Be happy and remember your mom on your wedding day

I got married a few months ago, and as a 24 year old girl without a mother and 5 months to plan, it was quite the challenge. When your mother passes away when you are 16 years old, one of the first things you think about after the reality sets in is those "big moments" in your life that you'll have to walk through without her by your side. I've walked through a few of those already...

High School graduation, when I cried after seeing my family in the audience and knowing she should have been there with them...

Bid Day, when the excitement of pledging my favorite sorority couldn't be shared with anyone quite like I could have shared it with my mom...

College Graduation, that I flat out skipped because I'd already gone through a graduation without her and it just wasn't worth the fuss...

Getting your dream job, which for me happens to be at the American Cancer Society because my mom lost her battle to cancer...

All these memories are really big moments in any girl's life. But none of these big moments can quite compare with the moment you cry and say "yes!" to marrying your best friend...and the ache you feel when your mother isn't there to share in it.

The night JT and I got engaged was perfect. I was surprised, as were all my friends, and I felt so loved by the most important people in my life. As soon as we got in the car to leave the proposal scene and meet our families, I started making a list of all the people we needed to tell...all the people I loved and wanted to share the news with immediately. After a very long night of telling and re-telling our engagement story and talking of wedding plans, I crawled into my bed and cried myself to sleep. Because the one person I wanted to talk to the most, the one person I needed to tell all the details of my incredible engagement, was not there. I was going to marry my very best friend...and my mother had never even met him.

Skip ahead 5 months to my wedding day, and herein lies the purpose of this post. I didn't want to cry myself to sleep the night before my wedding because she wasn't there. I didn't want to have my sister zip up my dress or my bridesmaids put on my veil and get upset because my mom wasn't the one helping me. I wanted to remember her during this big moment but not dwell on her absense.

I'd searched the internet my whole life for creative ways to remember loved ones on your wedding day. But nothing seemed to fit the bill. Simply lighting a candle or dedicating some flowers wasn't enough for me. She was my MOM, and just like every other girl, I needed her to be a huge part of my wedding, even if she couldn't be there. So these are the subtle (or not so subtle) ways I honored and remembered my mother during another one of life's "big moments"...

1. I took her wedding dress, which fit me perfectly, and had it remade into a fabulous dress for my bridal portraits and rehearsal dinner.
2. I used the leftover lace from her wedding dress on my wedding veil
3. I wore the diamond cross necklace that my mother gave me on my 16th birthday, made of her diamond earrings. My sister has an identical necklace that she wore also.
4. One of my best friends, Mitchell, gave me a locket with a picture of my mother and I inside, which I incorporated into my bouquet
5. While the families were being seated and all our grandmothers and parents were being escorted in, the song playing was dedicated to my mom. "Angel Eyes" by Jim Brickman which I used to play on the piano for her all the time.
6. My sister (also my maid of honor) walked down the aisle carrying two bouquets, one was hers and one was for my mother, which she placed on the empty seat in the front pew to reserve her place.
7. And much to my surprise, my dad came up with his own ways of remembering my mother and incorporating her into the day...

*On the night of our rehearsal dinner, he pulled out my mother's garter which he'd been saving all these years, and I was able to wear it as I walked down the aisle.

*During the ceremony, as the minister asked who gave this woman to be married, my father proudly asserted, "In memory of her mother, I do."

*And lastly, after my father refused to voice an opinion on what song we should dance to at the reception, I was shocked to hear an unfamiliar song as I walked on the dance floor with him. He then told me it was his final surprise...we were dancing to the song he danced his first dance to with my mother on their wedding day

I write this post partially for me, so that I will always remember the ways in which my mother was part of my wedding day. But I also write this post knowing that I am not the first, nor will I be the last, girl to get married without her mother by her side. There are so many daughters and sons who get married without their mothers or fathers or sometimes without any parents at all. And if you are one of those people, when the next "big moment" comes in your life, I hope you'll find a creative and unique way to remember the people you love so much that aren't with you anymore. But more importantly, I hope you'll find yourself happy, knowing that you wouldn't be where you are today or who you are today without their influence in your life.