Mrs. Beaver:

Before we post more photos from the wedding yesterday, I want to share some pictures from an outing the bride, some of her friends, some of her sisters, her grandma and her Aunt Jean had on Wednesday.

We dressed Tessa up in her gown and tiara, and went downtown looking for photo opportunities. We had so much fun! We laughed and laughed, as we did our best to to protect Tessa's gown in the wind. I have no doubt an outing like this will become a family tradition as each of our nine daughters marries.

Obviously, we couldn't post these photos until the groom got the chance to see his bride at the end of the aisle yesterday, but we're ready to share now!

The event started with a make-up session. the make-up artist was Tessa's friend, Elizabeth, who would be one of the bridesmaids a few days later.

Then we discovered how large Tessa's dress really was...

she had to sit sideways in our 15-passenger van.

We parked behind the church where Tessa and Aaron would wed. At first we were protected from the wind, and it only took a couple of the girls to manage her long train as we made our way to the front of the building. Later as we faced into the wind, it would take the whole group of girls.

There we took advantage of the building's beautiful architecture. The structure dates back to 1907.

Next we crossed the street to take advantage of some of our small city's other landmarks. We had to first learn how to manage the gown in the "breeze."

We were certain that we were quite a spectacle as we did all this during the late afternoon rush hour. (Okay, okay...our city doesn't actually have a real rush hour, just a slight increase in traffic.)

After crossing the street, we walked about a block.

Our destination was a building that has been very special to Tessa. For the past three years, she has played the violin in our city's orchestra.

The theater the orchestra plays in was built in the early 1900's but then essentially gutted and forsaken about 70 years later. About ten years ago, the Orpheum was lovingly restored to its original grandeur.

Tessa considered it a deep honor to play in the symphony and a thrill to get to do something she loved so much in such a beautiful setting.

We then got a photo of Tessa with the clock tower on the town hall in the background.

About this time Tessa started to get a bit silly. I began to get a bit punchy as the photographer. I didn't notice that in this picture and a few others that are similar, it looks as though Tessa has four arms!

We also began to worry about Tessa's gown getting dirty. We quickly captured a couple of photos of her across the street from the church where she was to be married, and headed home.

In His word, God tells us that laughter is good medicine. That afternoon all of us who made this trek downtown had a healthy dose of the world's most delightful health-inducing tonic. God is so good.