Tennessee Reception

After our honeymoon we had another wedding reception in Tennessee. I wasn't excited because I still was not feeling well and I was was done with weddings and receptions after the long day in Utah. It ended up being fairly fun. I don't remember having to help set up, I think since we were supposed to be still on our honeymoon when they set up stuff, we managed to get out of helping. I had also refused to have anything to do with planning this one (what could I really do anyway I was living in Utah), so it was wonderful to just show up and have it planned and ready.

My parents flew in for the reception. It was nice to see them once more before spending the whole summer in Tennessee, a new place and new people.

The reception was a lot more relaxed than the Utah one. There was no line and we just mingled. I actually got to sit down and eat food. That was a refreshing change.

One of Terry's friends made us a cake for a wedding present.Because there was no line we were able to dance

and I was able to have a dance with my dad too.

Then the whole wedding/reception part was over. It was really fun, but both Brian and I agree that it is good we only have to get married once.

The Honeymoon

We had a very interesting honeymoon. We had decided to move to Tennessee for the summer, but since we didn't have anything we needed to go through the gifts we received to take things out we needed. So we spent the whole day the day after the wedding opening gifts, writing the list for thank-you cards, and packing up what to take and taking the rest to a storage unit. It was super exhausting and took a lot longer than we expected.

The next day we planned on driving 6 hours to Cheyenne Wyoming. Then we planned on messing around there for the evening. The next morning my dad woke us up to tell us that I-80 was closed from snow and we could not go to Wyoming. Instead we decided go through Denver Colorado on our way East. Denver was over an hour of a longer drive and we didn't have a place lined up to stay, so we ended up getting in pretty late.

The next day we were going to Winter Quarters Nebraska and were going to go to the temple there. We had called ahead and had our name ready for the last session of the day. But it adds another hour to go to Nebraska from Colorado instead of Wyoming. Also that day the car's check engine light came on and Brian spent an hour on the phone with my dad trying to make sure the car would make it the rest of the way across the country. (Just as a side note, the car's check engine light still comes on every time we go on a long trip, I think the car is just tired). On top of that Brian and I had forgot that you lose time as you go from West to East, and had not counted an extra hour in our driving time. With all the lost time we got to Winter Quarters 2 hours after the session was supposed to start.

Even though things were not going as planned we were excited because our next stop was Nauvoo Illinois. We planned to go to the temple there and to see the sites and were going to stay for several days. When we left Nebraska neither of us were hungry so we decided to look for somewhere to eat breakfast. Well there is nowhere to eat in Nebraska, soon we were starving and found that there are no restaurants. We ate snacked for hours until we finally got to a place that had somewhere to eat.

We got into Nauvoo late that evening. I had this nasty pimple that I was trying to hide (who wants a pimply bride). That night I was messing with it and realized it wasn't actually a pimple it was a crop up of the staff infection I had had earlier. The next morning I told Brian and he took me to the local emergency room. The doctor said it was just a rash, and I had to get my Utah doctor on the phone to convince him to give me antibiotics. It had taken me longer than before to realize something was wrong, so I was feeling quite sick. I ended up spending most of our time in Nauvoo laying in our hotel bed, while Brian played on his playstation. I did end up feeling well enough the last day to go to a couple of sites. I did not go to the temple because I was afraid of making old people sick.

From Nauvoo we were to drive to Knoxville, and then we were to go to a cabin in the mountains for a few days. When we left Nauvoo we ended up on the wrong road and had to take out the atlas to figure out how to get back on track. On the road we ended up taking we were behind a semi going slow so Brian didn't have to pay attention to his speed. Then we thought Brian's bike was coming loose off the car. So Brian pulled over to fix it. When he got back on the road he continued to just drive and not watch his speed. Well there was not a semi in front of us, but there was a cop behind us, who we didn't see trying to pull us over for a long time because of the bike. He was not enthused and gave Brian a ticket.

Later that day I was driving and some body on the interstate told us to get off. Turned out we had a flat tire. We went to the first place we saw to get it fixed, a Sam's Club. When we got there we bought a Sam's Club membership and went back and asked them to fix our tire. They said they couldn't fix our tire because they were not Sam's Club tires. We were so annoyed and told the guy working there our whole sad story about being on our honeymoon, and me being sick, and he agreed to fix it.

After that we made it uneventfully into Knoxville, but really late. We never did end up going to the cabin because I didn't feel good. But I did have a job interview the last day we would have been at the cabin.

Someday we will try for a honeymoon again.

