S3. E18. Wedding Recap
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Welcome to Your Daily Bread podcast. I'm your host, Abbie Stasior, a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor. My prayer is that these bite-sized episodes will help you heal your relationship with food, improve body image, and ultimately help you grow closer to God. Now, I can't personally heal you, but I'm gonna be directing you to the one that can, and that is Jesus. Also disclaimer, I'm not a pastor, but a sister in Christ that's offering you some food for thought that you can take into your quiet time with the Lord as your daily bread. Let's dig in.
Y'all, I am married officially. Welcome back to your Daily Bread Podcast. Thank you all so much for being patient with me. We took a couple weeks off because of my wedding and the honeymoon, and I am so excited to be back, and I can't wait to give y'all all of the details. And I am still making my way through all of the DMs, but I know that so many of you have messaged me and liked and engaged with our reels and posts, and we are just so [00:01:00] grateful, so overjoyed, so blessed, so thank you so much for honestly just caring.
Like, it's just so cool. It is interesting how many family members or extended family members really don't care about your wedding, but then random people on the internet or random people that listen to this podcast that I've never actually met in person care and are just the ultimate hype people.
So I am just so grateful for each and every single one of you for following our journey and for praying. I know so many of you sent me DMs that you were praying and interceding for us over the wedding season, so thank you so much. The prayers were 100% felt, and it was such a delightful day. There's so much spiritual warfare that leads up to the wedding day, and it was, like, actually kind of insane.
And I have some advice that I'll give at the end of this episode that can help combat that. However The actual day of the wedding was so peaceful, and we saw God's glory revealed. And that's what I wanna talk about today, is how we included God into our wedding day, how we looped our faith, how we [00:02:00] demonstrated that throughout our whole wedding day, 'cause it was really important for my husband and I, it was really important for my husband and I to not just honor God during the ceremony, but also at the reception and throughout the whole wedding day.
So I'm gonna walk through all of the different things. I have a list of 18 to 20 different things that we did, and I hope that this gives you ideas if you are in your engaged season or hope to be married one day, different ideas that you can use to honor God on your wedding day and demonstrate your faith.
The first thing, that we did was we prayed over every single detail and the type of wedding that we wanted to have. And we even thought about like, "Look, Lord, we know that weddings are a lot of money. We know that things are really expensive. Should we just elope? Should we just do a courthouse wedding and keep it modest, keep it small?
And we're okay with that. We surrender to you. Like, what type of wedding do you have for us?" And the Lord was really clear that He wanted us to have a larger wedding. And we're like, "Okay, [00:03:00] God. If it's your will, it's your bill." And He did provide, and, it was just so amazing
he really grew our faith in terms of really trusting Him financially to provide. He really called us to a bigger wedding, and I do believe it was for a larger purpose. Of course, the day was wonderful. It was beautiful. God's glory was revealed And also with that, the whole wedding day really ministered to people, and I think it planted a lot of seeds with unbelieving family members and friends, staff, the catering team, and I'm really excited to dive into all of that.
So I will pray us in. We'll get into our scripture, our anchor scripture for the day, and then I will get into all of the details that I'm so excited to tell y'all. So Father God, thank you so much for this day. Lord, we just praise you and thank you for everything that you are. Lord, thank you for keeping your loving eye on us always, Lord, and we know that Jesus, you love weddings.
Lord, your first public miracle was at a wedding, so we know that you rejoice in people coming together in union and in covenant, Lord. , All [00:04:00] of us listeners, we want to honor and glorify you, Lord. So thank you for going before me and my husband, preparing such a beautiful wedding day that I hope speaks volumes of your nature, and I pray that this continues to plant seeds in people's hearts, people that were there, people that weren't there, that just see it on social media or listen to this episode, Lord.
And I pray that this leads to more weddings that honor and glorify you because there's so many weddings that do not. So I just pray that we can have more weddings that truly get at the heart of what covenant is and that just honor and glorify you. So Lord, I pray that every single listener that hears this is blessed, and that they know that they are blessed and not cursed, that they are the head and not the tail, and because they are your precious daughters and sons, that makes them royalty.
