Our transitional Amish Wedding

okay we had an all-day wedding so it was from morning till evening hey everyone welcome back jealous and I decided to take a quick date night like a 14 date night go to the drive-through and get something to eat and then we'll share about our wedding and our transition coming out of the Amish sounds good but I can't share anything until I had some food in my stomach [Music] [Music] there just be one minute can I have a double quarter-pounder with cheese just a sandwich okay that'll be it Thanks I'm telling you the price of McDonald's ain't what it used to be somewhere nine bucks apiece and there's no tact Montana's no sales tax well after sitting in the drive-thru for about 30 minutes or longer probably realized they don't take credit cards so I don't yeah yeah it was a long life yeah a long line so the only other recourse we had was the double quarter-pounder with cheese there we go [Music] well our stomachs are full of junk food but it was good yep so we sat in that in a drive-through wine because all the restaurants obviously are closed because of the quarantine so we sat I didn't drive through for like 30 minutes because there was a long line of cars at this restaurant we wanted then we got up there was a little sticky no it said sorry our credit card machine is down cash only so we had no cash with us so we had to leave and then we decided rather than just a wait wait wait we'll go to McDonald's so we had McDonald's yeah but today we're just going to talk with you a little bit about maybe six months before we were married some of the transitions we went through and wedding a wedding yep and so where do we start there's so much to tell we'll just kind of share our lives a little at a time I guess as you know we grew up you know driving horse and buggy and whenever we wanted to go someplace we would hire a driver that would come to our place pick us up and take us to town or wherever it that might have been and we started driving um we're married in June and the February before our marriage so a few months before we started driving cars which was really nice for us because we went out on honeymoon then at that point with with the car that I had bought which was just going from you know I was 24 when we got married and first of all you were 21 right yeah and having you know not been able to drive all our life it wasn't really a change yeah it was really special to be able to drive but I want to also say that when we decided to drive I actually did not I didn't want to do that I mean you might want not understand that but growing up I did I didn't like change a lot under still not a big person for change but I realize there's a lot of things in life that just changed then we have to change but that was just it just felt like one that when we start if we start driving things will change so rapidly that we won't be able to contain just the the family and a lot of things you were maybe important things with yeah and and I want to say that I it's definitely changed the dynamics of it I mean it really has in one way I feel like it's made us a lot busier than when we we just didn't go any put anywhere we would read books in the evening and we didn't have phones or you know anything like that so it was definitely a slower lifestyle than it is right now but it wasn't just like it wasn't like just him and I decided to thrive it was the whole community actually came into agreement right well I'm gonna start way back I think so well we moved to Libby my dad had a vision to go to it start an Amish community where there would be a place where he could freely worship you know God in the way that he felt like the Bible thought it might you know say and it wasn't where that was just you know a preacher and a bishop and they would just do the thing and everybody else was kind of like you know like sheep without a voice type of thing yeah yeah so that's why you moved to Libby and then it just started transition it was a lot of years a number of years and we had a phone in her house and then things just progressed a little bit at a time I'd say there was never a quick change of like now we're Amish and then we're gonna leave the Amish which I believe was very important for us because just a slow transition helped us how would you say it like I just throw everything to the wind yeah not just we just kind of we we went slowly enough that we kind of knew what was important and what was not right you know from our perspective at least right yeah yeah and and when typically when the Amish when you leave the Amish and you let's say you start driving cars that the Amish will actually excommunicate you it goes through a shunning and like they will no longer you can't eat with them at their table they won't they will basically treat you as someone that's heathen or somebody that doesn't know the Lord but because our change was so gradual they never did that to us us so we never as a community were never a shunned we're never a band they were excommunicated not shunned some I would say but never excommunicated so that was an official excommunication but a lot of the Amish still treated us right they would still they would but there was never because there was no official verdict given there is a lot of leeway and so that has given us that hasn't severed all our ties with with our relatives which is a good thing yeah but for my family though years ago when my dad and mom came out of some of the Amish traditions and we were excommunicated from a lot of our family like cousins and relatives so as I mentioned the Amish didn't actually officially abandoned a lot of leeway we actually had our wedding day we had you know a fair bit of relatives from backis come to our wedding some of my cousins and Brazil most family was a lot more conservative so like she had no relatives had no Amish relatives coming no but I had a number of them come to our wedding and we did Priscilla and I kind of it seems like in our life we have been pioneers in a lot of areas and one of those things we've