Friday, February 13, 2009

f-Stop Friday Special for Valentine's Day
New Families:

Just in case you didn’t know…

St. Valentine was a priest who lived and served the church during the two-year reign of Claudius II (268-270 AD). Emperor Claudius was of the opinion that single men made better soldiers, so he outlawed marriage. Is it any wonder that he was only emperor for 2 years?

Father Valentine, who had more respect for God’s Laws than for Claudius’, got caught performing marriages in secret and was imprisoned for his “crime.” And sentenced to death. While in jail, it is said he fell in love with the jailor’s daughter. He wrote to her faithfully and signed his letters, “From Your Valentine.”



Above picture is the family of our friends, Jim and Kelli. We were privileged to attend their wedding (the second marriage for both) back in December. It was a beautiful wedding and I had the great fun of being able to videotape it for them.

My daughter, Emily was a bridesmaid in a wedding last December. It was one of the nicest weddings I have ever seen.

The bridesmaids all wore the same color (Regency Purple), but the bride was gracious enough to let each one choose her own style. They all looked absolutely lovely! (Especially Emily… well, duh!)

Sarah chose five of her friends to be bridesmaids and Randy had three groomsmen: his dad served as Best Man, his brother and Sarah’s brother were the other Groomsmen. Here is the wedding party:



A note of explanation: Yes, Randy is shorter than his bride because his leg growth is stunted by brittle bone disease and he spends most of his time in a wheel chair. He was, however, able to achieve his goal of walking to the altar. The facts of this condition are irrelevant to Sarah. When the Pastor said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” Sarah actually jumped up and down for joy! It was an awesome thing to see.

The night before the wedding, Emily stopped my heart when she came to me and said, “Will you be able to help me with my hair tomorrow?” Now, folks; I own one comb and a blow dryer, so you know hair styling is NOT one of my God-given talents. I made an emergency call to my friend Joani, who graciously carved out an hour or so to fix Em’s hair. Don’t you think she looks beautiful?



Here she is with Randy and his First Wife:



Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you and your Valentines!!!

7 comments:

Jamie Dawn said...

She does look beautiful, and she really resembles you.
Two lovely ladies.
Her hair turned out really lovely.
I love the fact that the bride allowed each bridesmaid to choose their own dress design, and I love the color purple! It's my favorite.
Keith's dad was his best man, so I think it's great that this groom had his dad as best man. To me, that is a testament of a loving father/son relationship, rooted in respect.

Happy Valentine's Day to you!!!
Father Valentine knew that love could not be stopped!

:-)

Sue said...

Emily you are beautiful. It is rare to see you with something in your hand besides a book.

I came across Mom's baby picture last week when I was sorting. You do resemble that picture. So we know you are always going to be lovely.

Anonymous said...

Pretty cool Janell!

Cliff said...

AH, such a nice post. Lovely indeed. Hey, I was at that wedding too. The first one.

Scarlet said...

If you lived closer, I'd ask you to help me with my hair this evening...for Valentine's Day dinner, of course. (You did a beautiful jbo on Emily's!)

Btw, I'm so glad you shared the Valentine's day story. My kids were asking me about it on the ride to school and I told them we'd Google it (and never got around to it). I'll tell them the story of Father Valentine on the road trip to Orlando this afternoon.

Happy Valentine's Day, girl friend!

Mary Connealy said...

Emily looks absolutely beautiful, Janell. Thanks so much for letting us see.

Marla said...

Very nice pictures, and your Emily looks very pretty.