Well, hi! It’s been just a week short of a year since I’ve been on here - and what a year it’s been! But here we are, and I’m back with some glimpses of what I can only describe as a perfect and easy and simple-in-the-most-beautiful-way kind of day. Katie and Mark were both startlingly calm from the moment I saw them that morning. Katie was in her childhood home with her sweet friends, and Mark was waiting for his dear bride at the church. This day was everything I ever hope for for a couple. Its constant was the excitement and anticipation and celebration of becoming husband and wife. Everything was perfect because they were willing to embrace anything that happened so long as they were married. That’s how you have a perfect wedding day. You plan and you pick details carefully, but at the end of it all you allow the day to be what it is: sunny or cloudy, rainy or stinkin hot, and all the other variables that come with this beautiful life we lead - all with the knowledge that you will be married to the one whom your soul loves at the end of it.

The day started at Katie’s house where all of the girls helped each other get ready, coming together from all different parts of Katie’s life. I love that part of the day, knowing that everyone has probably heard about each other for forever and are now finally getting to be real life friends. From there, we went to St. Vitus, the church where both Katie’s parents and Mark’s parents made their own wedding vows. The choir sang Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus and my little choir teacher heart cried tears of joy. Folks, if you have the chance to have a choir sing at your wedding… DO IT DO IT DO IT. There’s nothing more beautiful to accompany marriage vows than the fusion of powerful poetry and the harmony of voices. We left the church in a flurry of excitement and spent the afternoon exploring the Cultural Gardens and the grounds of the Cleveland Museum of Art before heading to the beautiful reception at the Mayfield Sand Ridge Club. And man, what a fun group of people to hang out with. I was four months pregnant at the time and barely out of that first trimester hangover feeling, and that still didn’t stop me from wanting to dance with all of them well into the night.

Katie and Mark, you two love each other something fierce and I am so grateful to have gotten to be a part of your crew for this day. I never wanted to leave that dance floor, and you can bet I would have taken that traditional shot with you to celebrate had baby Poe not been on board! But let me tell you, this baby will have known how to celebrate love from a very young age in a big part thanks to you and your family and friends.