And I pray that everything that is said in this episode is what you want to say through me, what you want me to share. Help me to be sensitive to you, Holy Spirit, as we go through this episode. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So [00:05:00] I'm gonna be reading briefly from Mark 10, verse 7. It says, " For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.
So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no one separate." It really was such an amazing day. So I'm gonna go through all the things that we did to honor God at our wedding and keep our faith at the center. And like I said, the first thing was that we prayed over every single detail.
Psalm 37:23 says that , "The Lord orders the steps of the godly and delights in all the details of their lives." So we knew God cares about these details. He cares about the color of the napkins. He cares about who's there, and the invitations, and the wedding date, and the dress. He's in all of those details, and He's going to order our steps.
So we prayed over every single detail. We prayed over what type of wedding that we wanted. We prayed before we started planning. We prayed [00:06:00] before our first dance rehearsals. We prayed over everything. And there was actually one day that we were wedding planning that we did not pray before. We just dove into it, and I forget, we just, like, got distracted.
Like, we were eating dinner. It was like, "Hey, we got all these things to do. Like, let's just get to it." And that was the one day of wedding planning that we ended up bickering. And I'm like, "Oh, wait, we forgot to pray before." And, um, really praying before everything. We know that prayer is so important, but it was so interesting to feel that and have that juxtaposition of like, oh, wow, we know what it's like to pray and be covered and submitted before going into this, and we know what it's like to not.
So we were even more so trying to pray over every single detail because we were like, we don't want the rest of this planning experience to just have, a spirit of contention. I was like, "We rebuke that now in the name of Jesus." So we were really intentional to pray. And a lot of people have been DM-ing me asking me, "How did you plan for the wedding?"
And You know, you learn how to plan a wedding as you're planning the wedding, and it's gonna look different for everyone, and everyone's timeline is different. The best [00:07:00] thing that we did and the best thing that I would recommend is we implemented, from the get-go, Wedding Wednesdays, and we reserved as many wedding tasks and to-dos, as many as we could, we reserved that on Wednesdays.
Now, as you get closer to the wedding, Wedding Wednesday becomes every day because there's something to do every day as you get closer and closer. But from when we got engaged, we really implemented that, so that wedding planning didn't take over our whole relationship. It wasn't all-consuming our days.
It wasn't distracting us from our work. But whenever I thought of something to do, I'd write in a note on my phone. And so when we got to Wednesday, it was like, "Hey, here are the questions that I have for you. Here's the questions that my fiancé had for me, and here are the things that we need to do," and we were just able to be very efficient and get a lot of things done very quickly.
And it was so fun. It gave me something to look forward to. I did the majority of my appointments and beauty treatments and things on Wednesdays, so Wednesdays were really delightful, and I was always wearing white or ivory on Wednesdays. It really was such an efficient time to plan, but it made wedding planning really special.
And [00:08:00] because we made that Wednesday cadence, there is a time in wedding planning when there is a lull, and it's typically when you send your invitations out, and you're waiting for RSVPs to get back in, 'cause there's a lot with wedding planning that you can't do until you have the official number of who's coming and who's not.
Here is our head count. So there's a lull in that time, and a lot of people take a break from wedding planning at that time. But because we had Wedding Wednesday implemented, we were always doing something on Wednesday, and I was finding things to do on Wednesdays. So that made it so the last month leading up to the wedding, we definitely had things to do, but it wasn't as much as most people.
. It, wasn't as stressful as most people experience because we were preemptive and doing a lot of things, planning ahead, packing. I'm trying to remember of all the things that we did during that period. I know I made a list on Instagram one time. But like a lot of things that people spend doing the month of and the week of the wedding, we tried to do that the months leading up to the wedding and just try and be preemptive about it, and packing wedding bags, and writing thank you notes, , and things of that nature.
So Wedding [00:09:00] Wednesdays really helped us, and we prayed over every single detail. The second thing is that we really yielded to His timing. When we think about Ecclesiastes 3, that there's a season and a time for everything. We were dating for two years, we were engaged for nine months, and we got a lot of flack for that.