just noticed in just not that we were trying to be pioneers it's just kind of like it seems we are a little bit sometimes and one of those things was we we did some things different in our wedding they had been a wedding for a lot of years yeah Oh was that all there was okay a number of years and during that time there was some transition and so Priscilla you can say some of the things that we did it on a wedding day that was different than than traditional so one thing that we did different was I wore a white dress and I of course made it myself it probably didn't cost more than the material price didn't cost more than 50 50 40 or 50 dollars at the most yeah so and I made it myself and it still looks somewhat you know Amish or Mennonite but I I really I dreamed of wearing a white dress and and my dad said that I could do that and so that was a big deal to me now Amish girls will usually just they will just wear their best dress or they will make a new dress but it will be usually just you know a color maybe that they like but it you know it can't be that you're white no can't be why it can't be red can't be anything like that it's like blue greens Browns and you know just that's the color shades of different shades lavender maybe so I got to wear a white dress and I also wore a homemade veil that I made and just kind of availing you know that I tied in the back and instead of an Amish cap so that is what I changed the other thing that we did not have the Liberty to do was to take photos at our wedding and that was still kind of a no-no at that time we we did actually get an on Amish person yes take pictures yes we did get so we have we have quite a few pictures but you know professional pictures of any kind one thing that we did that was very unusual was we played some music when we walked out of the church right that was oh yeah that was a no-no Zanon Amish like well let's let's tell them a little bit about how our service was so everybody showed up at 10 o'clock the service started right or 9th what was that remember what time it was I'm not sure but somewhere around between nine and ten o'clock it was it was like a two-hour service for sure at least in like a two hour service lots of songs we thanks some German songs yep and then we also did some English songs which usually they wouldn't do that in Amish weddings I think my brother was a minister spoke for some time and then your dad which was also a minister married us mm-hmm and then yeah and also I we did not do much decorating we I I think I didn't do any decorating up on the pond where we got married cuz that was something we didn't do but we did at the the door when we walked in we did some decorating and then down in our reception we did some well we married in Bonners Ferry I know where basella was from and we didn't would have facilities anywhere over there large enough so we her dad rented the Mennonite Church house so actually had it in the Mennonite Church house which was very nice facilities it was really nice yeah yeah and it was a beautiful June day it was the most perfect day you could ask for it was just it was in the 70s or 80s I'm not sure that's warm yeah it was just it wasn't too warm and not too you know chilly and just clear and sunny and beautiful and how many people did we have at our wedding I think it was a little over 200 is that it yeah we were thinking it might be 250 but I think it was God so once we were married and we walked out after a couple hours service then we went we had the food downstairs and I had made I'll show you a picture of the corner that I had made it yes so in the back the back yeah the backdrop you might say we sat at a us too along with our yeah so who who were they tell them who they were it was I had my sister my younger sister Emily as my bridesmaid and probably my maid of honor and although we didn't say it back there like that and and his sister Leona older sister Leona and my brother Benjamin for a groomsman and also your cousin Michael right and the funny thing is Michael and Emily are now married so that was nice yeah that they had not been dating anything at all at that time but Michael had been my best friend so he was the groomsman for me and Priscilla had Emily for her sister so we put them together and now they're married but we'll see you so we had had a nice lunch we fed everybody it was a lot of good food and they treated us well it was really surreal cuz we've been to many weddings when we served it's it's an honor to be a server or be part of the wedding so we would get a lot of times when your cousin's getting married you would be invited to their weddings and so many times I'd gone to wedding so it was very surreal sitting there and all these people were serving us and serving the all the people that were there it was just like this weird feeling see everything happened we could just sit there enjoy the day yeah and we had two meals reserved yeah and and we had food like you know potato casseroles and meatballs and broccoli salad and and like desserts like Jimmy Carter pudding which is this chocolaty peanut buttery dessert and evenings we had this angel food cakes with these this creamy frosting and and like that really good food yeah it was just good to this time it was two o'clock or so lunch was over and then I then we opened gifts so everybody typically brought brings a gift every family or person oh yeah family unit saw that all that afternoon we opened gifts for like several hours and then by that time it was dinner time again and then so we had dinner and then we sang songs they had like a songbook that we made with all our favorite songs in it so we sang songs for like an hour and by that time it was quite late and then we gave all the servers and the cooks their gifts because they served all day long and Wow but we made I think we made the servers this means everything I think yeah these bookends yeah so I what I did is I at that time I raised Birds pheasants so I took some of my pheasants that I had killed or whatever and I took pheasant feathers