Our AU Wedding | Strouse House Chronicles: PART NINE
LAST WEEK, we shared the struggle of planning a wedding from afar. Little did we know that would only be the beginning of the challenges we would face. Despite our best laid plans, Mother Nature was out to get the best of us....
Our excitement and stress levels were at an all time high as we traveled down to Auburn a few days before our guests arrived. In Auburn, those days were filled with early September southern heat and last minute touches, but on the east coast those days were filled with an impending hurricane. Many of our guests were dealing with the stress of heavy storms, power outages and potential flight delays while we were doing last minute shopping and family travel coordinating.
Friday night, we arrived at The Reserve at Oak Bowery to get the lay of the plan and proceed with the rehearsal. The air was filled with the laughs of old friends and hugs between family members. The ceremony was to take place in front of a beautiful old stone fireplace and Allie would make a grand entrance down a long grassy pathway. Little did we know what the future had in store.
We enjoyed a BBQ dinner under the stars, a slideshow of pictures of Allie and I from childhood to the present, and great speeches from my brother Matt (best man) and Allie's best friend and former college roommate, Jordan (maid of honor). That night, we headed to downtown Auburn to show our out of town guests the beautiful campus.
Saturday was gameday! We got out to the tailgate early to help set up and man what a party. Boston butt was smoking, family and friends were getting a chance to meet, and campus was full of fellow Auburn fans. What could be better?! Many of our guests went to tigerwalk and the game while we stayed behind to mingle. Auburn went on to beat Utah State in what would end up being a great season after a 2010 National Championship.
Sunday is where all hell broke loose. I awoke to several frantic texts from Allie about the weather....Things were not looking good. The east coast hurricane had made it to the south and our dreams of the perfect outdoor wedding were quickly fading. Most of the out of town guests in hotels were without power (made getting dressed and blowdrying hair quite the challenge) and our parents were scrambling to find an indoor backup location for the ceremony. Luckily there was a small country church less than a mile from the venue and the rain had mostly cleared up by the time our guests started arriving. There may have been a few wet shoes, but for the most part everyone looked amazing.
The rain held off for most of the rest of the night and our worries quickly dissipated with the clouds. We tried to snag a quick bite of the food we had agonized over, a small sliver of the cakes we had sampled, and a quick sip or two of the beer/wine we had purchased. We got a chance to go table to table thanking our friends and family for coming, shared more than a few dances to the beats of our favorite Nashville DJ Cliffy D, and exited our special day through a tunnel of Auburn shakers, the Auburn fight song, and the glorious sounds of "WAR EAGLE!!". My brother Matt lent us his 350Z convertible and we sped away with the top down. The first thing we said to eachother was "Are we really married?!"
That's typically where blogs like this end, but since we are photographers at the core of our being our night wouldn't have been complete without some post wedding photographs. Our mentor and head photographer Rob came with us to campus and shot some night pictures of us in front of the historic Samford Town. He snagged a picture of me carrying Allie through the door of our suite at the Auburn Hotel and Conference center, before we kicked him out for good.
The next morning we enjoyed a family brunch at Arricia before catching a ride with my parents to the airport. We almost missed our flight due to the weather - ANOTHER HURRINCANE, but before long we were settled into our seats and headed for Cancun. More on that and our first year of marriage next week!
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