Opus 376 - Day 18

My Wedding

Four months before I got married I was seriously wondering if I would ever get married. But I met Jason soon after that and as they say, "The rest is history." We originally planned to get married in October. I was taking conducting lessons as part of my graduate studies and when I went to my first lesson after I got engaged Dr. Blackinton asked my why we were waiting so long to get married. Um, because we have to plan a wedding (this was at the end of June/early July). When I saw Jason that evening I told him the story. We had a good laugh, then we said, "Hmmm, what if we did move the date up?"* Needless to say, we changed the date. The only sad thing about changing the date was that we had to reschedule the temple. We had the perfect wedding time for our October date - it was in the late morning. Late enough that we didn't have to get up REALLY early and early enough that we didn't need to feel like we had to cram everything in. When we called to change the date, the only time available was 7:00am. Ugh. It's where you get married, not the time, right? Besides, when the October date came around I was so glad that I wasn't worrying about wedding plans - I was so busy!

Planning the wedding went really smooth. Most of that is due to my mother-in-law and brother-in-law. They did soooo much to help! I wasn't too picky about how everything was going to look at the reception. I picked out my colors, etc., but other than that, it didn't really matter.

On the day of my wedding I got up REALLY early and drove to my sister-in-law's house where she did my hair while my friend Sarah helped me with my make-up. I was late getting to the temple. Oops. I'm never late. As is typical with most people, I don't remember a whole lot about the ceremony. I do remember exactly where Jason and I sat in the Celestial Room while we waited. I also remember that Sealer talked about a song. Sarah was awesome and typed it up for me.

Random: I wore Super Man tennis shoes (not in the temple though). I wanted to wear high heels, but couldn't imagine wearing those ALL day, so I decided to wear white tennis shoes instead. At the time, the shoes with really tall, chunky, soles were popular. I found a pair of white Super Man shoes and decided to go with those since my sister, Lissa, loves Super Man so much.

We had our luncheon at Los Hermanos in Lindon. Not your typical luncheon restaurant, but I love Los Hermanos!

The reception was held at the Chapel near Jason's parents' house. The decorations were beautiful (I think I used some from my brother and sister's weddings that were 2 months and 8 months prior to mine). My favorite part was seeing so many friends and family. I didn't have a typical bouquet toss. I HATED the bouquet toss when I was single - I always felt it was so demeaning. But Jason really wanted to have one, so we got the little girls together and did the toss with them.

Our Arizona reception was held in the same Church that my parents had their reception. It's a beautiful old chapel in Central Phoenix with real hardwood floors and nice white columns in the cultural hall. It was a great setting and a really special evening for me.

The best story that has to do with our wedding is actually about the drive home from our Arizona reception. We decided to spend a couple of nights in Las Vegas on our way back to Utah. We left Arizona right after Church and headed for Vegas. At the time, the only road to Vegas was a two lane highway until you got to I-40 just before Kingman (they've since made it wider and split it). When we were about 5-10 miles from I-40 we came to a complete halt in the middle of the desert. There had been a horrible accident and the road was closed. They had to land a helicopter and every thing. We were told that the road wouldn't be open until the morning. The only viable choice was to turn back and find a hotel in the nearest town (we could have driven to Flagstaff, then on to Kingman on I-40, but that would have taken all night). One problem: The nearest town was Wickenburg and it's WAY back - almost all the way to Phoenix (about an hour from my parents' house). After driving for about 2 hours, we finally arrived in Wickenburg.** The next morning, we left for Vegas again (this time leaving the beautiful potted plant from our reception in the hotel on accident - I hope the appreciated it!).

After spending about 24 hours in Vegas, we headed back to Utah in the early afternoon. Just as we got far enough outside of Las Vegas that we couldn't see the city any more, we came to a complete halt. Yep, another accident that closed the freeway. This time we didn't have to turn back, but we did have to wait for about 2 hours before the road was open again. We had a great chat with the family in front of us that was right in the middle of their move to Utah.

Once the accident was cleared, we were on our way again. When we arrived in Beaver, it was pretty late and we were too tired to drive any more. So we found a hotel for the night. Unfortunately, my first day back at school for faculty meetings was the next day so we had to get up really early to get to Payson on time. Jason dropped me off at school and picked me up later that day. Talk about dedication. I hadn't even been home from my Honeymoon yet and I still made it to the first meetings on time! :)


*Don't tell Dr. Blackinton this story! He already thinks he has too much power over people :)

**Which was funny because when my Mom was little they would always stop in Wickenburg on their way to California. She was scared to death to get out the car in "Wickedburg." She thought everyone there must be evil since the town was "Wickedburg" and she couldn't believe that her parents would dare to take her there and then try to get her out of the car!