The natural thing to do the week after you get married is to honeymoon. Interesting enough, this concept is borrowed from the Indian elite who would take their upperclass brides on a tour to visit relatives who had not been able to attend the wedding... glad that's not still the tradition! Historically known as the the hony moone by the British, the honeymoon was a term used to describe the period just after the wedding when things are at their sweetest.. (this all is predicted to wane after a month... this might still be true :) ) Today, we know...
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it's official. all things wedding are now behind us (oh, except those ever present thank you notes... it's like those never end!) and i cannot tell you how good it feels... (unless you're married and were the main one planning the wedding then you know how i feel). while it's one of the best days of your life, it's also the most stressful. i feel like it's a big unspoken hazing you must survive before you can truly be man and wife. it's as if society says, oh, so you really want to do this forever thing? how about you...
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I, (Preston/Jill), take you, (Jill/Preston), as my (wife/husband). I will love you in action and in words. I will honor you above myself. I will serve God by serving you. I will be joyful in the hope of our shared future. I will be patient with you, in good times and in bad. I will be faithful to pray for you and with you in the seasons to come. I will use the gifts that God has given me to build you up and better your world. I will be strong where you are weak. I will embrace your strengths which compliment my own. I will live a life of...
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We have chosen to symbolize our unity through a painting. Around the wedding site, we posted a series of paintings… The first to symbolize our meeting. The second to symbolize our common interests. The third to symbolize our journey. The fourth to symbolize our engagement. The fifth to symbolize our compliments. The sixth we competed on the day of the wedding. The painting symbolizes uniqueness and with different things: such as city and nature or the mountains and the ocean meet they create beauty and unity. By doing this, we are saying ‘we are two unique individuals blending together to create something new, beautiful, and lasting.’...
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I left for the Middle East for research for 6 weeks and while I was gone, Preston wrote me a note for everyday I was gone. Each note was titled with a specific TO/FROM that highlighted our contrasting yet complimentary differences. I loved waking up each morning to open my note see what he had come up with to describe us. I kept waiting for him to repeat one on accident but I found out later that would never have happened... he made a spreadsheet to keep track of them all... of course ;) We used these on our wedding...
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He says... Jill was amazing to me from the start - independent, creative, visionary, compassionate. My first memory of her was when she told a story about a homeless woman she encountered in SF. While the whole world walked by, Jill took the time to listen to a woman outcast by society, to speak words of encouragement into her life, to buy her lipstick to help her feel beautiful like every woman should feel. Afterwards, I caught her taking photos which she told me was her year-long project of taking a picture every day - searching for beauty wherever it could be...
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I’ll never forget the moment Preston walked into my world. A group of us had come together to share what we had been learning as we read through the Psalms individually. He came up to the stage with all the confidence in the world and a goofy grin on his face. Dark haired, tall and lanky with well-worn, favorite flip flops on his feet, he told us of his drive every morning into the Berkeley hills and the opportunity he has to witness the divine moment the sun rises to overtake the night. With a cell phone full of bright...
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(as described by Preston in the fall of 2010) Jill lives for inspiration and is a fountain of creativity. Her eye for photography is only matched by her passionate pursuit for beauty in the everyday. One step into my gallery…er…apartment and you can quickly tell that I’m her biggest patron/fan! Jill has an entrepreneurial spirit, a visionary personality, and an insatiable desire to explore new places and cultures. She’s constantly trying to expose me to the cultures she has experienced and grown to love in Africa, India, Europe, and around the world, as well as expand my worldview beyond that of Southern...
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Processing on Cloud 9
I'm engaged... I--a-m--e-n-g-a-g-e-d. It must still be sinking in as I've found myself mentally living in another world since Saturday. I week ago while celebrating my birthday in Santa Fe, Preston asked me to live the rest of life with him as his wife and best friend. I said YES! without a moment of hesitation and haven't stopped staring at my finger since. (I've also missed my BART stop by 5 stops and spent 20 min wandering around the parking lot looking for my parked car.) The beautiful photos taken by Austin HERE, capture all my excitement and joy of the...
Read Morethe first time we walked by, there was just the mommy snowman. the next time, the baby had arrived. we thought it only appropriate to creatively complete the trio with a snow dog.
it was his birthday. and birthdays are always reasons to celebrate. upon his request, we dressed up. i pulled my little black dress out of the closet. and realized it fit better now than it did then... a lot of things have changed since then... life fits much better now.