I will be honest, there were a lot of people at the old church that we used to go to that would say to us, "Oh, you guys should just run to the courthouse. , You guys should just get married. You guys have been dating for so long, like, just get married." And it's like, whoa, I know that so many Christians get married so quickly, and they have an expedited timeline, but everyone is on their own timeline, and we are yielding to the Lord's timeline We did our premarital counseling actually a year before we even got engaged, and people thought that that was crazy.
But for us, it just made sense. That's when the Lord told us to do it, and we were actually able to use and implement all of the skills that we learned in premarital counseling in our dating season. And so by the time we were engaged, number one, we were already so committed to each other. We had worked through a lot of family of origin stuff and communication things.
So by the time we were engaged, [00:10:00] we weren't figuring things out, working through a lot of these big issues. We were able to plan the wedding and then really enjoy that season and go into marriage with such a firm foundation. So I am such a proponent for doing premarital counseling as soon as possible.
But again, people gave us a lot of flack for that as well and did not agree with that choice, but you always have to yield to the Lord's timing and be obedient to that, regardless of what other people think. And so people thought that we had dated too long, but the Lord taught us so much in those two years of dating before we got engaged.
He taught us so much about self-control and dying to self and our communication styles, and we matured so much. We rooted deeper in Him. We both developed so much spiritually in that time individually, and you need that going into marriage. You need that intimacy with Jesus on a personal level before you're then in a union with somebody else, where you're in a marriage that, models how Jesus died for the church.
So it's just important that you have that relationship individually, and then you're not [00:11:00] looking to your spouse as a savior, but you know that Jesus is your savior, and you really know that on a visceral level, and you just have that relationship. So people thought that our timeline was crazy, but we were always yielding , to His timing as well.
And it was crazy because I thought that being engaged for nine months was too long, which if you had asked me years ago, even before I was a Christian, I would have thought nine months was way too short and that we should have a year to a year and a half of planning But nine months seemed long in the Christian community,
we got engaged in August of 2025. I was trying to get married by Christmas, so literally have, like, a three-month engagement. And the Lord was like, "No." There were so many obstacles that came in our path, like every venue that we were trying to do, like, things with the date. It just kept getting pushed back, pushed back, pushed back, and I was like, "All right.
Well, I'll settle for March. Okay, then I'll settle for April." And it was crazy 'cause we had a couple dates in April that were open for both of us, our immediate family. We already had our photographer. We had our wedding planner. So we're like, "All right. These are the couple dates in April that can work for us."
Both of those dates got taken [00:12:00] by our venue. They got swept up on the same day. Other people had booked those two dates at the same venue that we wanted and had already chosen on that day. So that pushed us to May, and at first I was so upset about getting married late May, but it worked out. That was the Lord's timing.
And so every time we tried to rush Him and do things faster trying to listen to, what other people thought that we should be doing, it did not work out, and the Lord was always redirecting us. And so May 29th was our wedding date, and that is what the Lord wanted. So my biggest advice would always be to be yielding to His timing and not relying on your own understanding, and honestly, even checking in with the Spirit.
That is our wisest counsel. Even if other Christians are telling you to do something a certain way, you always want to be yielding to the Lord. next thing was our wedding bands and our wedding rings. A lot of you have asked about that. And, so my engagement ring is a three-stone diamond, and I really wanted that for the Holy Trinity, a three-corded strand that it talks about in Ecclesiastes 4, that a cord of three strands is not [00:13:00] easily broken, a symbol of Jesus being the head of our relationship and that it's my husband and I.
So there was just a lot of symbolism with having a three-stone diamond for me. And then my wedding band is a seven-stone diamond, and seven in the Bible is the number of completion, so that was really symbolic to me. And then I ended up needing a spacer in between, so I have three rings total, Holy Trinity, three-corded strand vibes.
So I just love the symbolism with all of the rings, and people are always looking at your ring, asking to look at your ring, and now I'm able to give that testimony and the symbolism behind it. So that was really important to me in the wedding planning process as well. We were also very intentional from the beginning to hire Christian vendors whenever we could.
