Our Wedding

Our Wedding

By Lexi Devenport

Our Wedding

By Lexi Devenport

Copyright 2012 by Lexi Devenport. All right reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or trasmitted in any form by any means (electron, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise) without prior permission of the publisher, except as provided and kept by the United States of America copyright law.

Cover design by Lexi Devenport

Our Wedding

The Wedding Day

Engagement

Dating: How I Met Erik

Introduction

What’s Inside...

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Introduction T

his is my personal version of the relationship I have had with my husband, Erik Devenport: how we met, what we did while we were dating, our engagement, and the wedding. Parts of it were taken from my blog, which explains some of its cheesiness, others were taken from my letters to my brother, Jameson, who is on a mission, and others were written on the spot as I have worked on creating this book. I have

created it as a way to remember the fun times that we have had together, as well as a journal for our children to come. All the pictures in this book were taken from my wedding day as a way to show the end result of all our activities together. Despite my tenchinilogical deficies that has made some parts of this book a pain to put together, I have loved creating it. Have fun reading my version of our story together.

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Our Wedding

Dating: How I Met Erik we were together enough that knew each other better than other people in the ward from the very beginning.

Apparently, he began by thinking I was nice enough, but after he stalked me on Facebook and found out that I was “still a teenager” there was absolutely NO way it could work out between us. His sister had already tried to get him to date her nineteen–year–old roommates, and he had said “no way!” But I must have been irresistible, because he decided to ask me on a date anyway.

I remember he came over and talked to me after the hike and told me he was impressed that Julia and I hadn’t gotten sunburned like everyone else. I didn’t tell him that I was wearing more than enough make–up in order to cover up my flaming face. The next time I saw Erik, I was carrying a load of groceries into the apartment. He asked if I was getting my groceries for the semester, and in my head I was like: “Actually, these are my groceries for the week…” But I didn’t tell him that either. I just smiled and said yes too embarrassed to explain that this was my typical amount of food Anyway, it was about that time that I began to feel this small speck of interest in Erik. He was tall and so obviously interested that even the most ignorant child could tell understand the signs of his violent love for me! I can tell when guys like me and he was definitely a potential option. And I couldn’t help but be flattered when Erik and his roommate, Chris, dropped by on Saturday to ask Julia and me if we wanted to go play tennis with them. I remember Julia opening the door and listening into the conversation before bounding towards the door at the sound of tennis. I had always wanted to learn how to play tennis!

out for ice cream after we played racquetball and I learned a lot of awesome things about him. Like he didn’t really watch TV growing up, his family is musically talented and loves going to plays, and he was super smart (And still is)! I know I wrote a billion things about how infatuated I was with him in my journal too... :)I decided that he must have really, really liked me because even though I won every single game, he still asked me on another date a week later.

went out to eat a lot! Sounds lame, I know. But growing up we seriously never went out to eat, and I hardly ever went with my friends because I considered it too expensive. But, of course, when you’re dating, money doesn’t matter. So, Erik took me out a lot. Some of the restaurants that I went to for the first time were: Café Rio, Olive Garden, The Pizza Factory, Los Banditos, El Restaurante Del Salvador (Erik went on a mission to El Salvador), and Los Hermanos.

I guess he won my heart one Sunday when he texted me, asking if I wanted to go on a walk with him. I said yes and we went walking down the ghetto area of Provo. But it was okay; I wasn’t going to say anything about it. That was the day when he first held my hand and put his arm around my waist. Whose heart wouldn’t melt?

I specifically remember when he took me out to El Restaurante Del Salvador. He was initially a little worried about taking me there because it was a little bit “ghetto” and he had taken his sisters there once and they weren’t crazy about it. But I knew how much he liked it, so I told him we should go anyway. When we got there, it was true that it was a bit ghetto, but as we waited for our food, Erik showed me all the cities he went to on the map inside the restaurant and told me more about his mission.

He also explained to me what we were getting which were Pupusas! I had never heard of them before: they are kind of like thick tortillas with beans, meat and cheese stuffed inside the middle and fried. You then top it with pickled cabbage and a thin, liquidy salsa. The whole restaurant smelled delicious and when they served them, they were still hot right off the skillet. They were fabulous! There was so much cheese that it

Well, we officially started dating during general conference weekend and it went up hill from there. life is different when you’re dating. Suddenly you have a hard time doing homework and plenty of time to have fun. Erik and I played racquetball, tennis, went out to new restaurants, watched movies, studied together in the library, and made dinner a lot. He even took my to a haunted maze for my very first time. I have to say, though, one of the most fun things about dating Erik is that we

I guess it went up hill from there. I remember catching up with him one day so that I could walk to school with him and we decided to play racquetball together. He asked me if we could play on Saturday and I said that that sounded great. I have to admit that I was waiting for him to ask for my number, but he didn’t and I wasn’t about to just give it to him.

