nichole & justin: Wedding pics finally!!

So, I'm finally posting the pictures from when Justin and I tied the knot on May 14th, 2009! It was a big whirl wind when we decided to do it. We had been talking about getting married for a little while, but said we would wait until after he got back from deployment. Then we just kinda said let's do it! So, I was able to get my schedule switched around to get four days off. We hadn't told anyone we were gonna do it...well except a few. We flew down and over to Florida on a Tuesday evening, got the marriage license on Wednesday, did the ceremony on Thursday, turned in the marriage license on Friday morning and flew back to Washington Friday afternoon. Then it was back to work early Saturday morning for the both of us.

I was wondering the day of the ceremony whether I would cry or not. Well, the Florida weather had other plans. We were planning on doing the ceremony during sunset on the beach so we could get some pretty sunset pictures. Well, when the time came for my dad to walk me out to the beach we heard thunder. My dad went out to see where the storm was and noticed it was right over top of the hotel. Rain and lightening started almost immediately after that so we had to postpone. My mom and I went back up to the hotel room. Justin of course wasn't allowed to see me, so he stayed downstairs with my dad, my aunt Mary, and her husband, my uncle Gary. They all ended up having to stand under this narrow roof of a tiki bar on the beach and there was no covered way to get back into the hotel, so there they stayed til after the storm getting wet. Needless to say both Justin and I were a little anxious and peeved having to wait for this storm to pass...as you'll see by the pics. Anyway, finally about two hours later the lightening had stopped and the rain had let up enough for us to go ahead and do this thing!! Of course by then it was getting dark and there was absolutely no sunset left. My dad walked me out to where Justin, my mom, my aunt and my uncle were standing out on the dark beach. My aunt Mary married us and my uncle took the pictures. My dad held my ring for Justin and my mom held Justin's ring for me. It was still raining so while my aunt was reading the vows the words were getting blotted and blurred out which was pretty funny. Then, because it was dark out, my aunt was starting not to be able to see. So, my dad had to hold his lighter out by the vows for my aunt to read...too funny! It was like the icing on the cake. After that it was up to the room to sign the marriage license and for a champagne toast. Then it was up to Spinners (the spinning restaurant on the top of the hotel) for dinner. We had a great dinner and for deserrt we had the lovely little wedding cake my aunt Cindy made for us, which was delicious! It was a great time and I'm so glad we had the time to do the ceremony in Florida, the place I miss so much. Well, here are the pics, hope you all enjoy!