Victorian Wedding

It has taken a while to blog about our most recent family wedding.  Oldest daughter, Ashley was married to her sweetheart Richard in August 2016.  Three days before her wedding, my husband; her father, was rushed to the hospital and diagnosed with severe pneumonia.  He quickly spiraled downhill, and Acute Respiratory Distress and Septic Shock was added to his diagnosis.  As a last ditch effort to save his life, he was transferred to Oregon Health and Science University on life support when we should have been going to a wedding rehearsal and dinner for our daughter.

Before he was intubated, my husband asked that our son walk his sister down the aisle in his place, and Ashley tucked Daddy's photo in her bouquet to walk down the aisle with her.



Through the grace of God, a clinical trial, and amazing physicians, his life was spared.  I left his side for a few hours to attend our daughter's wedding.  Our friends stepped up and made sure that everything was perfect, from flowers I'd planned to arrange, to food I was going to prepare.  It was amazing the way everything came together, but it's hard - still so hard - to think about this difficult time.

It had been so fun to prepare for Ashley's beautiful Victorian style wedding!  Her favorite color has always been purple, and we grew the flowers for her wedding cake that another daughter decorated for her. In another post, here you can see the wedding favors we had made for her special day.

We got through this very difficult time, and a few weeks after the wedding, Dad was strong enough to gather with the newlyweds for a second celebration; gift opening, eating the cake top, and best of all, finally the Father/Daughter dance they'd missed. Last fall this lovely union gave us our first grandchild!  My husband knows how close he was to missing this special blessing, and it's made our family closer than ever.

~Laurie