The Wedding Details

I can't believe how fast time has gone.  Keith and I have already been married for nine months, but it seems like just yesterday we were getting hitched.  I was recently putting together our wedding album and began thinking about all of the little things and detailed I failed to mention when I posted about the wedding months ago.  My thoughts made me want to post about the wedding again, so I am.  Only this time I am going with a more in-depth approach.

The Ceremony

After always dreaming of getting married in the Salt Lake Temple, Keith and I choose the Mount Timpanogos Temple, due to it being a mid point for my family and his (those living in Utah, that is).  In the end, I am so glad that is where we decided to be married.  We were planning on having the sealer on duty marry us, but as Keith was gathering addresses, he found out that his mission president was a sealer there.  We quickly asked him to do the honors, and he was free and willing.  The day became that much more special because of Keith's connection with President Hill.  Yes, the temple at the time was going through some exterior redecorating, but that just made our pictures a little more unique.

The Day

We were married on a Friday afternoon.  The ceremony was at 4:00, which left us as the second to last marriage of the day.  This was wonderful because not only did I basically have the bride's room to myself, it made taking pictures easy because we weren't bumping into other groups.  We were not rushed at all.  We choose to have it this late in the day because we had decided not to have a reception.  We wanted our guests to be able to go from ceremony to pictures to dinner without too much lag time.  The day itself was perfect.  Even though it was mid-August it wasn't as hot as it could have been, the sky was blue and clear, and a little cool breeze was blowing.  The afternoon sunshine made pictures perfect with hazy light and bright colors.

My Dress

Funny bit about my dress--for three nights after I bought it, I had nightmares that I had picked the wrong one.  It had come down to two dresses: the second dress and the last dress that I had tried on.  I liked the last dress because it was simple.  I liked the second dress because when I put it on everyone (my mom, my sister, and the sales girl) said "Wow".  I choose dress number two, the more traditional option, and it was anything but simple.  It was lacy and flowery and sparkly, basically everything I didn't want in a dress.  But after those three terrifying nights, I began to love my dress for everything that I at first was worried about.  I loved the lace and the sparkle and the flounce.  It was definitely the best choice.  And it made me feel beautiful, just as it was supposed to.

My Shoes

I bought these beauties while I was a missionary in Taiwan.  At the time, I was living with my oft mentioned friend, Erin, in Taoyuan.  For some reason, we were obsessed with finding shoes to fit our big American feet.  When I saw these ones, and they were my size, I just had to buy them.  They were sparkly, and red, and sequined, and awesome.  I think I always had the idea in the back of my mind that I was going to wear these on my wedding day.  And they were perfect, especially because they are a nod to my short life in Asia.  In Chinese and other Asian cultures, red is the color of weddings, symbolizing joy and good fortune.  So, with my white and Western wedding dress, my shoes are a token to Eastern tradition.  (And I was able to find a perfectly matching tie for Keith.)

My Bouquet

I ended up letting my niece take my bouquet home, so I don't have a great memory of it, but I loved it.  It was the right size and the right color and perfect.  I was almost tempted to buy the flowers from the florist and put the bouquet together myself to save money, but then I decided to forget the few extra dollars, save myself some stress, and have a professional do it.  It turned out exactly as I'd hoped for.  I'm glad I went with my sister's advice to stick to a white bouquet with a little bit of color.  I think the pinky/purple flowers are astilbes, and the white flowers included chrysanthemums, ranunculus', and hydrangeas.

The Dinner

After the ceremony and pictures, guests made a short drive to the Blue Lemon.  There we cut the cake (made by the Blue Lemon), and had dinner.  Dinner was delicious!  We had a buffet spread that included Caesar salad, fresh fruit salad, chicken roulade with risotto, flat iron grilled steak with fingerling potatoes, with cupcakes and wedding cake for dessert.  I would definitely recommend the Blue Lemon to anyone for a wedding dinner.  They took care of everything and all I had to do was show up and eat.

Overall

Overall, it was a perfect day.  I know every one says that about their own wedding, but it is true.  It was a practically stress-free day and I didn't worry about anything going wrong.  The only hiccups we had were when I spilled about 100 bobby pins all over the temple lobby, how my hair accessory refused to stay put, and the fact that our wedding cake was still a bit frozen when we tried to cut it.  But those were all minor things and are now small memories that made the day real.  Everything else was wonderful and perfect and exactly as it should have been.