through it. We had a great photographer so that went fairly smoothly. Before I knew it, people started showing up. Holy crap, this was real and it was happening and it was happening to me! I bolted to the room, slammed a beer to steady my nerves and then we got married.

We are in the running for fastest wedding in the east. I'm serious, the whole thing took less than 10 minutes and that included the time it took for Denise to walk down the aisle. I almost lost it while I was waiting up there in front of everyone. I was concentrating on not locking my knees, so far so good, then I looked at the audience. Everyone was looking at me! I'm not real good in front of people so I was fighting the 'fight or flight' instinct big time. Then I almost started laughing when I looked at my roomates. They had that look on their faces and I knew what I would be saying if I was down there (we're all a bunch of smart-asses) so I had to stare off into space. I was so grateful when the music cued Denise to come down the aisle.

She was beautiful, I don't think she was as scared as I was but if she was it didn't show. She did give me that look that said "You start laughing and I'll kill you", so I managed to hold my nervous laughter, barely. Everything went smoothly, none of the bridesmaids tripped coming up to the altar. There were only two glitches and they were both on me. Denise and I had not rehearsed the actual wedding ceremony figuring that it would be easy. Well, let me tell you, in the heat of battle, things get missed. I totally missed when it was my turn to talk even though Pam (our officiant) said "Jim, repeat after me...". So I stood there like and idiot before I got a nudge. Then when I was doing the vows (we stuck with the fairly standard version, no Obey for anyone wondering) Pam gave me too much. She said "to have and to hold, for richer and poorer, in sickness....." about that time I thought 'there should have been a pause there' and whatever she said after that was lost. So, again I stood in front of my bride, friends and family completely clueless, "Uhh, what?" was the smooth way I covered that I had missed my line. Our last glitch was that since it was a hot and sweaty day we had to work the rings onto each other's fingers.

Finally it was over. The reception was wonderful, everyone ate, drank and eventually danced and generally had a great time. A final note about the catering. Our bartenders were some of the coolest people I've ever seen working an event like this. They seemed to be having a good time, and even though there were close to 100 people there, they remembered what everyone was drinking. All our friends commented on how cool the bar staff was.

Now that that's all out of the way, I can show you pictures. I want to thank everyone who has emailed their good wishes for us.