I

met my husband at ward prayer. My cousins always call it “ward stare” because to them it’s utterly pointless, but I disagree. If I met my husband at ward prayer, ward prayer is the best thing on earth, and I love it. Now, I had decided that I was going to be social that year and so I began talking to every guy ( I admit I wasn’t quite as interested in getting to know the girls) that I came in contact with, and I specifically remember turning around and introducing myself to Erik and some other guy.

We talked for a bit and I noted in my head that he had read “A Tale of Two Cities” over the summer. I love Dickens.

Well, that was all I saw of Erik until we happened to climb Mount Timpanogos together for a ward activity. There weren’t a whole lot of people who went, so even though I didn’t talk to him as much as I should have,

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A couple days before Saturday, there was a knock on the door and Julia came into my room to tell me that Erik was there to see me! Wow, he must have really liked me or something because when I came to the door, he just asked me how I was doing and told me that he had forgotten to get my number when we had walked to campus! Oh my goodness! He came over to my apartment JUST to get my number. I was so flattered, and chatted endlessly about my Spanish class which was super awkward when he actually said something in Spanish and I really had no idea what he was saying. I have the tendency of embarrassing myself around people like Erik. But he didn’t seem to mind because we had a great time at racquetball.

I beat Erik. Poor guy. I am just not merciful enough to let anyone beat me, even if I DO like them a little bit. But I think it was successful any way, because he asked me if I wanted to go get ice cream with him afterwards, and we had fun choosing ice cream flavors, getting humungous ice cream cones, and getting to know each other. Anyway, he asked me

Both of our entire families at the Jodan River Temple Page 3

Our Wedding almost came oozing out of the thick tortilla and the cabbage and gave it a spicy, scrumptious flavor. I think the only downside about them were that they were so heavy and so full of dense ingredients that on my third Pupusa, I started feeling a little bit sick form eating so much. They didn’t look that big, but they were! I really liked them anyway, though, and we’ve gone a couple times since then. What a great cultural experience! I love that kind of food. I guess I’ll have to tell you another dating experience with Erik. I might as well embarrass myself at least a couple of times.

Let me start out by describing my fear of creepy, gory, disturbing images.

Oh, and also? I should probably mention I cannot abide scary music either.

I’m pretty sure my entire family has spent more time screaming over “scary” movies than the average normal family. Alfred Hitchock for example, freaked the livin’ daylights out of me and all my younger siblings.

We’d run out of the room as soon as the “villain” came out with a gun, or whenever the culprit screamed. To us, Alfred Hitchock was the worst horror movie. But it wasn’t only scary movies, I remember sleeping at the side of my parent’s bed and freaking out over the flowers on my parent’s mattress. They looked like little monster/slug looking creatures...

And I’d stare at them forever trying not to freak myself out.

By now, you might think that I would have gotten over those childish “ways” and been able to stand scary music and dark rooms, but I really haven’t... For example, one night, Julia, Stasia, and I were walking home from campus one night, when a car zoomed past as a girl in the car screamed bloody murder, nearly scaring the wits out of us. I seriously have never heard such a blood–curdling scream in my life. Freaked out, I started to tell Stasia and Julia about a awful, creepy experience I had while babysitting when suddenly the SAME car came back at us and began screaming wildly again! That was too much; Stasia, Julia, and I started scampering for the apartment in wild fright, probably to the satisfaction to the screaming lady in the car. But it was SO scary! We decided to try to get home from campus before dark after that. Or at least try to.

Do you get the point? I don’t like scary things (Ironic that Erik is going to take me on a scary date tonight... I am only freaking myself out by writing this...) But when Erik and I first started dating, he didn’t realize this. I tried to tell him vaguely that I have fainted several times in my life, and don’t react well to blood, but it obviously didn’t effect him strongly enough, because he decided we should go to a haunted house with all of our friends during Halloween. Even though I know he was a little bit concerned for me, I still relented and said I would go with them.

