When the Wedding Is the Least Important Thing You Have to Do
CHRIS
When I proposed to Emily, I imagined her diving into choosing a color scheme, tasting cake samples, and scouting out venues. I couldn’t wait to see what she came up with—she had such great style and had decorated our apartment like a pro. I knew she’d dreamed of the perfect wedding growing up, and planning was in her blood. She practically told me how she wanted me to propose to her, for crying out loud. So shortly after we got engaged, I was caught off guard when suddenly selecting invitations and mapping out seating charts became as appealing to her as a root canal. Even the mention of our wedding visibly overwhelmed her. She told me she just couldn’t think about it right then.
I understood why, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t hurt. Part of me wondered if I should plan the wedding myself. It didn’t help that my family constantly pestered me to set a date. I couldn’t tell them that Emily wasn’t herself and that our relationship was in shreds. My mom was ready to take over the planning simply to see us make it down the aisle.
Then the clouds parted, and Emily emerged from her depression. Even after she seemed like herself again, I didn’t bring up the wedding. I didn’t want to push it. I knew how much it took for her to break free and seek help. The last thing I wanted was to overwhelm her with wedding planning and send her spiraling back into the fog. I was enjoying our relationship again, and a wedding wasn’t on my radar.
That’s why I could barely contain my excitement as I watched Emily slowly begin to Google venues and ask me about possible dates. I had never lost faith that one day we would get married, and now it was becoming a reality. Emily’s finally going to have the engagement experience she always wanted, I thought. I can’t wait to see her throw herself into planning mode.
But then life threw us another curveball. Not only were we foster parents, but we were parents to five children who had experienced the most unimaginable abuse, neglect, trauma, and loss. Our life was a series of shuttling kids to school; juggling appointments; helping them through difficult moments, of which there were many; and fielding incredulous looks when we dared to take them all out in public together. Everywhere we went someone invariably commented, “You sure have your hands full!” or “Are those your kids?”
Emily fully embraced her new role as their foster mother. And, not surprisingly, the kids were crazy about her. When she wasn’t kissing a scraped knee or helping someone with math homework, she was busy sweeping up crumbs, wiping off counters, or shopping for groceries. There wasn’t exactly a lot of extra time for her to plan a wedding. All we had was a date—April 21, 2018—and a golf course we’d reserved as our venue.
I wasn’t much help around the house, and while I shared as many parenting duties as I could, Emily had to shoulder most of it. I could, however, pick up the phone and make wedding calls. I could handle online venue searches and signing caterer contracts. All of this meant that when I wasn’t training for our wedding walk or speaking in front of crowds, I was busy taking on a role I had never expected—wedding planner.
I had figured that even if Emily wasn’t the one planning the wedding, she would still be stressed about making sure I didn’t accidentally pick carnations instead of roses or order white tablecloths instead of ivory. I still had the infamous banana-versus-plantain incident in the back of my mind. But Emily was surprisingly relaxed and chill. She didn’t seem worried that I was in charge of everything. I, on the other hand, was terrified.
“Em, this is a little scary, having me decide everything,” I said to her multiple times.
“You’ll be fine,” she assured me. “At the end of the day, all that matters is that we’re married. Everything else is just a bonus.”
EMILY
I knew Chris struggled to understand how I could possibly be so nonchalant about the details of our wedding. Believe me, that’s not normally my personality. When I had imagined planning my wedding in the past, I thought I would freak out and not be able to sleep, worrying that the flowers wouldn’t look right or the decorations wouldn’t be perfect.
Becoming a foster mom put everything in perspective. As much as I had always struggled with perfectionism, I realized that those tiny details didn’t matter when I had five kids who needed my attention. Chris worried that I didn’t care about the wedding, but that wasn’t the case at all. I was unbelievably excited about marrying him, and I was looking forward to our big day. But I also knew that the flowers and decorations didn’t matter as long as we became husband and wife.
Chris isn’t the planner in our relationship, so I knew he was nervous about possibly letting something fall through the cracks. I wasn’t worried. I knew God had this, and over and over he kept showing up for us. The documentary company Fotolanthropy had contacted us after they saw Chris’s graduation walk to tell us they would take care of our wedding photography and videography. We reached out to them to see if they were still interested in capturing our story since so much time had passed. Not only was it perfect timing for them, but their producer and founder, Katie, told us she wanted to do even more. “I feel like God has placed it on my heart to do a full-length documentary titled 7 Yards on your story and to find someone to help you with wedding planning and decorations,” she said.
