Planning & The Big One

Our engagement was official and we were proceeding with our plans.  Sharon was really excited to start planning our wedding.   Bridal magazines were in no short supply in our apartment as she searched for ideas.  She loved all of those shows that would show different weddings at different places.  She would also consult with her brother Jeff for ideas as he had experience with his clients and what they have done or seen.  We both agreed that we wanted a garden wedding.  Some of the other things were pretty much easily decided.  We were going to pay for the wedding ourselves and so we had an idea of what our limit was.  Sharon had decided to have her friend Jaime as her matron of honor and her cousin Loke as her bridesmaid.  She wanted it be about family so her young nieces and nephews would be part of the wedding party.  We began looking at different venues and seeing what they had to offer.  We were unsure what area to have it in due to the logistics of where everyone lived.  We decided that we would focus on finding the right place.  Some weekends and week nights were spent looking at different halls, hotels, etc. and sampling menus.  We finally found a place that mostly did weddings and parties.  It had an outdoor garden where the ceremony could be held and they had two ballrooms.  So we chose the Calabasas Inn to be the site of our new beginning.  We reserved it and began going through our list.  Sharon started a binder organizing everything we would have to do and she kept all of the brochures, receipts, etc.   She was pretty organized and methodical in the way she went about going through the list of things that we had to do.  We  selected our invitations and had already sent the design away to the printers.

Everything was going well but life has a funny way of sending you a curve. It was early in the morning, I was awakened by a rumbling sound.  The next thing I knew there was a violent shaking and Sharon was screaming that it was an earthquake.  Although it was stronger than any earthquake I had ever felt.   We were being tossed around and things were falling all around us.  I covered  Sharon and we just hung on to each other.  After what seemed like an eternity, the shaking stopped.  We got up and checked on my brother Gene, who was hiding under his desk.  We surveyed the damage around our apartment.  Afterwards, we found out how big of an earthquake it was and the damage it made.  We got ready and went to check on her brothers' families.   Everyone was ok and one of our niece's slept through the entire quake.   It was strange in the midst of what happened there was something about how we went through it together.  It affected me in a different way.  I was thinking about how if something had happened and I were to face God and there we were living together.  It really lingered on my mind.