We love supporting small businesses. We love supporting Christian businesses and faith-filled businesses, so we were really intentional about that as well. In our planning. And another big thing is we decided very early on that we did not wanna have alcohol at the wedding, 'cause we know in Romans 14, and we talk about Romans [00:14:00] 14 so much on this podcast, but Romans 14:13-15.
Let me read it to see. The Bible that I have right here is the NIV version, and I really like the NLT version of this scripture. So it says, "Therefore, let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or , obstacle in the way of a brother or sister."
I am convinced, being fully persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself. But if anyone regards something as unclean, then for that person it is unclean. If your brother or sister is distressed because of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love.
Do not, by your eating, destroy someone for whom Christ died." And then it says, you know, "For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating or drinking, but of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit." Other translations say, " Don't eat or drink in a way that causes other people to stumble."
And we have a lot of friends and family members that, are walking in recovery and walking in sobriety. And number one, my husband doesn't drink. I [00:15:00] barely do. I'll have a glass of wine here or there, but his family doesn't drink as well. So we just knew, like, alcohol's not a significant part of our lives, and we also didn't wanna create an environment that causes other people to stumble, so we decided not to have alcohol at the wedding, and that did cause a lot of ripple in the water.
We got a lot of flack from that as well from some family members. But that's what was really important to us, and it really spoke volumes, and people were very grateful, especially our friends that are walking in sobriety were really grateful that they didn't have to fight that temptation at the wedding, but they could just enjoy a mocktail,
so we were really happy that we made that decision even though we got some pushback from that. It was also really important to us to pick a venue that we really felt the presence of God in, and it was so cool at our venue. In the reception hall, there were all of these wooden beams surrounding the dance floor and where the tables were, and they all looked like crosses, these wooden crosses all around the venue, and we truly just felt the presence of God there.
It was actually the first venue that we toured. We toured maybe 20 other venues. Like, it was insane. We looked at so many different venues in and around [00:16:00] the Nashville area, and we just kept coming back to this one and kept comparing every venue back to this one, and the Lord provided a way for us to be able to afford it.
Praise God for payment plans, all the things, and it just, it really worked out, and we really did feel the presence of God. And we knew that it was gonna rain on the wedding day. We just really felt that in our spirit. So I was not even concerned about the rain. And we loved that this venue was all indoors, like the cute little chapel, and then there was a covered breezeway and the reception hall.
It was all in one place, and it was all covered, so we loved that. It was also really important for us to have a Christ-centered ceremony, which I feel like is obvious, but, it was just so important to us. We didn't let anyone give us any input on the ceremony other than our pastor. But it was really my husband and I planning that with our pastor and the Lord, and it was very important for us to offer communion to all believers that were there.
So we had communion, 'cause we've been to other weddings where it's just the bride and groom take communion, but I'm sitting there as a believer in the audience, and I'm like, "Wait, I wanna take [00:17:00] communion, too." So it was just really important to us to offer communion to everyone. So as guests were coming in, they could grab a communion cup .
And our pastor was able to give more of a gospel preaching versus just a standard wedding ceremony opening speech. He really talked about what a covenant is and how a marriage on Earth is a physical representation of how Christ died for the church, and that really spoke to people.
We had so many people come up to us after and was like, "Wow, this was a ceremony unlike any other." And our vows were very much packed with scripture. One thing that our premarital counselor told us early on, like I said, we had premarital counseling a year before we were even engaged, so we were already thinking about our vows at that point.
Our premarital counselor said that the biggest mistake that he sees couples make when they're writing their wedding vows is that they make them out to be a love letter, and that's not what vows are supposed to be.
You are vowing to make commitments to your spouse and to God. It is not writing a love letter to your spouse. There is a time and a place for that, and you can [00:18:00] have a couple lines in the beginning talking about your love, but a love letter and a love declaration, that is not the same thing as wedding vows.
