Wedding Favorites - Our church

photo credit - Lisa Woods of Now and Then Photography

Chris and I love to drive around in his CJ-7 Jeep on the weekends. My favorite thing about the Austin area is that you can drive just a few minutes in any direction and find beautiful architecture and scenery. Southeast of Round Rock is no exception. Country roads twist and turn, and we'll just decide on whim which way to go. He gets his kicks driving his jeep (not his daily driver, but his most prized possession...he and his Dad rebuilt and restored it, and it just became a "classic" this year), and I get my kicks with photo opportunities. We did this one weekend several years ago and were trucking along to a view of farm land, trees, and cows....then all of a sudden, the loveliest countryside church popped into view!

photo credit - Lisa Woods of Now and Then Photography

We pulled up...and I got some great photos. In fact, my favorite pictures that I have ever taken...it was the perfect time of day and year for some amazing shadows:

sorry for the low-resolution, the originals are on a disk somewhere and these are my Kodak Gallery thumbnails.
I have these three all framed in my house, and this drive on this day in 2003, this little photo session made me find out something about myself - that I had a passion for photography, particularly scenery and architecture. Of that, I'm very thankful...it is wonderful to have something that I enjoy so much. Now, it is nothing I take too seriously...I don't have a fancy camera (although I do covet one!), but just something I enjoy doing.

photo credit - Lisa Woods of Now and Then Photography

So, after we got engaged and decided to get married here and not Alabama or Florida, we knew we had to do it at this church. It is New Sweden Lutheran Church - the "Church of the Countryside." It is beautiful, quaint and we just loved it. So much so that I do feel it was worth the trouble of painstakingly creating maps and having transportation for our guests from the hotel an hour and half in advance. And, from the feedback I got, most guests agreed. It was so wonderful sharing this beautiful place with our loved ones.

photo credit - Lisa Woods of Now and Then Photography

An even better part - my childhood preacher from First Presbyterian in Dothan performed our ceremony. I was the first baby he baptized at our church in Dothan, and he left when I was around 10 years old for Nashville. I was very close to him, and when he left in 1988 or so, I made him promise that he would perform my wedding one day. 20 years later, he did! It meant so much to have him and his wife there and I loved that he was able to meet Chris. I really should have given him his own "Wedding Favorites" post, but after seeing a peek of his head in that last picture, I decided to go ahead and mention it!