It’s time to share my VOW RENEWAL with you!! Eek! I am so excited!!
I’ll be totally honest here…our vow renewal was better than our actual wedding. Brandon and I have been calling the vow renewal our “re-wedding” and we also had a “re-engagement” last fall. You can read about our re-engagement HERE. Actually, the re-engagement and the new ring I got for it were better than the original too 😉
Okay…so a bit of backstory. Last summer, we stayed at the same exact condo in Carolina Beach that we did this summer. And last summer, a couple in the same building got married on the beach. We got to watch from our balcony and thought it was soooo cool. I made a mental note of the company who did it (shout out to Incredible Beach Weddings!!). We thought it would be cool to one day renew our vows on the beach. I didn’t think a whole lot more about it. Well, until Brandon re-proposed and we decided that Summer 2020 would be our renewal.
Anyway. Our day started out pretty sketchy. We went to the beach for a bit in the morning, but the weather was iffy. Harlyn and I had hair appointments at 2, so we ate lunch, showered/bathed, and headed to the salon. While we were at the salon, we watched the weather get worse and worse. It was pouring rain, and I didn’t think we had a chance of a beautiful ceremony. When we left the salon hours later, it was still raining.
On our short drive back to the beach house, I said a prayer aloud that we would get good weather from 6-8 PM. As I was finishing the prayer, Harlyn and I couldn’t even believe it…the rain stopped and the clouds started clearing up. The sun peeked through. We got back to the beach house and Harlyn noticed a rainbow! I mean…seriously?!?
It was time for our family to head to the beach, and Brandon went to say hello to the officiant. Then my mom, sister and MIL helped me get my dress on. Then everyone headed to the boardwalk, and everyone took their seats on the beach except the kids and me. The kids started their walk down the “aisle” and I soon followed.
Brandon and I wrote our own vows this time around. We hadn’t done that when we got married in 2008, but I’m so glad we did this time!! Brandon’s were much longer than mine, of course 😉 It was definitely such a special moment to read them to each other. Then we got to do a sand ceremony where all four of us had our own color sand to pour into a big jar together. Maverick didn’t want to give up his little jar!
As the ceremony was finishing up, the sun came out in full force and the weather was suddenly just BEAUTIFUL. It was truly a blessing that after a rainy stormy day where we should have been rained out, we got the best weather and lighting.
We did pictures of course, and even after our wedding coordinator/photographer left, my sister stayed to snap some extra pictures of us playing at the edge of the water.
It was the perfect vow renewal, evening, and day. After pictures, we went back up to the beach house, where everyone staying in the other condos was waiting to yell congrats and click their glasses for us to kiss! 😉 We headed inside and treated everyone to a wonderful dinner of Papa John’s Pizza (haha!).
I couldn’t have asked for a more meaningful (and scenic!) celebration of how far we’ve come in our marriage.
And to my amazing (new and old!) husband, I love you. Thank you for choosing me in 2008, 2020, and every day between and to come.
Photos: Incredible Smiles Photography by Tracey
PSSST!!! Brandon and I will be sharing the audio recording of our vows and talking more about our vow renewal on this week’s episode of The Fools in Love Podcast. Be sure you search for it on Wednesday wherever you listen to podcasts!!
