Scratch the church

I've been concerned for a while about how hectic our wedding day will be. I know there's some things that will happen that I won't be able to control but I also want to do everything possible to help things run as smoothly as possible. When I first started planning my wedding, I was sure I wanted to be married in a church. Obviously, it would have to be a church near our reception site so we looked and looked and finally found a pretty united Methodist church in Sevierville. It also felt like a church, not a wedding factory which you have to be careful of in the mountains.

We had a couple of small scares. At first, we weren't sure if our officiant would be acceptable because quite a few Christians don't consider members of the Unity Church to be christian. I got myself freaked out over nothing - they were totally fine with our minister. Then The Boy noticed that we couldn't play popular music according to their guidelines. One of my few requirements in getting married was that after we were married, I wanted to walk down the aisle to Abba's 'I Do, I Do, I Do'. Again - not a problem.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been thinking about whether or not we should just get married at Brothers Cove instead of trekking to the church and back - a 30 minute drive each way. The Boy and I really don't want to see each other before we're married so we'll have to make time for pictures after the service.

I think this is one time where a longer engagement period would have been helpful. I thought that I wanted to get married in a church but the longer I thought about, the more I realized it wasn't as important to me as I thought it was. The Smoky Mountains are so special to me because when I'm there, I can feel God in my surroundings. In a way, the mountains are our church.

If it's pretty, we'll get married outside. If not, my heart won't be broken. The view from inside the lodge is gorgeous and we have four huge fireplaces that will be roaring if the weather is chilly. When The Boy called to cancel our reservation of the church, I felt a little sad but I also feel relief.

Here are some pictures: