our wedding day: the ceremony

Emily
Apr 7, 2024
3 min read

happy Sunday, friends! this is part 5 of our wedding recap series, sharing some details of our ceremony that I haven't shared online yet. below you'll find extra pictures beyond what were in my IG post and some of the reasoning / stories behind the music, etc. we chose for our ceremony ❤️

about our ceremony

our family, Justen + his groomsmen walked down to "Come Thou Fount" (linked), a song I've always loved and found a lot of peace listening to over the years.

my friend Sydney's daughters were our precious flower girls :) the littlest had a hard time getting down the aisle so she stayed with her mom!

some pictures of the ceremony details!! our absolutely GORGEOUS florals were designed by my friend Elise -- she's had her floral business for a little over a year now, and she is truly the most talented person I know. I walked into this space and immediately started crying when I saw it.

everything genuinely looked and smelled heavenly. like we were in the Garden of Eden.

my bridesmaids and I walked down the aisle to the song "Ever Be" by The Worship Initiative and Shane & Shane (linked). this is a song I found almost five years ago that helped me heal from a traumatic breakup -- specifically when it came to sexual shame. I crossed a lot of sexual boundaries in that relationship (something I share openly on my YouTube channel in my videos on waiting for marriage + physical boundaries in dating) and was working through a lot of guilt and shame in the wake of that breakup.

I found "Ever Be" the summer of 2019 before I moved out to North Carolina. my life as I knew it felt confusing, chaotic, and so not as I had planned. I had thought I would be staying in Nashville, staying at Vanderbilt for nursing school, and marrying my college boyfriend.

but that was so not what God had planned.

thank goodness!!!!

the lyrics of Ever Be were the backdrop of healing I was experiencing in my faith, in therapy, and in eating disorder recovery that summer. dismantling lies I believed about myself and what God thought and felt about me. I would get in my car and cry listening to this song.

it felt like the grace and kindness of God wrapping around me.

when I met Justen, I knew I wanted to walk down the aisle to this song. I would play it in my car on drives to clinical (along with other songs in my wedding ceremony playlist haha) and imagine walking down the aisle of All Saint's towards him. it was the only song I could imagine and only song whose lyrics I wanted spoken over me specifically in that moment

...

For you will have your bride

Free of all her guilt

And rid of all her shame

And known by her true name

my sweet Dad trying not to cry 🥹

I love this one so much.

my brother reading Scripture ❤️

I joke that I completely blacked out during our ceremony because I barely remember it, haha (very excited for our wedding video to fill in those gaps!). all I can specifically recall is that we were incredibly giddy and kept laughing non-stop (mostly me, lol).

officially husband and wife!!!

was sooo much more chill once we got done haha. although J and I both were in SHOCK and kept looking at each other going "did that really just happen???" 😂