The Wedding Day!

So WOAH two posts in one day... yeah yeah I DO have a life, thank you. We just got done watching the BYU football game (sooo shameful! but im still rootin for them! its not over yet!)... It's really neat because we live on Stadium avenue. And yes, for once the street name actually makes sense. We live on the same street as the stadium! (You know what I mean? like communities called like, "Fresh Springs Falls" and its located in the middle of Arizona? It's just funny because there are no "fresh springs" or "falls" located anywhere. It's just funny to me. And i really like when I discover street names or communities that actually make sense.) We live a few short blocks up the hill, east from the stadium, the MTC is only a few blocks east of us, also on the same street. If you keep heading up the street a little more, past the Missionary field, the Provo temple is right there! (We went to the Provo temple last week, my first time ever in that temple. It was surprisingly really really large! and gorgeous, duh.) A few blocks south of us is the BYU campus - the Marriott center, to be exact. (Which really came in handy the other day when I ditched class to go experience the prophet speak. i'll blog about that later.)

Wow, that was quite the tangent.

I'm here to blog about my wedding day. I'm wanting to blog in detail so maybe some day it will be of great interest to my kiddies or my husband... ( you can print and bind your blog, right?)

SO here we go.

We all were still pretty jet-lagged from the 5 hour time change, so most of us woke up starting around 3. I was awake around 4, and went wandering around the front yard that overlook the ocean around 5:00. I sat there waiting for the sunrise and ate my oatmeal. It was so peaceful. The perfect kind of thing to wind my body down from the night before, which i'll re-cap really quick.

I was SO blessed enough to have ALL of my sisters there: Heather, Celeste, and then my non-blood sisters, Katherine, Virginia, and Kassie (actually, Heather Stocker was missing, and that was pretty sad for me. But having the others was so awesome.)

I'm not sure if all of you know kassie, but she is SO much fun. She doesn't know a stranger, and is cozy wherever she goes. She arrived quite a bit later than everyone else, but she didn't hesitate to make herself right at home. Lance, his groomsmen, and one of his really good friends Stacy all decided they were going to have a bachelor party for him, which was totally fine with me because A. they were all returned missionaries, no scary things would happen on this outing.... dangerous? maybe. adventurous? for sure. make lance do embarrassing things? definitely. I didn't really ask what happened on this outing, but i think it's better off that way. :) Anyway, Kassie didn't skip a beat and hopped into the car they were piled into onto someone's lap and escaped into the night.

Katherine, me, virg and heather (along with nicky and lance's brother jared) went for a walk on the beach and sat on a lifeguard tower listening to the ocean... that didn't last that long, so we made our way back to the house and heather, nick and jared disappeared, and it was just me, katherine and virg sitting on the driveway still in earshot's distance of the breaking waves. We sat there talking and cracking up, like we always do when we're together. Katherine was giving me marital advice and tips. CJ found his way down to us, which i really loved. I was glad I got to spend a little time with him too. I'm sure i've mentioned it before, but ceej is like a best friend to me. All my siblings are like my best friends, it's just a different kind of best friend with each one. Anyway, point being, it was special to me. about 3 hours later, virg found her way to a bed, and CJ had long passed out on our laps, but somehow me and katherine still stayed up talking. We went inside and found an abandoned twin bed (which also had a box spring laying next to it, which will come into play in a minute). Katherine layed down with me and we just kept talking and cuddling... im not sure what time it was, but the crew came storming in for a pit stop, and we guilted kassie into staying and chatting with us. we all three piled into the twin bed like sardines and talked and cracked up even more for atleast another hour. katherine and i slept on the twin bed and kassie fell asleep on the box spring with a seat cushion for a pillow. haha i love it... This is a particular memory i will hold special to me forever. It was like we were accidently reenacting our entire adolescence. That's what we would do. Spend so much of our time at kassie's on a tiny twin bed with makeshift pillows and no AC, staying up all night talking and laughing and getting yelled at by her mom for being too loud. I truly had one of the best childhoods/adolescence anyone could ever ask for, filled with the most amazing people who I am so lucky and blessed to still have such an enormous part of my life.

Well that wasn't such a brief recap, was it?

Anyway.

SO it's our wedding day. Its way too early Hawaii time, but normal time Texas time, so I'm vegging, making sure to be calm. I always promised myself i'd be a relatively chill bride. My philosophy was that it's supposed to be the BEST day of your life, not the most stressful. So I held true to that.

Lance and I had to be down at the governor's office at 8:00 to get our marriage license. While we were waiting in the office, i snuck a picture of the guys desk, which i think turned out actually pretty cool

That took about an hour, and on the way back to the house, we picked up two of his friends from the airport. Hawaii is pretty cool, and relatively small. Almost everything was along the coast and right off the main "highway"/road... so it was easypeasy to pick them up and run our errands.

We made it back to the house, and Lance disappeared with all his buddies to go body surfing (i can't wait to get my CD of professional pictures from my photographer to see what pictures she snapped of this!) and i took over my self-imposed bridal duties.

Like i've mentioned, i REALLY love my bridesmaids. I could not have asked for a better group of girls to be there.... You know how it seems more often than not, theres always atleast one or two bridesmaids in someone's bridal party that's there kind of by default or from the brides pangs of guilt? I am sooooo HAPPY I wasn't stuck with that. My bridesmaids were all the people who i deeply, truly love and who all have been my life-long friends and sisters. It was fun too because we all have this fun, quarky, dynamic when we're together, and that really added to the easy, comfortable atmosphere of my wedding day.