So it was very important for us to make sure that we were actually vowing to do things for one another and making those promises to our spouse and to God. And we turned to scripture for what to say, and our pastor even said that it was the most Christ-centered and word-filled ceremony that he has ever been a part of with officiating weddings.
And that really meant a lot to us. And that gave us confirmation too that, you know, we really did turn to the Word and really made good commitments and, and wedding vows. And of course, the Word of God is sufficient and, if you're making a covenant, His Word should give you the instructions of what you're vowing to.
And maybe one day I'll, I'll read my vows. If anyone wants, let me know in the comments if you want to see what I said for our, our vows. But I listened to a sermon a while ago by Charlotte Gambill. The sermon is called Ribology, and she talked about the different types of ribs that there are and the function of different [00:19:00] ribs and how Eve was formed from Adam's rib, and I really meditate on that.
I listened to that sermon so long ago, but I used that as my prescription for the vows and my framework for the vows, and I went through the different types of ribs and the vows that I wanted to make for each type of, rib, and it was really powerful. That really spoke volumes to people too.
So obviously there, obviously your ceremony's gonna have Christ filled at that, but . it was really important for us to, really have those extra elements. Some other things that we did, some small things. We actually served dinner at the buffet.
And at first we thought, "Hey, maybe we'll just serve the wedding cake," but then the timing of that, it just didn't make sense, and we were like, "You know what? Let's serve at the buffet." And it was so fun, and we didn't realize this until we actually started serving our guests, but it's like, oh wow, now we get to have intentional conversations with every single guest coming through the line, and that was so special to us to talk to every single person, especially our out-of-town guests.
We got to eat. Earlier, we ate a little bit at the sweetheart table, but then we actually got to go up and serve, and we had aprons that said Mr. And [00:20:00] Mrs. on them, and that was easily hands down the best part of the day. It was so fun. It was so fun to talk to all of our guests. It was fun to serve, and it really spoke volumes to the catering staff as well, that they got a little bit of a break in between passed hors d'oeuvres at the social hour.
Oh, and that was another thing. We didn't call it a cocktail hour. We called it a social hour, because there weren't any cocktails there. We had mocktails and sodas and sweet tea and lemonade and all the things, but we called it a social hour. So that was one distinct change that we made. So if you're not having alcohol at the wedding, you could consider that as well.
The catering staff, they were doing passed hors d'oeuvres, and then they were serving the cake, and set up and clean up. They were doing a lot of things, so they really did appreciate the break during the buffet, and they were giving us all the fresh food still and replenishing the line. But reason why we were serving, that really spoke to them, and a lot of the catering staff came up to us after , and really appreciated that.
So just to hear so many testimonies, it was so cool, and people were even watching us serving, crying. It was really special, and that was easily the best part of the day for us, honestly we also played a lo-fi worship playlist during dinner, and I'll link that up in [00:21:00] the show notes because I listen to it while I'm doing work or cleaning.
It really is a great playlist, and we just discovered this artist, SXXT. It's S-X-X-N-T, and we think it's pronounced succinct. That's the artist. A bunch of their songs and some other ones too, but I will link that up in the show notes because that playlist is what we played during dinner, and it was such a good playlist.
And we, again, had so many people come up to us and like, "Wow, we need that playlist. We need that link ASAP." And so that was really important to us to have worship music, not just during the ceremony and some worship songs on the dance floor, but during dinner as well , in the background as, , the DJ had a break, and we had a saxophonist as he had a break as well.
And then on the dance floor, we had a couple worship songs, and then we ended with I Thank God. Our private last dance at the end of the night was to The Blessing. So we definitely had worship songs throughout the reception as well. We also left a personalized note for every single person at their seat that had the menu on it but also had their name at the [00:22:00] top so that menu replaced having any place cards with their name on it.
So it was just all in one. It was their name, their menu, and a personalized note to every single person where we prayed over them. We talked about what godly qualities we see in them, a word of encouragement to them, and it was so cool. I was at one of my friend's , houses. , She took our wedding cake home while we were on the honeymoon, and so I was picking it up from her house, and she had her menu on her fridge.
