Today Jeff and I celebrate our 13th wedding anniversary. Feels like just yesterday, until I start looking through pictures and see how much my nieces and nephews aged. My niece, who was a flower girl in my wedding, is getting married in just a few weeks! We had a virtual bridal shower for her yesterday and recalled a few funny wedding stories. In honor of our wedding anniversary today, I thought I’d share some memorable wedding moments Jeff and I have had together.

The first was in 2004. My best friend from high school was getting married in the Chicago area. I was a bridesmaid in the wedding, but I lived in Wisconsin and I was taking high school kids to Young Life camp the week before the wedding. Eventually we figured out that I could hitch a ride with a Young Life group from Michigan who would take me from camp in Minnesota and drop me off *sometime* and *somewhere* in the Chicago area. Jeff would pick me up and take me to my parents’ house. To make matters more complicated, I was still suffering from a bad concussion and head injury. And it turns out, taking high school kids to a week long camp of fun and adventure is not the best mix with a head injury.

My fellow Young Life leaders carried me onto the bus at camp because I couldn’t walk on my own. Hesitant to leave me with strangers, they made sure to tell the other leaders to take good care of me. Our bus departed only to run into more complications. Some mechanical malfunction sidelined our bus for hours until a second bus was able to pick us up. This delay meant that instead of arriving in Chicago around 8pm, I was going to arrive at 1am. Thankfully Jeff didn’t care and still drove to pick me up. Note: Jeff and I were NOT even dating at the time.

Jeff picks me up. I warn him that I couldn’t walk myself onto the bus and he may need to carry me. We manage. He takes me to my parents’ house where I fall into bed exhausted and trying to get a few hours of sleep before I have to get up, get my hair and make up done, and manage to walk down the aisle.

Thankfully the next morning I was feeling much better. I did tell another bridesmaid friend about my walking issues, but I kept that a secret from the bride. Certainly brides don’t need to worry about their bridesmaids on their special day. The wedding was beautiful, I made it down the aisle without difficulty, and we enjoyed celebrating my friend.

I have more memorable wedding moments to share, but I got caught up looking at old pictures and now I’m out of time to write more. Stay tuned!