Orchowski Wedding : Castle Rock, CO Wedding Photography
Posted in news on July 11, 2012
I met Nick and Jamie through a very dear client of mine. When I heard their story I couldn’t say no! And I’m so glad I didn’t! I asked Jamie to go ahead and tell us a little about their story, and since I didn’t want to mess it up, here are her exact words! So grateful to have met these two and their amazing kiddos.
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Nick and I met on December 28, 2003. We fell in love and have been almost inseparable since then. Nick was scheduled to deploy with the U.S. Army on March 1, 2004. We talked about getting married when he returned, but both of us decided “why wait?”. We had nothing to lose and couldn’t imagine life without each other, so we married on February 26, 2004 in a small courthouse wedding. We decided to have a big wedding when he returned. We were both told that our chances of having children were pretty slim, but reading this you will soon learn our life has been filled with miracles. We found out I was pregnant right before he left for Iraq. At the time we were both terrified of him leaving to fight for our country, but we stayed strong and said our goodbyes on March 1 st just 4 days after getting married. We talked as much as we could and still planned on having our dream wedding when he got back. To our surprise that day came much sooner than expected. On May 1 st, 2004, 2 months to the day he left, I received a phone call saying he had been injured. Nick had been involved in a vehicle ambush. He had been thrown from the gunners hatch and his neck had been broken. I was terrified that the baby inside me was going to have to grow up without their father. Then the words that gave me hope came out, Nick was going to live, but would never walk again. I was smiling and so happy while people around me thought I was crazy. All I cared about was that he was going to live, and we were still going to spend our lives together. He was sent to Washington D.C. and his family and I met him there. We were told he would never walk again, 2 weeks later he moved his right leg, 5 months later he was walking as much as he could. On October 23, 2004 he stood next to me in the hospital while I gave birth to our beautiful daughter. Life changed a lot for both of us. Nick still has some paralysis and other health issues, and unfortunately was not able to stay in the Army. He is a soldier in every sense of the word; he is a fighter, a leader, and a hero. He could not just give up and do nothing, so he decided to use his knowledge as a disabled veteran to help other veterans get the help they needed. We postponed our wedding to find our new places in the world, me as a mom and him as a father, disabled veteran, and veteran liaison. We are now living wonderful lives 8 years later. We have 2 beautiful children, and couldn’t be happier. In May thanks to some great friends and family our dream wedding happened. We had a beautiful wedding venue, a catering company, cake decorator, florists, Chaplain, hair stylist, makeup artist, Dj, tuxes, party rentals (tables, linens, silverware, etc.), and of course our beautiful photographer all donated their own time and services to give us the perfect wedding. To add to all that was given to us Chris Vanderveen from 9 news was there recording to share this perfect day with everyone. We owe a bunch of thanks to a bunch of people, and are going to try and share our beautiful pictures with all of these generous people who made our wedding the most perfect wedding ever! We can’t say our dream wedding came true because it was so far above and beyond what we could possibly ever have dreamed of. A Special Thank you to all of the following people and companies: Bryndi you are a genius behind the camera! Roz and staff at Cielo at Castle Pines, Karen and all of the wonderful staff at The Food Guy, Kathleen and staff at Mulberries Cake shop, Karen at the Garden path in Castle Pines, Barbara’s custom floral, Chaplain Paul Anderson, Kim Jundt with Affordable wedding hair, Samantha Koch with Lady Charm Artistry, Dj Nick with Dance Trax entertainment, Men’s warehouse, Event Rents Denver, and Chris with 9 news.
Special thanks to my good friend Jackie for helping me capture moments from this wedding – you’re a rockstar!!