Blanton Wedding
7/14/2021
July 14, 2021, a rainy start to the day. Family, friends, even our hired photographers and videographers are setting up the wedding ceremony and reception site. Everyone is working their fingers to the bone, setting up, decorating, fixing food and getting ready themselves. While I sat in the second story of the gorgeous cabin on the property, watching from overhead while being made beautiful, wishing so badly that I could be down there helping. We chose to do it all “ourselves”, the setup, the decorating, the food, etc. and everyone worked themselves to exhaustion. The rain kept on through most of the morning and I just knew we were going to be using our “backup plan”.
Thirty minutes before the ceremony was supposed to begin, guests began to arrive, and Adam hadn’t even showered yet. People were yelling at him to go get ready, and he scrambled. The rain slacked off and it became cloudy. I had a little glimmer of hope that it would hold out just long enough for the ceremony, and luckily the reception was under tents. The chaos that ensued was palpable. Then, it was time.
My mother helped me finish getting perfected, and my father came to help me down the stairs and collect me for walking this long awaited walk. I step up to the opened French doors, where two steps down was the start of the aisle that had my soon-to-be husband waiting for me at the end, crying and grinning from ear to ear. As I step down those two steps to join my father for our walk, I look up and see the skies open up and the sun beam down from the heavens straight down on Adam and the pastor. I could not stop smiling.
The wedding went off without a hitch. Everyone’s hard work paid off, and the heavens gifted us with perfect weather for our ceremony, and it lasted through the reception.
Adam had stayed up all night before the wedding, smoking pork shoulders for pulled pork. The day of the wedding, he and a friend grilled chicken and lamb chops. Mom and the girls cut all the fruits and vegetables for the charcuterie board. The food was perfect. Everything turned out so mouthwateringly delicious and all guests left with their tummies full. Our wedding cake and cupcakes were a stunning piece of art, and were just as delicious. During the reception, a good friend of the owner’s made an amazing appearance, landing his ski plane into the lake behind us for some fantastic fellowship and photos. Everyone had a blast!
The send-off was one for the books! Adam loaded me and my huge dress into our UTV, Mom and Dad, my brother and his girlfriend, and my two cousins each took an ATV, and we all took off down the trails back to our house a couple miles down the road from the wedding venue!
Our Wedding Day
It was simply beautiful.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to read how the send-off went,
and how we almost had to make an Emergency Room trip!
The rest of the story…
Unfortunately, the rain that had held off during the whole ceremony and reception, reared its ugly head right as we started down the trail for the send-off. We made it about halfway down the trail and onto the road, when we had an accident. The whole convoy came to a sudden stop and my two cousins couldn’t stop fast enough! The older cousin who was driving, veered off toward the drop-off ditch. She bailed from the ATV and her younger sister held on to the back rack and flew into the ditch. The ditch was about 7 feet deep and went straight into the wooded area. As the four wheeler went down, she hung on for dear life, and hit a tree with the ATV pointed almost straight down in the ditch! We were all scared to death.
Adam parked the side by side in the middle of the road and ran to help the girls, while I stood in my huge dress in the middle of the road trying to figure out how to help. We got both the girls up and accessed the situation. We decided that we were going to load my older cousin into the side by side and I would drive her to our house to start getting cleaned up and see how bad her injuries were and if we needed to take her to the emergency room. And bless her heart, all she was worried about was getting blood on my bouquet of flowers, because her cut up elbow was sitting right near/on them. I didn’t care one bit, I was just worried for her safety and making sure she was okay.
The rest of the family that was along for the send-off decided to leave the ATV in the ditch and bring my younger cousin back to our house to access her as well. Adam was formerly trained as an EMT and instantly got to work on my older cousins injuries. With hot washcloths and antibacterial soap, he slowly and gently cleaned her wounds to see if she needed stitches. Luckily, she did not. She did end up with road rash all up and down her leg, side, stomach, and arm, and ripped her dress apart. While the younger cousin was traumatized but had no physical injuries but bruising.
Adam and one of our friends went back later on and got the ATV out of the ditch with a tow strap attached to the back of the frame, and Adam on it, standing on the front fenders and hanging onto the back rack. It was quite the adventure to watch! The four wheeler surprisingly still ran fine after the accident. The whole situation was definitely one that we will never forget! We were just so grateful that both the girls walked away from a terrible accident, and be able to laugh about it later on.
Talk about a hell of a send-off for a newlywed couple and the family!