and I cut out these hearts out of oak and some of the wood anyways I made these hearts I cut them all out three hearts and I glued them together and then we put these pheasant feathers on there and the Priscilla wrote their name and the date on there and then for the witnesses we gave them larger hearts like larger bookends yeah then why do we give the cooks I think I just bought some stuff for them okay yeah they took a long time to make the gifts but they were basically free that that's tradition you give the servers yes yeah yeah and how much did we spend on our wedding I know I did spend very much in a in the Amish tradition again the father of the bride typically pays most of the expenses and so he paid for the food and he paid for yeah a lot of things which I was so thankful for yeah so we really have no idea how much we spent on food or on this the wedding itself I I mean I didn't spend a whole lot I made our backdrop and we made the gifts and all those things mace it mainly just took time your dad probably spent I mean I don't even know but right between the food and the rent for the building I mean there was a thousand dollars I mean I can't see more than two thousand yeah I spend a little bit on flowers and stuff but not much right so it wasn't what I think we bought all the gifts for like this the gifts that we didn't make for the cooks and I mean there was expenses but it wasn't radical but it was definitely cheaper than most people get married on a Friday so this sounds kind of crazy but on a Saturday we went back so we went to him Hotel for the night on Friday night and then the next morning we went back to clean up after our own wedding so it took like half a day to clean up and the youth came back and we cleaned up and then that was Saturday so that was just something you always do you're obligated to do but now they don't do that in a sleeve and they never see you don't see me so that we weren't at that point so yeah we cleaned up and then in the afternoon we came to our little cabin that we were going to live in and this was a cabin in Libby and I'll show you a picture of it it was a really cute little cabin it was about twelve feet wide and about 18 feet long probably and it had one little partition wall in it it was really tiny but it was some of the best times it was just we didn't have a lot of it we didn't have expenses the bathroom wasn't even in there oh yeah I didn't have a bathroom so we had to run out the back door about thirty yards it was a bath house right he had showers and bathrooms and then yeah but we did I had put in a little kitchen area just a little sink in a little work area at work table area we hung a curtain for our bedroom and went a couch and a tiny little table and so it was very cute and comfy and it was nice cozy as cozy yep yeah we've been there for two years yeah yep and we had we planted some flowers out front we made it look really nice yeah I was I made it I tried to make it really nice I wanted to have a nice place when I moved in there with Priscilla so we moved in there on a Saturday afternoon and then we stayed there for the weekend we went to church the next day on Sunday and then we stayed there until Monday and then Monday morning we packed everything and then we took off for a honeymoon yeah that was so fun we just took off and remember we had just started driving a few months ago so it was just it was just freedom it was lots of fun we and so where did we go from so we drove 11,000 miles on her honeymoon [Music] we got a park pass and we drove we hit as many parks that we could it went through Oregon down the coast through Yosemite and through Death Valley and our car overheated in Death Valley thought we were straight and all over then we drove down to Texas took a tooth as a one day one week cruise yeah that was awesome their first first experience on a cruise then we drove all the way North Carolina and I worked on a house in North Carolina for a week we stayed at a little cabin there and then we drove home zigzag back and forth and put total of 11,000 miles on her car and it was it was a good time yeah I did got to know each other a lot better discover that we said if she's made to work through yeah [Music] good so there it is in a nutshell just a couple notes that we had made yeah and if you have not if you are new here and you have not watched our growing up Amish and how we met videos that would be good to watch too and gives a little bit more of a backdrop who we are I guess yeah and next time do you think we'll talk about what do my first few years of marriage possibly yeah our first few years of marriage and maybe ours the twins oh yes yeah was a surprise yes and then we may even later talk about some some things like marriage tips or things that we've you know learned from each other and we might some things like that you know raising kids or give us yeah a suggestion yeah give us suggestions what you guys want to talk about what you would like us to hear from us or our perspective we don't have the answers all the answers but we just from our experience will be happy to share with you what we've learned so there's still a lot to learn that's for sure awesome thanks guys thanks for watching I hope you enjoyed this reason we didn't do this outside it was a little cool yeah this is April 15th today but it actually snowed last Saturday was it last Saturday yeah yeah liked it like two inches on Saturday but the daffodils are blooming it's springtime and the winters on its last hurrah yep awesome thanks for watching guys we'll catch you next time thanks for commenting and subscribing yeah don't forget to subscribe there we go thanks [Music] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Montana Haven

Views: 163,455

Rating: 4.9165545 out of 5

Keywords: amish, amish wedding, shunning, banning, wedding, joas, priscilla, montana, montana haven, libby, libby mt, amish meadows, family of 7, 5 children, homestead family, homesteading

Id: xTj9LRlCrsY

Length: 22min 50sec (1370 seconds)

Published: Sat May 02 2020