Throughout my life I’ve been a part of many weddings, learning something vital and different from each one. For example, the first wedding I was in as a flower girl, I learned that high heels make a lot of noise on marble floors. I took this as a sign of being a woman; wearing high-heel satin shoes and a dress that made me look like a miniature bride. I quickly learned though that the life-sized bride was not as impressed with the noise as we headed up the stairs to the ceremony. I was shushed by the beautiful woman in the white dress, interpreting her concern as a lesson on the seriousness of weddings. I then proceeded to walk down the aisle solemn, straight-faced, and extremely poised. My Mom was trying to get my attention, pressing her fingers into her face to try to get me to smile. But no…my task was too great and I kept my eyes forward. The pictures still make me laugh and cringe at the same time. I look back and realize that an eight-year-old flower girl may take weddings too seriously, so I have officially asked a two-year-old to fulfill that role; but we’ll get to her later. She deserves a blog post all to herself.
I’m sure I’ll talk about some of the other amazing weddings I’ve been a part of along the way, but to kick this whole blog experience off, there is one more lesson learned that I’d like to share: I am not creative. It isn’t my lack of ability…my fiancé often gets defensive when I say this because he believes I can create beautiful and extremely unique things. I think it is more a conglomeration of a lack of desire, procrastination, and genetics. Unfinished art projects have always been my specialty. My closest friends will tell you that I’m more of an idea girl, and life would be much easier if I could just afford a personal assistant who made all those ideas come to life.
When I first started thinking about my wedding, I thought that maybe this event would be an exception. Maybe…just maybe for my wedding, my artistic ideas would come to life. Then my brother got married. This was the first wedding that I was truly involved in and it was incredible. And as I watched my sister-in-law come up with these beautiful and creative ideas and then bring them to life, I realized something…nothing changes when you get married. This is true for many reasons, but specifically, I wasn’t going to suddenly become Martha Stewart just because I was getting married.
Adam & Amanda's wedding and details - Pictures by LaceHanky of course
I wanted so badly to create a beautiful scrapbook outlining my relationship with Spenser leading up to our wedding, but since I’m only on page 6 of a scrapbook I started for us 3.5 years ago, I don’t think we’ll have a leather-bound book of memories sitting on our coffee table. Instead, we’ll have this: a blog that outlines the wonder and beauty of getting married, and the glorious stress of planning a wedding.
So here we go: My name is Ashley Berres and on August 25, 2009, Spenser Baldwin, the most incredible man I’ve ever met, asked me to marry him. Our rustic, romantic, fall-themed wedding will be October 16, 2010 and you can read about our journey to that day through this blog. My hope is that anyone who reads this will not only be highly entertained, but also informed on how we pulled a wedding together in our growing southern suburb of the twin cities.
