THE Day

Friday the 13th (dun dun dun)

A day that many people dread and that has spooky connotations was one of the BEST days EVER!

I know that some people may think that their wedding day was pretty cool, but I hate to break it to them--I had the best wedding of all time! Everything went perfectly, and I wish I could go back and do it again and again (just for fun)!

(side note: Since I am a chatty person, I knew this post would by nature be SUPER long. So instead of including a bunch of photos in the body of this post, I added them as links. Just click on the purple or grey underlined words and a photo link will open! Also, there are more wedding pictures posted as a page on the bottom right column)

The day began at 6:30 am. I had gotten a surprising amount of sleep, probably a solid four or five hours at least. My awesome sister Devynne had even let me sleep in her bed while she was whipping buttercream into the late hours of the night (she is the best). The first plan of attack in the morning was my hair. Now, I'm not sure if any of you have ever seen my hair before, but it is the epitome of straight hair. And of course I wanted to curl it for the wedding. I had prepared my hair for The Day by not washing it for the five days prior. I know that probably sounds disgusting (okay it IS a little disgusting), but when I had woken up that morning, the "natural oils" of my hair had caused it to begin to give it a little wave on the ends, so I was pretty motivated when I moved in with the curling iron and hairspray. Owen was so kind to bring me some toast and a delicious peach, so I even got some breakfast! More hair curling and makeup applying ensued, and we added a sideways French braid (thankfully my mother is a french braiding queen) and a floral headband to complete the look. Feeling fairly satisfied with my appearance, I got into my "traveling" dress and we headed to the temple! Owen drove because that was the least stressful arrangement for all of us, and we lucked out with not TOO much traffic. It was a beautiful morning, and we all managed to get there in one piece and only 10 minutes late--not too bad. We had a couple of paperwork issues once we got into the temple-apparently Owen's former bishop had somehow accidentally put Owen's roommate's name, Lucas Handy, on his recommend instead of his! So according to the church system, I was almost about to become Chelsey Handy--oops! Fortunately we got everything straightened out; Owen even showed them his Eagle Scout card as proof of his legitimacy haha.

Then we proceeded with the temple ceremony. It was, in a word, awesome. It was wonderful to have so many people there to support us, and our sealer was pretty great. He was a little intimidating though! He asked us some hard questions, but I guess we passed because we're married now! :) Then it was time to get ready for pictures. I had to laugh a little to myself at the other brides who were wearing 50 pound dresses with a four foot radius--I loooooved how light and comfortable my dress was. A little more curling iron action and some lip gloss, and then we headed out! We had some fun taking pictures--my bridesmaids looked AWESOME! So cute. I was so glad that I was able to get pictures with my dad and with my great-grandma Marge, and Sister Norton and my aunt did a FANTASTIC job taking pictures! There are so many good ones to choose from, I was so grateful to them for helping me document this awesome day. Towards the end of our photo session, it was already starting to get a little hot--of course it was 50 degrees and freezing every morning at the pool this summer, and the one day I wanted a little cooler weather, the high was 93 degrees, but oh well. We changed and then headed to the reception site to start decorating!

My favorite part of the wedding is that we did a LOT of it ourselves. DIY to the max. I did my own hair and makeup, we bought my dress online without even trying it on first, Devynne made my delicious cake, we made the invitations and took the engagement photos, we set up all of the decorations (even made some of the decorations...gotta love those tissue balls and signs!), set up our own photo booth, and sooo much more that I can't even remember right now. Being involved with all of these steps made that day so much more meaningful and special to me, even if it made me and my family a little crazy during the summer :)

My two favorite parts about the decorations were probably the flowers and the candy bar. I had no idea that dahlias came in so many different varieties, shades, shapes, colors, and sizes. They were so bright and fun, I just couldn't stop admiring them! And then the candy bar was also a work of art. We had a little vision and provided the candy, but our dear friend Jan Farr really brought it up to the next level. Since we didn't have a real open bar at the wedding, we substituted it with this Way cute alternative! Devynne even made a little candy souvenir box for me and Owen to go with our dinner (thank you Beaches for the BEST FOOD EVER!), so we got to enjoy it as well on our drive from the reception.

After setting up and grabbing some delicious lunch, Owen and I left and took a little break while people started arriving for the reception. This was a good idea.

We came back to the reception site around 6:15 and got the party started! It was so great to see everyone--family members, teachers and friends from high school, people from the ward and Dad's work, old friends from when I lived in Oregon, and so many more. I'm so glad that we were able to avoid the awkward/boring tradition of a receiving line and still get around to seeing everyone at the reception. We snagged an idea from my friend Aubrey's wedding and played this pretty hilarious game to entertain everyone and let them get to know us a little better :)

We did all the normal traditional wedding reception things--the first dance ("Two is Better than One" by Boys Like Girls feat. Taylor Swift--we thought it was a good combination of our musical preferences), the father-daughter dance (the old-guaranteed-to-make-you-cry-stand-by "Butterfly Kisses," and it sure did it's job well), the cake cutting, the bouquet toss, and the dramatic exit (complete with sparklers!) We also had a bridal party line dance, potentially borrowed from a recent stake conference, which was fairly awesome.

I admit that right now, most of the day is still kind of a blur. An awesome, perfect, and all-that-I-could-ask-for blur. It was a day filled with family, friends, fun, and it was wonderful to see everyone coming together to celebrate our marriage. I could never begin to thank everyone enough for all of the help and hours of service they gave to our wedding, and I could never express how much it meant to me and Owen on that memorable day, Friday the 13th.