Because I loved my bridesmaids so much, I wanted to find a way to spend a little time with just me and them, one on one, so i took on the duty of doing their hair. Not that I'm a professional, but I felt like i did a pretty okay job. I liked doing this too because i REALLY wanted my bridesmaids to feel comfortable on the wedding day. It's so terrible to be wearing a dress that you feel not cute/chubby/whatever else negative in, and to, on top of that, have hair that makes you look like you walked out of the 80's or that you have earmuffs on your head. SO that's why I took many hours to find dresses that would be comfortable and REWEARABLE, as well as complimenting my wedding... I felt they turned out WAY more perfect than I had even planned... They turned out to go with my loose 1940's theme I kind of stumbled upon, starting with my invitations.... i loved it. My original point was, i wanted their hair to agree with the Hawaiian humidity, as well as be casual, yet still have a pretty swept feel to it. My mom had the idea to put flowers in their hair, which i ended up LOVING (which i was against at first, mostly because I felt it might have been cliche, and it was but it was perfect). Virg, Kassie, me and Mom had gone out earlier along the street picking flowers from plumeria trees for this purpose. (which matched my bouquets and lance's lei) i LOVE plumerias. They've got this really waxy petal with a hint of color. The white ones have this pretty yellow in the center, and the pink ones are pink and fade to white. There are a few others, but those are the ones that ended up in the bouquets... ahh anyway. I can't help but rant about how perfect everything ended up being. Anyway.





SO while i was doing their hair, Katherine was so sweet and ironed my dress i left my reception in, and a few groomsmen's shirts, and lance's shirt.




I was running out of time, and heather was one of the last ones in my beauty salon, so I called upon my assistant, Virginia to help me. Heather has such thick, luscious hair, so having a helping hand was DEFIANTLY needed!



The ceremony was relatively quick, but really awesome. I wish i could have recorded it! It was the second counselor of the temple presidency, and he had some VERY inspired, VERY specific advice for Lance and I. It was so fun to look around the room and see only people we truly loved and had a deep relationship with (OBVIOUSLY there were people missing, and we wished they could have been there. But my point is it was intimate and so personal for us, and i really loved that.) Lance's aunt and uncle, two very best friends, buddy from the MTC, mission companion, mom and dad, My mom and dad, my aunt and uncle, my sister and nicky, katherine and BJ.

My wedding dress wasn't perfectly white, so I had to change into it in the Bride's room before i exited the temple, and that was FUNNNNNN-Y! My dress was an adventure to get into, so i had to have a team to help me get it on and zip it up. Mom and Heather were there safety pinning and zipping, and we needed another teammate, so we called in for Katherine. Which added even more to the laughter we were trying to contain. so safety pinning, pricked fingers, blood on the dress, figuring out if the ice-myth was true or not, the fresh flower controversy, and a few other crisis's averted, i finally made my way out with my HUSBAND! WOOHA! It was sooo surreal! I was a WIFE. It took me a few days to wrap my head around that concept... I felt like a celeb walking out of the temple and having flashing lights bombard us. THAT was surreal and strange too. I really am not one to really dig being in the center of attention. I like being in the circle of attention but not the center. hhahah. It was kind of a whirlwind after that - family pictures, temple pictures etc.... Then we had to scurry back to the house for dinner.

That was an adventure too.

We had too many people and only about 4 cars to transport... plus my photographer. everyone found a car, and there was a handful of us who found ourselves carless. SO my very awesome photog (who i will gush about later) offered to play taxi. I hopped into her front seat, and Lance and a few others cuddled up in the back seat. That was really funny and unexpected. It was great too because she snapped a few pictures to document this experience.

We made it back to the house, and Lance was still being so awesome and cooperative with the whole picture thing. My bridesmaids and groomsmen gulped down some water and walked across the street to the beach and the lavarocks to finish up picture time. That wasn't very fun, and scaling the sharp lava rock was interesting (especially in my quilt of a dress), but it went fine, and we all headed back to the house to get the reception going.

My mom, dad, Clydie, Rob (lances mom and dad) and my Aunt Deanie and Uncle David, (and I'm sure there were others I didn't mention) were so awesome at having the tables set and the ambiance fixed....I felt like we were in Mama Mia... the ocean's waves crashing in the background, the sun setting with brilliant colors, a calico mix of chairs and tables, with a tiki torches and dimmed lighting, beautiful table settings and a group of fun, vibrant people. It was such a calm, easy going atmosphere. Not to mention the food ([prepared and cooked by my amazing family and bridesmaids and Stacy) was SO GOOD! Like, better than restaurant! I wanted to have like 12 servings. Clydie made this really awesome fruit drink called the Raspberry King Kahmehameha. My cake was a slight disappointment, but only because it kind of looked like a baby shower cake... but after i put some fresh flowers on it, it helped.

All in all, the day was a success, and all the faraway planning was worth it. The people were amazing, the elements were perfect, the day was so easy.... I loved it, and I'd do it again exactly the way it happened.

Thank you everyone who was involved physically and/or monetarily! Lance and I love you so much, and it wouldn't have been the same if even one of you was missing. I am so blessed to have such an incredible family and group of friends (who have amazing husbands too!), and the best in-laws anyone could ask for.





I've already posted these on Facebook, but im putting them here for my own whateverness. I can't reiterate how much i adored my photographer. I love the way she edited these. I know these edits aren't a lot of people's cup of tea, but that's okay because she's sending me a separate disc with all the prints in their original form, no editing, for the family members who just want normal pictures. :)

I am SO happy with her though. I found her on craigslist... which was a little sketchy (ask heather about her craigslist experience. haha.) BUT i was able to see her online portfolio and i was in love. When I met her on the wedding day, I was mid-doing-hair, and i IMMEDIATELY loved her. You know how some people's personalities just click? We probably could have been friends in a not so specific instance. Her personality meshed so well with our families, her easy going attitude was exactly what i wanted. That might have stressed other people out, but i was so glad she wasn't irritating or too bossy or invasive. She was perfect!