And she just said it meant so much to her that she wanted to even take the menu home and have that as a keepsake, and it really meant a lot to her , that it was personalized. And it was a lot of work. I will say that the menus took a lot of time to do, but it was so worth it to pray over every single guest coming.
, It was really fulfilling, and it just, it felt like something Christ would do and had everyone feel very valued and seen. So I hope that this gives y'all ideas too of what you can do 'cause it really meant a lot to our guests as well. Now what I will say is that we did have a lot of worship music playing, like I said before, but our first dance song was Can't Take My Eyes Off You, which was not a, a worship song.
It's not a [00:23:00] Christian song. It's not that it's inappropriate, but it's not a worship song, and we prayed on that. Number one, I wanted Shall Not Want by Maverick City to be our first dance song, but my husband said we could not have an eight-minute first dance song. Said we cannot have an eight-minute Maverick City song.
Um- But I really prayed on that. I was like, "Lord, most Christians do have a worship song for their first dance song, but we really feel called to do this other song. Is this really what you want?" And we were just praying, like, I don't even remember what I said specifically, but I think I was just like, "Lord, could you give us a sign that this is the song that you want us to choose, and that it's okay that we don't have a worship song for our first dance song?
'Cause we're really trying to honor you throughout our wedding as much as possible," and it just seems like this is kind of, what I would say, it's like low-hanging fruit because most Christians do that, and it just feels almost counter-cultural. You know what I mean? Like, it's counter what Christians would do because it's, most Christians do for their first song have a worship song.
So we really prayed on that. As I'm moving out of my apartment [00:24:00] into our new apartment, there was a maintenance guy that was fixing a light in the hallway, and blasting on his phone was Can't Take My Eyes Off of You, and he was just playing that song on his iPhone that was in his pocket. Y'all, my jaw dropped, I just felt in my spirit, " That's your sign.
It's okay to have this song." And I feel like people aren't just playing that song because it's kind of an oldie song and it's one that is really reserved for weddings. So people aren't just, like, normally playing that. It's not like it's played on the radio all the time. So I really took that as a sign from the Lord, , that it was okay that we had that song, and it was so fun to do our first dance.
We actually ended up doing it at our honeymoon. We connected with this other couple on the honeymoon, and he was like, "Oh, my gosh, in middle school, I won a singing competition for singing Can't Take My Eyes Off You." So him and his wife, they sang Can't Take My Eyes Off You at the all-inclusive resort for karaoke night, and my husband and I, we did our first dance on the dance floor.
The crowd was going crazy on the honeymoon. I'll have to post a clip about that. It was, it was amazing. So just so many divine appointments with that song, [00:25:00] and we had one dance lesson. I choreographed the dance, but we had one dance lesson to learn a couple lifts and moves and pass-throughs from a guy that we met in Nashville, and he works at the Nashville Palace, and he's a Christian.
He's r- recently moved to Nashville, and he wants to start a ministry where he teaches Christian couples how to do line dancing and country swing dancing. And so he came to my apartment complex, 'cause they have a whole yoga studio with mirrors and things, which made it easy to practice the dance there.
And so he came there to teach us these moves, and he's telling us about his ministry and just how grateful he was to pour into us as a couple, and it was just so cool to be able to support his ministry, was really awesome. Shout-out to KG, that is his name, for helping us with the dance, because it really made a big difference.
So many divine appointments there. I was also really intentional to pray over my bridesmaids. I didn't just pick any old people to be my bridesmaids or pick people out of obligation or based on me being friends with them for a long time or growing up with them. I know that's sometimes why people are selected [00:26:00] as bridesmaids, but I really had the Lord show me, "Lord, who do I need on this day?
Who is going to go to war for me and go to bat for me spiritually," knowing that there's gonna be so much warfare leading up to the day. On the day, who's gonna run and get me stuff that I need in the rain, which one of my bridesmaids did, and she got, had to get her hair all redone, ' cause she ran out in the rain to, go get us something that we forgot.
And so, I'm so happy that I prayed over those people, and I really wanted people that shared my faith in my bridal party. And so we kept it small, and, it was so worth it, and I'm really happy that I had all of those people praying. And they prayed over me before walking down the aisle.
