This post is a continuation of my Wedding Day Countdown – 10 things I want you to know before your wedding day.  ( Original Post – http://wp.me/p2Uy1y-wv )

The big day is finally here.

How do I properly sum up all the emotions I’m feeling today?  I’m not sure that there are words that could cover it all.  From the moment we brought you home from the hospital, you were so laid back.  We placed you in your crib at 10/11 pm and you woke at 6 am. Even then you were making things easy for us.  You’ve had a natural way of doing that ever since.  You played contently wherever we placed you.  You comforted others. You were the peace maker.  Those eyes!  Those eyes of yours were always your tell tale emotion indicator – the way to your soul.  Those eyes taught me to see life and people differently.

Today we watch a lifetime of loving you and protecting you transfer from our hands to your future husband’s. Despite this gripping of my heart, I am ready.  Have we said everything we should have?  Have we given you all that you need?  Perhaps not everything – but parents aren’t experts at marriage. They can only offer advice on what they’ve experienced. We’ve made our own mistakes. Don’t let those mistakes of ours define your marriage. Take what has been good and leave what was not.

I know we didn’t start our marriage this way, but if we could give you one piece of advice that we wish we could re-do it would be to always pray for one another.  The strength, patience, and wisdom needed for this journey is so much easier when God is at the center of it. Remember to always fight for your marriage not against each other.

Trust!  Trust is so critical in your relationship. Your partner is opening their soul and letting you see the absolute raw part, the most real part, of who they are – honor that trust. Don’t bring those confidences up in arguments – it hurts to the core. If your partner trusted you with something very private and important, then you shouldn’t undermine that trust by reporting it to someone else.  You are one another’s greatest confidant.

Well, rain or shine we are off.  Nothing today, nothing at all will dampen this holy Sacrament that God will anoint. With your families by your side, today and forever, we will witness your love for one another coming together in the church where it all began; with families that have watched you grow.  The boy and girl next door, who have waited a very long time, will finally become man and wife.  Today we are blessed with a full heart in our empty nest.  Always and all ways our love for you will be.

Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story no one on earth has ever read, which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before. ~ C.S. Lewis