An Eternal Favor

Lately I feel like everyone is getting engaged, getting married, having a baby, or celebrating an anniversary! Makes me happy! I LOVE LOVE! In light of all the LOVE in the air, I decided that I wanted to share what Nathan and I gave as FAVORS at our wedding three years ago this summer.

Hard to believe that three years have gone by. Just like that. I never dreamed we'd have two BOYS or be a suburbian family this quickly. But here we are! Living and loving! Ok.... so back to our wedding favors!

We went round and round with ideas.

Candy?

Candles?

CDs?

Bottle toppers?

Coffee mugs?

Nothing was really jumping out at us. Our relationship and engagement was anything but ordinary (for those of you who walked with us - you understand!), so we wanted people to walk away with something that matched who we are as a couple. I think it was Nathan's idea: “Let's pray for people!” … as the CEO of our DIY wedding I was a little flustered with this idea. How would we “give” this to people? The more we thought about it, the more excited we became with the idea. This was the PERFECT favor for us to give to our guests – a perfect reflection of what originally drew us together in the first place... JESUS :-)

So we broke it down. 5 friends/families were assigned to a given week leading up to our wedding day. It worked out on a 6 month plan. We each carried a list of who we were praying for THAT WEEK and offered prayers, sacrifices, masses, etc. for their intentions. It was BEAUTIFUL for us to spend our engagement (8 months) PRAYING for all the friends and families that would be invited to witness the glory of the Sacrament we were about to share.

At the end of the week, usually Sunday night, we would get together and write out little note cards to the assigned friends/families to let them know how we prayed for them and any other thoughts that came to heart... and we were sure to mark the dates that we prayed on the card too!

At our reception, we took a moment to explain to everyone what “favors” they would be taking home. “We decided to give an ETERNAL FAVOR to all of you today...” We had at least a dozen people come up to us during the reception and afterwards after receiving their notecard and express how the timing of the prayers and intentions were perfect. God is PERFECT, huh?!?

“Every good and PERFECT gift is from above,
coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,
who does not change like shifting shadows.”
- James 1:17