Day 18: Wedding Day

Brace yourselves for a long post folks :)

We were engaged for five months. By Mormon standards, that's a long engagement, as most couples in our religion tend to get married in the 2-4 month range. Crazy, I know. The only reason we were engaged for that "long" was because the first free day for a wedding wasn't until the day after my college graduation. We figured since my family was already coming up for the graduation, why not have a wedding? By the way, those five months were torture.

I decided that we would be married in the Mount Timpanogos Temple. This seemed to surprise both sides of the family. My in-laws were expecting to make a trip to Houston, since that's where I'm from. My parents were expecting me to choose Salt Lake, since that's where I originally wanted to get married and because it seemed to be the family temple.

I always knew that I would be married in Utah, because that's where most of my relatives live, or thereabouts. When it came time to decide where the wedding would be, Mount Timpanogos Temple just felt "right." Plus, my mom's Uncle Herschel is also a sealer there, so we were able to have him to perform the ceremony.

My decision later proved to be inspired. About a week or so before the wedding, I found out that there was going to be a protest around Temple Square on our wedding day. It wouldn't be fun to try taking pictures when there are angry protestors just outside of the gates. We would have enough snags on our wedding day as it was...

Looking at this picture, what time of year do you think this was taken?

Would you be shocked if I told that we were married in the middle of August?

It had rained a lot that summer, so I was crossing my fingers that it wouldn't rain on the big day. When I woke up that morning, it was windy and there were dark clouds in sky, threatening to rain on my wedding day. I prayed that the rain would be stayed until after the ceremony and after pictures had been taken!

My mom and I left for the temple, met Stephan and his dad there, got the details of our marriage license squared away, and then I was taken to the bride's room. This is where I changed into my wedding clothes. Looking back now, I think I should have just worn my temple dress for the sealing. I'll explain.

After I got dressed, I was reunited with Stephan and we were taken to the Celestial Room, where we would wait until the sealing room was ready. As we walked into the Celestial Room, Stephan stepped on my dress and ripped one of the bustlings out.

For those who aren't familiar with temple sealings, if the bride's dress has a train, it must be bustled for the ceremony. I had a very long train (I wish my mom had taken more off), and it had to be put into a "French bustle", meaning three bustlings instead of just one. I was pretty annoyed with Stephan for stepping on the dress. Not a good start to a marriage. I should have just worn my temple dress and that would have been avoided. Or else I should have been more insistent on my mom shortening the train even more...she didn't want to.

Instead of basking in the peacefulness of the Celestial Room, Stephan was trying unsuccessfully to fix my dress. Finally, a patron offered us a safety pin. That did the trick. But then it was time for us to go to the sealing room.

Was I nervous? Surprisingly, no. Stephan has since told me that he was terrified up until the altar.

The sealing room was filled almost to capacity when we showed up. We booked the largest sealing room, which holds about 55 people. Most of the people there were family. Shows how big our families are.

The ceremony began. Apparently Uncle Herschel gave us some very good counsel, and those who were at the sealing told us in cards to always remember it.

Unfortunately, we don't. Well, except for the "go to the temple often" part. I wish someone had written down the counsel he gave. A friend once said that the counsel must be more for the people who are attending the sealing, rather than the couple, because the couple is too caught up in the moment to really remember.

Then sealing itself took place. It was very short. Almost anticlimactic considering how much it is emphasized and celebrated in our religion.

After the sealing was done, we were taken back to the dressing rooms (well, bride's room in my case), to remove the ceremonial clothing, and in Stephan's case, change back into his suit. Then we made our grand exit:

It was raining when we came out. Although I didn't get my wish for the rain to stop, it was a light rain (mostly). So, we were able to get a decent number of pictures taken at the temple, even though there were some shots I wanted that we didn't get.

I'm very glad we hired a professional photographer. He had plenty of experience shooting during inclement weather. And dealing with stressed-out brides.

One of my favorites :)

We had an afternoon reception at Le Jardin in Sandy, UT. It's a greenhouse. Indoors. And incidentally, it was sunny there. Grr.

And a lot of people didn't get the memo that our reception was in the AFTERNOON.

Why did we have an afternoon reception? Well, it was cheaper and it was the last spot available for that day. Not kidding.

But we still had a lot of people come to the reception.

I have no idea what my mom is doing here.

Can I just say how much I hate receiving lines? Especially while wearing high heels. I was so glad to sit down.

I believe Le Croissant did the catering for the reception. Our wedding cake was made by Stephan's mom :)

Some people thought it looked highly unusual. Was it the coloring?

We also had a string quartet at the reception.

We had a celebrity cellist, and didn't know it.

Then my dad jumped in and played "Sunrise, Sunset" with them.

We had the bouquet toss. My cousin Kerstin caught the bouquet.

 Then we had a boutennier (sp?) toss. No garter toss. My brother Paul got it. He'd better be next.

Then we made our getaway. Certain people were determined to decorate our car, but my brothers were so kind to hide it in the neighboring cemetery. The car decorating is one of those wedding traditions that I really don't like, along with cake smashing, the garter toss, gifting the bride with lingerie, etc. 

Although Stephan's scooter didn't fare so well. 

We've now been married for approximately 16 months, and we're still happy. I don't ever want to go back to single life. Never. Not even with all the bumps in the road we've had. Stephan is still my favorite person in the world, and I'm pretty sure he'll say the same about me. At least, he'd better ;)

Okay, this entry took like a week to write. Whew. If you're reading this last sentence, I congratulate you for having the energy to read the post all the way through.