The bride and groom can get so stressed in planning every detail of the wedding that the sweetness of wedding bliss can get lost. Not so for Langhorne Stinnette Stevens and her husband Will. A second grade teacher in Columbia, Langhorne was thrilled to share her engagement and wedding planning with her students. “I decided to invite all my students to the wedding when I noticed how excited they were about my getting married,” says Langhorne. “They asked me so many questions and were intrigued by it all, even the little boys!”
Langhorne reserved one of the balconies at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral for the students so they could all sit together. “Their enthusiasm for the wedding was contagious, and it was a pleasure and a comfort to see their eager faces peering over the railing looking down at us during the ceremony,” she says.
The joy that the children brought wasn’t limited to the bride and groom. Other adults attending the wedding also expressed how much they enjoyed seeing the children’s smiling faces up in the balcony. There are few things more infectious than the pure happiness of a child. And the small gesture of inviting the children to the wedding had a lasting effect on the children. “After our honeymoon, I returned to school where I had several letters and drawings waiting for me on my desk. I was especially touched by how much detail they noticed. One little boy even drew a picture of what Will and I look like in casual wear and what we looked like in our wedding attire,” says Langhorne. This enthusiasm and attention to detail was further proof that attending the wedding meant as much to the children as it did to the bride and groom.
