Monday, September 16, 2013

Wedding photos- The Reception (1 of 2)

The reception was wonderful!  Great food, dancing, and people... what more can you want?
I wrote a timeline of our 3.5 years of courtship on little cards, and collected photos of us through the years.



My dear friend Kelsie Jones did an AMAZING job with all the flowers.  They transformed the room!





The view from the Founder's Room is gorgeous!



Our menu: fruit, cheese and crackers, coconut shrimp with mango dipping sauce, grilled zucchini and caprese salad skewers, chicken marsala tenders, and gelato shooters.  It was all delicious!  I guess we ran out of food pretty quickly- I blame my own underestimation and my cousins' big appetites :).  But Will and I were none the wiser that evening (the food was in a different room during the main reception), and since my parents ran out of food at their reception and have had a wonderful marriage, we've decided it's a good luck charm!






Kelsie made the signs, too.  She's so talented.


 After the ring ceremony ended and the reception got underway, I looked over and realized there weren't any flowers on the cake!  I tasked my bridesmaids with picking blooms from arrangements where they wouldn't be missed, and soon they came running back to me with their hands full of peonies and roses.  It was really fun to place the flowers in my own cake!

Check out that sultry face :)


JoAnna was my Beta Advisor- love her!



Will's mom's one request for the wedding was that we didn't shove the cake in each other's faces.  I appreciated that we didn't have to make the decision ourselves :)




To be continued!

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Wedding Photos- The Ring Ceremony

We decided to have a ring ceremony for our friends and relatives who couldn't be with us in the temple.  It was lovely!  I enjoyed sharing our vows with each other and declaring our love for one another in front of all our loved ones.




I was so surprised when everyone stood up as I entered; I hadn't anticipated that!


Already starting to cry.

Hadley is so cute!

Emma.



More crying.


Joce always cries, and I love her for it.

Wedding Photos- The Wedding Party

Taking photos outside of the Church Administration Building was honestly one of my favorite parts of the whole day!  The flowers smelled amazing, we were in the middle of beautiful downtown, and we were giddy with happiness!
So corny I know.

This is the classic Garfield photo.  (Em is so strong!)
 I wanted to give a tribute to my bridesmaids before the wedding, but that obviously never happened.  So here's a bit about each of these lovely ladies!
Alyssa and I have been friends since Kindergarten.  In second grade we didn't have any friends so we would just waltz to "Shall We Dance" on the blacktop all of recess.  I'd go boating with her family and we'd play dress up with her mom's old pageant crown and have sleepovers.  In high school, we ran cross country together and went to the temple together and she'd let me third wheel it with her and John (her high-school sweetheart turned husband).  She is kind and generous and loving to a fault.  Now we have wonderful double dates to Despicable Me 2 :).  
Shelbie was the life of the party in high school and the only person my parents trusted me driving with :).  We had epic dance parties, fun pranks, and chick flick nights.  Shelbie would always come up with such clever ways to have fun!  If it weren't for Shelbie, I don't know if I ever would have found my place in the social circles of East High.  I've loved having her as a fellow Ute and being on Student Alumni Board with her.  I know Shelbie will be there for me through thick and thin.  She also is responsible for giving my middle name!  
 Jocelyn started at Bonneville in fourth grade, and I thought her name was really hard to pronounce.  She was the decoy for my 10 year old surprise party and queen of the baby club.  We were friends through middle school and high school, too, and grew even closer at the U!  Jocelyn was an officer in Beta with me.  We're also blood sisters, thanks to an unfortunate round of midnight "Red Rover" during our freshman year of college.  Jocelyn is up for anything, whether it's beating me in cross country, taking daring cliffs skiing, or cliff jumping at my cabin in AZ.  She's also one of the bravest girls I know.  I'm so proud of her for serving a mission in Houston!
I think there were several reasons I was meant to go to the U and join Beta, and at the top of that list is probably to meet Michelle!  I would not have met Will without her, and she was my lifeline through college.  As a fellow English major, we enjoyed countless classes together, stood next to each other in the MUSS, and enjoyed an awesome trip to NYC.  She's one of the kindest people I have ever known.  She left me for a year to go work in DC, but I enjoyed visiting her for a weekend and am so glad she is home!
 I don't know exactly when I met Meg, but we grew close while on a study abroad in Oviedo, Spain.  It's really fun to start a friendship while traveling though Europe!  I was feeling kind of lonely the first week, but one evening Meg and I sat in the Parque de San Francisco and chatted for a couple of hours all about our lives, and found that we have so much in common!  Together, we visited Barcelona, Paris, Germany, and Austria.  We returned to the States, and the good times kept on going.  Meg is amazing at everything she does.  Seriously, she's one of the most talented girls I know!  I want to be her :).
 Suzanne and I met during middle school when we both swam for Steiner's swim team and, while we became friends, we really become attached at the hip until Junior year of high school.  We had all of the same classes except that when I was in Spanish, Suzanne was in German.  We did everything together- studied, cross country ski lessons, tennis lessons, cross country, downhill skiing, family vacations, throwing parties, starting a blog together, school dances in the same car... there are too many memories to list!  She left me for BYU, but found her soul mate who is now the Garfield's personal rock climbing coach (or so we like to think).  Oh, so many fun times!
 Meg and Emily, my maids of honor.  I love them!  Meg is in Honduras on a mission now, and Em's involved in more committees than I can count at the U.  They are wonderful, beautiful women!





A group of tourists were waving and cheering to us from the SLC Sightseeing bus as it drove down South Temple.



I love that Joce's head looks like someone's holding it as a bouquet.

The bridal party!

Do jumping pictures ever work?



What a handsome group of men.



Dana was a lifesaver.

Jake and Kinley got engaged while we were on our honeymoon and were married August 3.  I love my new sister-in-law!

One of my favorite things about our wedding day was spending all day downtown and walking from place to place.  We walked from the temple, to Zions Bank (where we had the reception), to the hotel... we love SLC!