Merry Christmas!

I like to pause every year at this time wish all my readers the best holiday season and New Year. This has been a year of incredible highs and lows for Gina and myself. We're both looking forward to spending 2012 as our first full year together as husband and wife!

Hopefully you and your families have a wonderful holiday... and I promise I'll get back to posting aviation-related content on here just as soon as I can. Merry Christmas!

The Wedding

Our wedding day truly turned out to be as perfect and problem-free as one could imagine. Even though we spent 18 months planning and scrutinizing nearly every last detail, I still expected some little thing to go wrong. Both Gina and I were delighted that, at the end of the very long day, we could look back on it and say it all went off without a hitch.


She was up early - all the girls left in the limo to be at the salon by 9:00 to get their hair done. It was much easier on my side as you might expect. My groomsmen and I got picked up by the limo around noon from the hotel. We were at the church around 12:30 and had about an hour to kill before we started to get dressed. I enjoyed having some down time and can honestly say I really was not feeling nervous in any way all morning.

We exchanged gifts (Gina got me 2.5 hours in the Stearman!) via our siblings and then it was time we all were waiting for. Myself, my best man - and best friend - Rob, and our pastor - who has been Gina's neighbor since she was born - Judy all walked back to our perch in a room behind the altar about 2:45.It wasn't long before the music started at 3:00 and our grandparents and parents were walking down the aisle. Then the chimes rang out and the three of us emerged from behind the altar as Canon in D started to play from the amazing 3,700 pipe organ and our wedding party came down the aisle.

Then came the moment every groom plays over in his head a thousand times before the big day - especially if you have never seen the dress. The doors opened and Gina, my bride, looking more beautiful than words could ever describe, began her walk down the aisle with her dad. I'm not ashamed to admit my eyes welled up a little bit when I first saw her. Besides, there is photo and video evidence!

I feel like our ceremony flowed perfectly. Gina and I spent many hours over the summer writing and editing nearly everything that was said in the church. The blessings, the readings, our vows. Everything was special to us and I'm confident in saying it was 100% our own. After the first kiss and first walk down the aisle as the new Mr. and Mrs. we exited in quite the grand fashion if I do say so myself.

We took some great photos in downtown Detroit and eventually made our way to Henry Ford Museum for the reception. Again, words fail to describe how awesome it looked in there. The floral arrangements were spectacular, the food came out amazing, and it was just an all-around perfect night with family and friends. We surprised everyone with our first dance to You and Me by Dave Matthews and continued to have a great time on the dance floor as the night went on.

Those of you who are married understand that it always goes by too fast. Our wedding day was no exception, though I think we did a fairly good job taking a breath here and there to try and take everything in. We have received so many comments from our guests about what a great time they had; it has been so nice to hear that and know everyone had as good a time as we did. You have probably noticed that airplanes tied everything together so I have including photos of all those details in this post. Thanks again to all of you who have sent your well-wishes and congratulations as well... we appreciate it! :)