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| Jermaine with our Moms - they get along wonderfully!! Two amazing women there :) |
Jermaine & I have been richly blessed in our lives, and when it came to wedding registries, we decided to go the route less followed and made a list of charities that we support, asking our guests to join us - Liberia Mission, Amazima Ministries and Feeding America. It's easy to get caught up in making a huge list of things you'd love to have, but for us it just wasn't our style. We really valued the time spent together with our family and friends, especially as all of our family members would be travelling to attend our wedding. Since we knew there were relatives & friends who were going to pick up gifts regardless of what we said, we did make a Target registry, which was super easy, as well as a photography registry with our incredible photographer Vidyuta. We donated a portion of the generous funds that we received from our guests to the organizations listed above, while saving the remainder for purchases we were planning to make for our family (like one of these). I put together several info boards about the organizations we were supporting, with pamphlets that our guests could take home.
Liberia Mission is an amazing community that I have been involved with for several years now. I learned about LMI through my church, and have been blessed to sponsor a young boy named Godwin since 2010. It has been such a joy to exchange letters and emails with him and see him continue to grow into the young man that he is today. I was completely blown away when we received a beautiful wooden carving from him for our wedding, along with a congratulatory video that he sent! Liberia Mission is celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, and house 110 students on their campus, which also includes St Anthony of Padua School and St Michael the Archangel Chapel. To learn more about Liberia and the incredible work that LMI does, please visit their website.
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| Our gift from Godwin - "The love of Liberty brought us here - Republic of Liberia" |
We also were purposeful about the funds that we spent on wedding extras. I've been a fan of TOMS shoes and their One For One motto since they started out (like...2006...many, many years ago ) and own just a few pairs, so having wedding TOMS was a no brainer for me! I've posted the story about finding my dream TOMS back on sale mere weeks before our wedding previously, and walking down the aisle in these beautiful gold herringbone shoes made me unbelievably happy - not to mention knowing that a child in need would receive a pair of shoes too! I also love that I have such awesome memories attached to these shoes that I wear regularly now, and that they weren't purchased for one-day-only wear. My flower girl wore the most darling gold sparkly TOMS and she has also gotten some good use out of those shoes! We went the full mile by adding TOMS to the bridesmaid gifts, and they each chose their own pair to complement their dresses.
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| Photo by Five By Five Photography & Design |
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| Bridal party TOMS!! |
Another way that we were deliberate in our spending was through the purchase of beautiful Amazima multi-coloured bead necklaces for the bridal party gifts, as well as presents for our Moms (who both love the same shade of purple that this one comes in!). I've had the opportunity to volunteer with Amazima sorting these beautiful hand made bead necklaces when they arrive from Uganda, and they are just incredible to see.
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| Photo by Five By Five Photography & Design |
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| Photo by Five By Five Photography & Design |
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| Bridal party girls received bright colours & the purple beads were for our Moms! |
Even better than the beauty of the necklaces is the program that allows women in the Masese community of Uganda to be gainfully employed making the jewelry, and the proceeds fund a feeding program that helps 1200 children daily!! We also encouraged our guests to donate to Amazima to support the incredible work that they are doing in Uganda.
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| Photo courtesy of Amazima Ministries |
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| Photo courtesy of Amazima Ministries |
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| Photo courtesy of Amazima Ministries |
Donating to charitable organizations and spending deliberately definitely took some planning, but we were so happy to share the joy of our wedding day with many others in need. How are you doing things differently as you plan your big day?
xoxo mrs dobbins