The Wedding Day

This post will be a lot of pictures but hopefully I can get some of the stories of the day in too.

Our wedding was in the morning around 10:00 I believe. We had to get to the temple early to get ready. I wanted to be married in my wedding dress, the only issue was that the sleeves were not long sleeves, but that wasn't to be a big deal because the temple has sleeves you can put in under your dress. I expected it to be just sleeves, but it was a sweater thing, that was a little bulkier than I expected. My mom and I had a panic moment when she was doing up my dress, because the zipper would not go up, but with me holding my breath she could get it done up. It was really tight, and it was hard to breath but I made it in.

From there the temple workers took me to the Celestial Room, and Brian and I got to sit and talk while our guests for the ceramony were brought in and seated in the Sealing Room. We didn't have tons of people there because our families are fairly small. Then they brought us in and the sealer gave us some advice and then we had the ceramony. It was beautiful and special, and I loved looking in the double mirrors as Brian and I went back for forever. I also loved the calmness because the rest of the day was crazy.

Next we went out and did pictures on the temple grounds.

Here is everyone that came to our wedding and to the temple to wait. (Not everyone could go in for the ceramony).

Here is my family and extended family.

Here is Brian's family and family friends that came

It was crazy all the pictures that were taken, my roommates stuck around to help out with the lighting and moving things around.

Our photographer was a little slow, but he got some good pictures.

And here is us by the beautiful Mount Timpanogos Temple

Brian and I were hoping to have a break to rest between pictures and getting my hair done for the reception, but the pictures took too long, so we just had a quick lunch and we were off to get my hair done. My dad and siblings worked on finishing up the decorations for the reception and getting the food. My roommates went back to my parent's house and fell asleep. They were laying all over the place.

The reception turned out really beautiful and I had some gorgeous flowers.

Here is the wedding cake If you look closely on the right side you can see a finger swipe.

Here is the groom's cake. (I had never heard of a groom's cake, but I guess it is a Southern thing, and Brian really wanted one).You can't see it in the picture, but this cake got a swipe taken out of it too. I just laughed about the cakes, my dad did too, but it was a good thing for the kids that swiped the cakes that they were gone before my dad got back to the church.

I love fresh flowers, and and loved my bouquet, too bad they don't last longer. I spent most of my night in the never ending line, and had to sneak bites of food, I was starving by the end.

We cut the cake, but didn't go for the cake smashing in the face.

And Bree caught the throwing bouquet. She was the next one out of everyone who dove for the bouquet to get married.

Finally the line ended and Brian and I escaped into our decorated car.After the day's before's driving issues my roommates had written on the car something to the effect of "Don't die on the way to the honeymoon, its a long time until the Millenium". But we made it safely away.

The weekend before the wedding

When Brian and I scheduled our wedding we tried to get it as close to the end of school as possible because his brother and sister would still be in town and so would my roommates. We were going to do it Saturday April 23rd, but my sister went to New York City that week wouldn't be back yet. We scheduled the wedding for Tuesday April 26th instead, but then we had a whole weekend to fill up.

Saturday I had the roommates and Jesse over to ride the horses. It was kind of crazy to have that many beginners on our high strung jumping horses. But I went out early and exercised some of them earlier and everything went pretty well. Brian had also been around horses enough at this point to be a big help, especially with things with saddling. One of my roommates had taken riding lessons before and was excited to get back on a horse.

That afternoon Brian's family flew into Utah. That night my roommates, my future sister-in-laws, and I went out for a Bachelorette party. We went to dinner at Chili's, went to a movie, and then went to Cold Stone for ice-cream. It was a wonderful girls night out.

By Sunday even more family had come into town. Everyone congregated at my parent's house. We sat around and talked and played ping-pong. It was a lot of fun and it was amazing how all these people who hadn't ever met each other could enjoy each other's company so much.

Monday a bunch of us went to the church where our reception would be and starting setting up. This day was the first day I started to get nervous. I had to drive to Provo to pick up a couple of roommates and hit a curb. My roommates said I couldn't drive anymore, and had Brian drive. He drove over to where we would live that fall to show my roommates and he hit a trashcan. Some of my roommates tried to mutiny and take over the car, but Brian wouldn't give it up.

From there we went to Los Hormonos and had our wedding luncheon. We had it a day early to make the wedding day less stressful. It was alot of fun and the food was great. I am glad now that Heather went to New York City and delayed the wedding because we got to have such a fun weekend and wonderful memories.