The groomsmen prayed over the groom before walking down the aisle, and, it was just so great to have those people in our lives. Because the origin of bridesmaids, a lot of people think that you have bridesmaids to tend to the bride, and that is one role that they do, but the real purpose of the bridesmaids was to ward off evil spirits and to actually confuse the enemy, to have kinda all these beautiful women around the bride so it confuses the enemy [00:27:00] and to almost act as a barrier, a hedge of protection to the bride in the spiritual realm.
That is the original purpose of bridesmaids. So that's why I was really intentional about picking people that shared my faith that I knew would be going to bat for me spiritually. A couple other small things that we had. We had a custom painting by Kevin, Carden It looked like us in the painting, and we're on a boat with Jesus, and it's this, like, huge storm thing.
, I'll post a picture of it again. I posted it on my stories, but, I'll try and post it here, too, so that you can see it in the video. But we had that custom painting done, so that was when people were walking into the ceremony, they saw that picture of us with Jesus. We had a Bible guest book, so instead of a traditional guest book, people could highlight their favorite verse and write something in the margins as a prayer or blessing to us.
And also there was so much with my dress as well. I know that I've done other episodes talking about my dress experience, but dress shopping was probably the worst experience that I had with the whole wedding experience, just because it [00:28:00] was so early on and we didn't really have a budget yet, and in that season I wasn't feeling great in my body, and it was, there was just a lot going on at that time.
And , you shop for your wedding dress, it's one of the first things that you do. It's like you pick a date, you pick a venue, you pick a dress. It's those three things pretty early on. And so I definitely got confirmation from the Lord that this was the dress that He wanted me to have.
But then it was so cool because I didn't want to wear a strapless dress for the ceremony. I wanted some sort of overlay, but the lace ones weren't really working, so I had this chiffon overlay instead. And, the Lord told me, He's like, "You'll wear this for the ceremony, but you'll take it off for the reception, and this will serve as your breastplate of righteousness to guard your heart as you're being given away.
And then during the ceremony, your heart is given away, and you're given away to your husband, and now you're in union, one flesh, so you don't need that for the ceremony." , And the Lord really worked with me throughout my whole engagement season to be comfortable wearing a strapless dress and having my [00:29:00] arms out.
And, like, I never wear stuff that's strapless, and I love stuff with a puffy sleeve, as you can see. But I I'm never really, like, having my arms out normally. And so to wear a strapless dress on my wedding day where these photos are gonna be iconic in your family for a lifetime, and there's so many eyes on you, I was really nervous about that.
But the Lord really worked on me with my body image to feel confident on my wedding day, and I didn't have to be the smallest version of myself to feel confident in myself because my confidence isn't found in my body. It's found in the Lord, and the Lord says I'm worthy. He says I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.
And so I was okay and confident on my wedding day because I was rooted in Him. And it took me a while to get there, but I believe that He had me choose this dress that I wouldn't have chosen for myself. He had me choose this dress so that He could work on those deeper things. And I've been working on body image stuff and body insecurity for years.
Oh my gosh. I mean, like, who's not working on this stuff? But He wanted to work on these things on a deeper level in my engagement season. His glory was truly revealed on the wedding day when I was able to take that [00:30:00] overlay piece off, take the chiffon scarf off, and to be confident during the reception not wearing anything and wearing a strapless dress.
Not that it was revealing. It was, it was still modest, but, to not have anything on top was revealing His glory and how far He's taken me, and that was beautiful. And just the symbolism of the breastplate of righteousness and how during the ceremony my heart was given away, I was given away, so I didn't need that during the reception.
It was just wow. Wow, wow, wow. And the Lord even gave me a vision, too, when I was praying over the ceremony it was during worship at church one Sunday. He gave me this vision of Jesus he was walking down the aisle, and it was very much like Isaiah 6 where his robe just filled the temple.
