Wedding Day

Sorry this is taking so long to post all these updates. I guess real life has caught up with us already. Plus my laptop decided to get all freaky on me again. I panicked because most of the pictures are not uploaded yet. Luckily I was able to copy them all off to another hard drive and after re-installing some drivers the laptop is behaving much better. I thought I would add some pictures to this post that are not in the Favorites album but still great pictures. Thanks again to my Mom, Justin, Stephanie and Chris for all the great photos. You can find all the pictures that they took of the wedding on my smugmug site. (ps - We still have not seen our official photographer's pictures! I guess we should let her know that we are back and ready!) So, I guess you want a few more details of the days events. Hopefully this will suffice... Saturday morning I got ready, packed, and headed to the hotel to pick up Jill and her mom. We needed to be to the Salt Lake City Temple early in order to get ready. Carrying the dress around the streets got us lots of turned heads and smiles. It reminded me of just a few days earlier traveling through the airports. I forgot to tell you how Jill put her dress, fully laid out, in the overhead compartment and closed the lid. Luckily there was not a huge amount of carry-on luggage and everyone assumed that since it was closed, it must be full! We were shuffled around to and fro by the ever friendly temple staff. There was staff posted at every corner searching the crowd for yellow labels pinned to our lapels branding us bride and groom. Several staffers recounted stories of lost brides and grooms. I'm not sure if these stories were supposed to A) assure me that I was good hands, B) scare me into not wandering around un-escorted, or C) reaffirm their own doubts as to why they had to sit with me and wait. After getting dressed, and waiting, and forgetting the rings (prompting an un-escorted journey back to the locker room), and waiting some more, Jill and I were finally reunited. She looked absolutely amazing. We were escorted to the Celestial Room where we waited until our guest were in the Sealing room. We met with our Sealer which was a bit unnerving. I think he is suffering from a bit of dementia as he kept asking the same questions and offering the same advice and antidotes. It would have been nice if the friendly staff had offered some explanation as to what were doing. They just kept leading us and handing us to the next person without know really what was going on. Added to the fact that were not exactly absorbing 100% of our surroundings left us pretty confused and frustrated a few times. I guess we should have asked some questions, but I'm not sure what I would have asked. Oh well, looking back, it left us with a few interesting and funny memories. It was a great moment when we finally entered into the Sealing room and saw our family and friends waiting for us. The Sealer did a great job but again reaffirmed that he did not really grasp what we had discussed with him before-hand. I don't think he understood that we were older (not the usually 19-21 year olds) and that Maya was in the picture. Oh well, he still had some good advise and from what I remember (and what others have said), it was a good ceremony. Hugs and congratulations were exchanged as everyone filed out of the room. For some reason Curtis thought he would get me back. At his wedding, last June, he held it together until I gave him a hug. This time he got me. We had more escorting, changing clothes, more waiting, then our grand exit from the temple. It was great to see everyone there waiting for us outside in the gorgeous (although quite windy) weather. Jill and I had great big smiles. What can I say? We were just happy! The wind had picked up so Jill was having some challenges with her veil flying around wildly. It made for some interesting pictures. After all the pictures at the Temple, we spent about 15 or 20 minutes searching for our car in the Joseph Smith Memorial parking garage. We ended going to almost all of the levels before we found it. Apparently they don't give out the free parking tokens but the nice lady in the booth saw us all dressed up and let us out for free. I was ready to bat my eyes but I didn't even have to. We met up with the parents, grabbed some food, and headed up to Midway for more pictures and the reception. The place (Inn on the Creek) looked great. Everyone started arriving and enjoyed some appetizers while we finished up taking more pictures. We made an 'official' entrance with silver streamers being launched at us. (Side note - Jill's sister, Linda, found these streamers that are spring loaded and shoot out. The streamers are attached so there is no mess to clean up. But NONE of the party stores in Utah carry them even though the website claims that Party City should have them. You can order them directly from Wilton (Pop Out Streamers) but of course we didn't order, thinking that we could just get more at the store. Oh well, I guess we had enough for the desired effect). We had a short program that started with Jill, Maya, and myself performing a Unity Sand Ceremony. We wanted something that would include Maya and symbolically show that we were becoming a new family. We had three different colors of sand that we each poured into a jar individually as a representation of our individuality and strengths that we each add to the foundation of our family. Then we poured all three of our colors together so that they would mixed in interesting patterns. Next, Jill's brother Chris gave a great talk on the significance of a temple marriage and the sealing. We felt like it would be nice to give some explanation for our many friends and family who were not able to be inside the temple with us for the ceremony. Chris did a fantastic job. Thanks. Jason, (My sister Sharlie's husband) played us an original adaptation of a Cure song on the guitar. It was great. Thanks Jason. Then the fathers gave their toasts which were, of course, very touching. My dad had threatened all week that his toast was about 5 pages long. And I don't doubt it (he may have used really large font but still long). We kept hinting that it only needed to be a few words which is what he delivered. Some day I would love to see what he actually wrote down (and re-wrote during our picture time at the temple). The dinner (prime rib, fiesta chicken, roasted veggies, mashed potatoes, and tomato bisque) was wonderful. We also had a hot chocolate bar with flavorings to add in. For desert, cheese cake and of course Wedding Cake. Everything was wonderful. The only snafu was that Sharlie had a pretty severe allergic reaction at the end of evening. The theory is that the strawberries on the cheese cake probably were cross contaminated with the melons (which she is very allergic to). It was not at all pleasant for her. Luckily, the chef had a allergy pill that she took while Jason ran to the store for Benedryl. No fun. The reaction was pretty much under control by the time they left but her eyes were still swollen the next morning. As part of the package, we got to stay in one of the rooms at the Inn. So instead of making a grand exit, we kicked everybody out! It was an absolutely wonderful evening. We both regret not being able to spend more time with everyone who was there. But I guess that is pretty normal. Thanks to everyone who was there with us. I hope everyone had as good a time as we did. A very special Thank You to the 33 people who traveled from out of town! Here are the rest of the pictures from the Temple, and at the Reception Dinner. If you still want to see more pictures, try these: Baltimore Celebration, Family Dinner, Pampering, and Favorites. And here are Tara's great pictures.