Getting to the Wedding

The last 8 weeks have been an absolute whirlwind, hence not getting to the blog at all. There was the first meeting of the parents in Minnesota, time at UT-Austin helping to run their LeaderShape session, a 13 hour overnight road trip to Nashville for the bachelor party, a trip to Virginia for Bree and Shea's wedding, the return to Doha after my contract was extended, wedding planning, flying back to the US for Kevin and Katie's wedding in Michigan, the 4th of July weekend, and finally actually getting married on July 9th!!! I could write at length about each of these events individually but instead I am going to focus specifically on the wedding.

It will sound cliche, but our wedding day was perfect in every way. It was perfect weather, it was perfect in its imperfections (read: Evan not watching part of Kristal's walk down the aisle), but most
of all it was perfectly us. There was a boat entry to the processional, the ceremony was officiated by close friends, there were lawn games at the reception, the band rocked until almost 1am, the list goes on. To me, the best wedding is one that reflects the couple it is celebrating and in many ways, I feel like that is what we had. I won't go into a string of advice for wedding planners or my lessons learned. I simply want to offer a few things that have been on my mind in the week or so since the wedding.

The dominant feeling this last week has been thankfulness. We are so fortunate to have been able to celebrate with so many family and friends from near and far. It was such an honor to see so many individuals travel to join us in Crosslake and equally as meaningful to receive all the well wishes from people who could not attend. We had so much help in making the wedding happen, and it made it a stress free weekend for Kristal and me. I won't name everyone who was involved but our I Do Crew, Kristal's attendants, our officiants, parents and siblings, Aunt Debbie, Aunt Dawn, Pat & Josie, the Christensen family, the Witts, and so many others went above and beyond in helping create such an amazing weekend. Thank you does not begin to do it all justice.

In the week after the wedding we find ourselves trying to re-live every moment through stories, pictures, and videos. We have started to share some previews from the incredibly talented team we got to work with. Photos can be found at http://hanasouther.zenfolio.com/p473607168 (code: crosslake). A preview of our wedding video can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc0Z94WS6y8. We cannot wait to see our final products but this will have to hold us over for now!

On Saturday, Kristal and I made it back to Doha as Mr. and Mrs we literally wore matching t-shirts). Just because the wedding is behind us, doesn't mean there aren't some big things on the horizon. Next week we will be heading on our honeymoon (secret location for Kristal) before coming back to Doha to prepare for the upcoming semester. The plan for the Fall as of now is to wrap up our current jobs and move to New Zealand for about two months to work with the International Volunteer Headquarters (https://www.volunteerhq.org/). As our time in Doha comes to a close I will be shutting down this blog which has served me well for nearly four years! Stay tuned for the honeymoon, life updates, and closing thoughts on my time in Qatar. Thanks for reading!