Katie found a world-class wedding designer and planner, GRO Designs, who planned and designed everything, including the floral arrangements and bouquets. I got chills every time I thought about it. To me, it was another sign that God was right there watching out for us, and that we were doing exactly what he wanted us to do. Like most engaged couples, we were hit with sticker shock when we first began researching venues and vendors. I wasn’t sure we’d be able to afford flowers beyond a couple of minimal arrangements. GRO Designs showed us their plan to heap tables with the most beautiful all-white roses and hydrangeas I’d ever seen, at no cost to us. The planner freed Chris up to focus more on his growing speaking business while also putting in the hours he needed at the gym.
With the wedding plans in motion, I could focus on helping our foster children work through the trauma and loss they carried. On top of the long list of other reasons they were in foster care, the four girls had lost their mother as well as their grandpa, who had cared for them for a year before he passed away.
Many nights I woke up to the sound of our five-year-old, Sam, crying for her mommy. My heart broke as I picked her up and let her sob in my arms. I wished I could take away the pain she felt, but all I could do was hold her and love her.
A therapist told us it takes around six months for a child in foster care to fully open up and act like themselves. We took in the group of four sisters less than five months before our wedding. With each month that went by, another layer of their shells fell away. As they became more comfortable, they told me more of their tragic story, filled with abuse, neglect, and more loss than most adults face in their lifetimes. As a foster parent, I could not do what I do if I didn’t put the weight on God.
With time, we saw changes in the girls that I can only chalk up to being the work of God. We were tested one night when Cali was told that she wasn’t going to be able to live with a family member as she had hoped. Since bad news always goes down better with ice cream, we went to Culver’s. While there, the two of us talked about how to handle this news and how to move forward.
I told her, “You have two choices. You can feel sorry for yourself and think why me? You can be angry and let it bring you down. Or you can choose to be happy, trust that your life is in God’s hands, and be thankful for what you have.”
Cali sat there a moment, then said, “I’m going to choose to be happy.”
A few minutes later, a firefighter walked in and ordered ice cream. Cali walked up and boldly said, “You don’t need to use your money. Use mine because you risk your life for all of us.”
“You don’t need to do that,” the firefighter said, a little taken aback.
Cali looked back with a smile on her face and said, “Yes, I do. You risk your life for other people.”
The firefighter was almost speechless. He had the biggest smile when he said, “Thank you, sweetheart. I hope you have a blessed night.”
I could barely hold back my tears. Here was this precious girl who so easily could have sulked and felt sorry for herself, but instead, she thought about others.
As the wedding grew closer, I had to step away from caring for the kids every once in a while to take care of wedding details that had to have my input. I would ask Marisa to watch the girls, or I would have the girls play outside so I could finish up a last-minute detail. Every time, the kids broke down crying. “Miss Emily, I want you,” they’d cry—Miss Emily was their name for me since that’s what the oldest two called me at the group home. “I need you to hang out with me. I miss you.” Their cries killed me. The last thing I wanted was for our kids to question their value and worth, and that’s exactly what the wedding was doing to them, despite my best efforts.
“Chris, we’ve got to have these kids in our wedding,” I said as I sat on his lap one night after the kids were in bed.
Chris nodded slowly, deep in thought. “I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “But there will be logistics we have to figure out. We’ll have to get approval from their caseworker for the kids to be in photos and videos. Because they are in the foster care system, their identities must remain private. What if the film crew accidentally captures one of them in the wedding walk shot?”
I leaned into his chest and sighed. “I know, but we can make sure we come up with a plan for the film crew and have the kids in places where they won’t get into the shot for the wedding walk. They’re always going to be a part of our lives, one way or another. Regardless of any logistics, we have to make this work. They have to know they are family forever.”
The kids were thrilled when we told them that the little ones would be flower girls and ring bearers, while the older ones would be junior bridesmaids. And, of course, I called Whittley to tell her she had to fly down to be in my wedding party too.