And as he was walking down, it was like his robe just, every pew, filled the pew, and he was blessing every single person and covering them as he was walking down the aisle. And he said, "You're made in my image, and you're gonna be following me. you'll be walking down the aisle next, and you're wearing white, and you have a train, and you're made in my image."
And that just took [00:31:00] away all body insecurity that I had, knowing that it's not about how I look. It's about modeling Christ. And the fact that we're made in His image . it just gave me a deeper revelation of that, and that really helped fight against body insecurity and made me feel really confident in my dress.
So, I'm gonna talk about, just to kind of wrap up here, some divine appointments that we had. Once we were done with the ceremony, we walked around the little chapel. And a lot of you know, but a lot of you may not know that one of my signs from the Lord is bluebirds, and that His nickname for me is Bluebird.
I'm His little bluebird, and that's what He calls me. And I would encourage you, if you don't have a nickname yet from the Lord, ask Him, like, "Lord, what do you call me? What is your nickname for me?" And see what He says, if anything. And a couple of my friends have done that, and they have just gotten so many sweet nicknames from the Lord.
Like my friend Mary, the Lord calls her Sunshine, and it's just so sweet. And so we saw a bluebird right after the ceremony fly in front of us, and I hadn't seen any at the venue that morning. So , that was really special. At the end of the night, our DJ came down from the [00:32:00] loft where the DJ booth was after our final last dance, and he was crying.
And just said that the wedding , really spoke to him, and he's a, believer, and , that really meant a lot to us. The catering staff said things as well. , There were things where we had family members that weren't talking leading up to the wedding that reconciled the weekend of the wedding.
Manny had family members that hadn't seen or spoken to each other in 12 years ... And they ended up staying at our hotel block in the main hotel And they were hanging out in the lobby, chatting it up, getting breakfast together, touring Nashville the weekend together, 'cause we got married on a Friday, and we really wanted people to have a fun weekend in Nashville after the wedding and, and make a whole weekend out of it.
And there was just so much reconciliation in both of our families, and we're like, wow, if we had eloped, which would have been way less expensive and way less stressful, we would have missed out on so many of these divine appointments and what the Lord wanted to do. And it just goes to show how this stuff isn't about us, but it's about what God wants to do and how he wants to use it.
And there has just been an [00:33:00] outpouring of response on social media, and people have really responded well to how many elements of Christ we were able to loop into our wedding and how we demonstrated our faith at the wedding. And I just pray that this gives you all so many other ideas. So if you have questions about the wedding, things you want me to answer, I do wanna maybe do an Instagram Live or maybe a bonus podcast episode about other things on how to plan a wedding.
, Or if you have other questions just about details, things that you wanna know, send me a message on Instagram, comment below. , If you're watching on Spotify or YouTube, I would love to answer those questions and support you all the best that I can. I feel like I could have used more support in planning during it, talking to Christians that have gone through it, that truly have had a Christian wedding.
So I am here to support you, and I appreciate you listening. I appreciate you caring. And if you are in that engaged season or if you hope to be married one day and you don't want to feel that pressure to be sweating for the wedding and being the smallest version of yourself on your wedding day and you want to find your [00:34:00] identity and root in your identity and your worth in Christ, then I encourage you to head to the show notes and book a free 20-minute call with me so that you can set up a consultation, and we can see if working together would be the best fit.
I would love to support you. I work with so many clients that are currently engaged or are in really serious relationships and know that they're getting married soon and already working on healing their relationship with food and their body image, renewing their mind, helping them root in Christ has made all of the difference.
So I would love to support you, too. And I will see y'all next week.
thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Your Daily Bread Podcast. Now, if anything about this episode resonated with you, I wanna encourage you to send it to three sisters in Christ who may also wanna steward their bodies better.
I read every comment, every review of the show, and I love hearing your testimonies and how the Holy Spirit is meeting you through these episodes. And if you haven't left a review yet, I wanna encourage you to do so 'cause it truly does help the show grow and it. Ultimately benefits the kingdom. And if you need any personalized support with [00:35:00] your nutrition and your relationship with food or your body image, head to the show notes and you'll see all the different ways to work with me.
See you next week.
