In the summer of 2001 I met and fell in love with Carlene Wilson, a wonderful woman who fell in love with me as well. In October of 2001 I asked her to marry me and she said yes. Neither of us really planned to have a particularly long engagment but there was no big hurry either, so various events large and small kept pushing back our wedding planning. then in August it just seemed the time was tight to make plans. so we got our schedules together and looked them over, at one point we even picked a date about two weeks after the date we eventually married on but it was the one weekend out of the entire year that my sister could not miss work Oct.19. My sister works for West Virginia Public Radio and that date fell during pledge week I really wanted my sister to be able to attend, So we then checked out the Saturday two weeks before that. But the preacher had other plans that day so we checked on the Friday evening of October fourth and lo and behold all the schedules lined up fine! This left us a relativly short time until the wedding since by this point it was near the end of August. We bought cards at Michaels craft store, which I printed the invitations onto using my computer. There were various other plans for how we would print the invitations before we settled on the simple but elegant looking design on the nice, thck, embossed cards.

Since the church we were getting married in is near where Carlene grew up we knew many from her family could attend and already knew well where the church is. But for my friends and relatives, and some of Carlenes friends, I made maps to go with the invitations too.

Carlenes friends, and my sitster also, were instrumental in helping prepare for the wedding. from buying and preparing food for the reception, preparing favors for the guests, preparing the boquet, and shopping for various wedding items, everyone pitched in.

The week of the wedding my mom and sister came down from West Virginia, and my father flew in from California . Because of the short notice and the longer distances involved for my family and friends these three were the only guests from my side to attend. But hopefully some of them will be able to share in it through the pictures here on these wedding pages.

Carlene headed up to her moms the night before the wedding I stayed here as I had to work the night before the wedding from midnight to 6 am. After work I took a nap and around one P.M. me my mom, dad, and sister started on our way Marion, NC. Carlenes home town is about a two hour drive from Charlotte. We dropped my sister Michelle off at the church where the pianist for the ceremony Carlenes niece , also named Michelle, had already arrived as she wanted to practice on that churches piano. We then dropped my mom off at Carlenes moms house, where Carlene was getting ready, and picked up my suit which Carlene had brought up with her the night before. Carlenes sister Jewell had attached a nice set of suspenders to my suit pants, she did a great job.

Then dad and I headed back to the church where we unloaded my sisters equipment into the fellowship hall where the reception was to be held . My sister supplied the music for the reception. by the time we got done unloading the equipment Carlenes friends started arriving. Michelle and Michelle were done rehearsing so I took my turn practicing with accompaniment. After that my dad and I helped Carlenes friend Cathy who is a decorator set things up in the church for the ceremony candleholders, ect... I met the minister for the first time and got to speak to him a little. Time flew by and soon dad and me were getting dressed for the ceremony. My dad took most of the pictures on these pages and I think he did great.

After we got dressed we went out and looked at the preperations in the fellowship hall for the reception. Then, in the church, Carlene the reverend and I went over the order of events in the ceremony and made a few last adjustments to the plan we already had.

Since everything looked good, dad and I went outside, took a few pictures of the outside of the church, and spoke with arriving guests and took more pictures
The first picture of the church below was taken from across the street and originally had power lines running acoss the top of the picture I edited them out.