CHRIS
Even with me in charge, the wedding was falling into place. People stepped up and offered their services in ways that left me in awe. Don’t get the idea that the whole planning process was smooth or that Emily and I never had any disagreements. More than once, Emily thought of a song she wanted in the ceremony or another random idea almost immediately after I had solidified a plan. As much as I tried not to, I felt uncomfortable taking on the role I had imagined Emily filling. Many times I wished she would take more initiative. Sometimes I threw up my hands and said, “Do you actually care about the wedding or not? Because I really wish you were more excited.” Then there was the moment we realized we hadn’t ordered my wedding ring yet and went to the mall jewelry store with all five kids in tow.
Yes, taking over wedding planning was uncomfortable for me and watching cartoons and playing with dolls was never on my to-do list, but as I grew as a foster parent, I discovered life has more meaning when you give up your comfort for something greater. These minor inconveniences didn’t compare to the transformation I saw happening each day with our foster children. I loved being a foster parent, and if this was what it took to fulfill my purpose, then I would do it.
Throughout the planning process, our wedding walk was at the front of my mind. This walk was very different from my graduation walk, not just because it was longer or because Emily and I planned to walk side by side. At my college graduation, my walk was really about me. I wanted to prove that I could do what everyone said I couldn’t. This time, my focus was on God. Emily and I wanted our walk, and our wedding, to point everyone who saw it toward God.
Of course, we wanted our church, Christ Fellowship, to be involved. We asked one of the pastors to perform our ceremony. He’d been so supportive of us and was happy to be involved. Emily and I also picked a theme verse for our wedding—1 Peter 4:8 (NIV): “Above all, love each other deeply.”
I was already working with GRO Designs to design a walkway for our aisle to make sure I didn’t roll my ankle walking on the turf. They came up with an aisle runner that would stay completely flat and solid so I didn’t have to worry about hitting an uneven patch of ground during the walk. They spaced each of the words of our theme verse over the seven yards of our aisle runner. Every time I thought about it, I had to close my eyes and shake my head. God’s hand was so evident in every part of our wedding. I had no doubt that he had put Emily in my life at exactly the right time. All the trials, all the struggles had brought us to this moment.
EMILY
The one wedding detail I couldn’t let Chris handle was my dress. I still wanted that experience of finding the perfect gown and sharing that moment with my family. I had watched the show Say Yes to the Dress for years and imagined what it would be like in front of that mirror in the Kleinfeld’s showroom. How great would it be to share our story on that show? I thought. I could talk about foster care and maybe even encourage other brides to become foster parents.
On a whim, I applied online for the show and told them our story. A producer reached out almost immediately and set up a time to do a Skype interview. They told me it was all preliminary and I wouldn’t find out until later if I would be on the show, but I could tell from the producer’s smile that it was a done deal.
A few weeks later, Chris and I flew to New York City with all our parents and sisters to tape a segment. With this type of reality show, you might expect the producers to stir up drama or ask me to pretend that I couldn’t decide on a dress. But that was not the case at all. The producers, as well as the consultants, seemed genuinely interested in us. They interviewed both Chris and me, and I got to talk about foster care. Chris left the showroom, and my consultant helped me select a few gowns to try on. She had barely laced up the back of the first dress when I said, “This is it.” The lace, sweetheart neckline, and sweeping train looked like they were made for me. When the consultant completed the look with a sparkling crystal belt, I was sold. I tried on a few more dresses, but none of them compared to the first.
We found out later that Say Yes to the Dress wanted to film our wedding—and our walk—to feature on their show. Chris and I were thrilled. Getting on the show wasn’t about the money. They don’t pay for your dress or travel expenses, and we only received a small stipend when they decided to feature our wedding. To us, this show was another way God could use us to share his message and bring inspiration and hope to more people, while also encouraging other couples to open their homes to foster children.
Every once in a while, in the midst of the chaos that comes with parenting five children while also planning a wedding, I would look at Chris and be transported back to that moment in his dorm room all those years ago. Before we moved across the country, before my depression, before we were foster parents, I sat in his lap and felt in my soul that if I had Chris, everything would be okay. Now, weeks away from our wedding, his ring on my finger, that feeling was even stronger. I never imagined Chris and I would overcome so many obstacles before we even said “I do.” We still had our whole lives ahead of us, and a whole slate of new obstacles I couldn’t begin to fathom. Life might be uncertain, but my love for Chris was not. I felt incredibly lucky that God placed us together, and that he had used us in such amazing ways already. I couldn’t wait for the moment we promised to love each other for the rest of our lives.