Day 21: Describe Your Wedding

Our wedding was on July 1, 1997 and we were married in the Mt. Timpanogos temple for time and all eternity. It was an awesome day...the best of my entire life. We were surrounded by our friends and families, with the only exception being my parents. Yep, my parents. It's not like they weren't invited. They were just otherwise detained in Leipzig, Germany on a mission for our church. With the new rules that just came out for couple missionaries, they would've been allowed to come home for the wedding...but that was a different time and they were not allowed to then. I guess we could've waited until they got back, but that would've been an entire year to wait...and have I mentioned that I'm extremely impatient? So, yeah, we moved forward without them and it was hard, but it was right. I don't know if my mom has ever forgiven us...I'm the baby after all...but she loves Ben, so I think she's glad. At least my parents had met him like 3 times before he stole me away...and my dad was awfully impressed that Ben called all the way to Germany to ask for my hand.

Anyway, I never ever wanted to get married in the summer. My sisters were both married in the summer and I was determined to be different. However, Ben didn't ask me to marry him until April (gheez!), so a summer wedding it was. We originally planned for August but had to keep moving the date up all the way to the first day of July. I refused to go into June because my sisters were both married in June, but in the end, all three of our weddings were in the same week. Oh well. At least we had July...and now it's kind of cool because we always get a fun weekend around our anniversary to celebrate...and there's always fireworks!! Anyway, we ended up having a short engagement meaning a lot of work to do very quickly to get ready. Add to the fact that the mother of the bride was MIA and Ben and I were on full planning mode for that month and a half. The good thing about that was that we made every single decision ourselves. We had a lot of help from Ben's dad and step-mom too.

We didn't have a ton of money. My parents were obviously unemployed at the time, but they still sent us some money to work with. We used it up very quickly and so our wedding was super budget, but we made it work. We wanted to have an outdoor wedding reception and Ben's dad volunteered for us to do it at his house in American Fork, which worked perfectly because the temple was there. Have I mentioned that the first time I went to the Mt. Timp open house I said I was going to marry Ben in that temple? Oh, and that was like 3 months before we even started dating. Awww....it was so meant to be. Anyway, I fell in love with that temple at the open house because it is just absolutely beautiful and Ben knew there was no changing my mind. So all of the festivities went on in American Fork. Who'da thunk I'd ever get married there?!

The temple was awesome. We had the biggest sealing room in the temple and it was filled to the max...maybe it was good my parents weren't there...ha ha, kidding, parents. It was so great to have so many friends and family there to support us. I have no clue what our sealer said to us because Ben and I just were gaga staring at each other the entire sealing. I'm pretty sure we promised to be together forever and stuff. Isn't it awesome that you get to go back to the temple and be reminded of that amazing moment of being sealed together?

Our reception, like I said, was at Ben's house. The weather cooperated nicely and it was just a perfect day. My wedding colors were my favorite colors-navy blue and forest green-the colors I'd always wanted. Now, my mom, being a florist by trade, always told me that those weren't wedding colors....and always questioned what flowers I would use in my bouquet. Well, she wasn't there, so I got my way. My bouquet had white roses with ivy and tiny little delphiniums (I think?) which were actually purple flowers, but they were so close to navy blue it worked perfectly. It was beautiful! By the way, it is not the bouquet in the picture above, which was our photographer's. We had navy blue and forest green balloons all around as decorations. We also had rented a little gazebo and arch thing, and fences and tables and stuff and it turned out really nice.

For our honeymoon we went to Jackson Hole and Yellowstone. Ben's work paid for a few nights in a cool little cabin in Jackson. We loved it! We went on a river rafting trip while we were there and also got to see the most amazing 4th of July fireworks show. Then we headed over to my family's cabin in Island Park where we stayed the rest of the week. We visited all of Yellowstone National Park. Now, I'd been there a bajillion times before, but Ben had never been before, so it was really fun to visit things that were so cool for him to see. We had a great honeymoon!!

I always joke to Ben about all of the things I'll do differently when we got married again...but with money. In reality, I wouldn't really change it. It was our wedding....and it was perfect because we planned it and worked on it together, for the most part by ourselves. How many couples actually get to do that? We may not have had everything we wanted, but we had everything we needed...and most importantly we had each other....and we do for all time and eternity...along with our five little amazing littles. Awww....I love that man of mine. He's the bestest. I am so the luckiest.