I cannot say that it was a mistake, but it probably was one of the most horrifying things that I have ever experienced. Proof that I am cannot handle scary things. We began by going into a monster insides and nearly getting sabotaged by bloody Frankenstein people as the lights turned on and off. On and off. Scary music began to grow louder and louder as bloody people suddenly appeared in our way and as the insides of the monster “growled” hungrily. I could feel myself beginning to panic and I am pretty sure I nearly cut out the circulation in Erik’s arm. I have no doubt that my heart was beating a million times a second, and it definitely traumatized me enough that I began to be afraid of going into any more monsters or haunted mazes. The shock of the monsters insides had shocked me sufficiently to where I decided it was best to be going back to our apartments and watch happy–go– lucky movies and eat ice cream... in a brightly lit room... I didn’t need to experience any more Frankenstein–looking people or flashing lights.

But the worst was yet to come! The haunted maze was just plain ol’ disturbing. We began by walking into a pitch black box with chopped off heads that hung from the ceiling and flashing red lights. The music alone was enough to make my blood curdle. We walked across a violently shaking bridge with curling smoke that slowly “creeped” upward ‘ till it enveloped the bridge. I guess the worst part was the fact that the rooms were very small and you felt trapped in with all the creepy clowns and zombies. I really felt sick and panicky for the first 15 minutes before I calmed down enough and got used to everything. And thankfully I had Erik’s arm that hadn’t fallen off yet from my squeezing, and I just looked down half the time so that I couldn’t see all the horrific people stalking us around the maize.

I’m afraid that I really am not good at describing the horrific events, but they were horrific and I did have a difficult time for the first hour or so.

But afterwards I actually began to enjoy myself. The only thing is that I can’t tell Erik or else he might take me there again next year ;) I also remember little things about him that made me laugh. As far as food goes, he really can’t make anything except burritos, spaghetti, and French toast. And as far finding ingredients for the food, he knows even less: I had decided that I would make pizza for everyone one night. I don’t remember if there was any particular reason for it except that we love pizza and wanted to eat some. So, I asked Erik if he would make a quick run to the grocery store to get me pepperoni, salami, and a couple other key ingredients. I remember he asked me what salami looked like, so I just told him that it looked like pepperoni except larger. He called me again while he was at the store telling me he had salami but wanted to check again. Was it bigger than pepperoni? I told him that yes, it was nearly exactly like pepperoni except that it was bigger and usually had a slightly lighter color to it. He told me he had it, so I didn’t think anything more of it ‘till he came home. As I rummaged through the grocery bag, I began taking everything out. Pepperoni, olives, shredded cheese, bologna... Wait. Bologna? “Erik! Why did you get bologna?” He looked at me confused. “No, it’s salami! Look at the package! It says salami!” I couldn’t help but laugh. It was true that the package did say it was salami, but it couldn’t have been more obvious that it was definitely bologna, and I wasn’t about to put it on my pizza. They probably just put the title “Salami” to trick inexperienced food shoppers like Erik. But I patted Erik on the back, because I know he tried, poor guy.

We had pizza with just pepperoni that night; and it was still delicious.

Anyways, those were just a coupled of fun stories that I remember from

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Our Wedding our dating days. Erik and I have had a lot of fun during those seven months. We went and roasted s’mores over a campfire, stumbled rather than ice skated, saw the Christmas tabernacle choir concert, had mud fights, made delicious food and... Sometimes we’ve liked to do boring things like watch movies.

I think the most important thing about our dating experience, though, is that we got to know each other and love each other. I knew his strengths

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and his weaknesses enough that I knew he was an eligible match for me.

I knew that he was late for everything, and he knew I became way too stressed about everything. I knew that he was probably going to die of a heart attack from eating too much dessert all the time, and he knew that I would probably be the one killing him from cooking and baking too much. I think that our dating days were important, and gave us a good idea of what marriage was going to look like. And so far, it definitely has helped us as an almost–three–month–married couple.

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Our Engagement

Our Wedding

way to Lehi talking about nothing in particular where he took me to a Japanese steakhouse restaurant. Looking back, I can’t help but think how sweet that was of him to take me there. I know that his number one food is Mexican and runner up: Italian. Probably the next is American and after that Japanese, Thai, and Chinese fall into the “It’s okay, but I would rather have Mexican” category. But he also knows that I love Oriental food and that I’ve grown up not only eating it, but cooking almost to the point of obsession (that was before I went to college and hardly had time to make a PB&J sandwich). Whenever I suggested going somewhere other than Mexican, Italian, or American, he usually said something like “that sounds good: how about we go to Cafe Rio (or Papa Johns, El Salvador Restaurant, or Taco Bell). But tonight was different! He was taking me to a restaurant where he knew I would especially enjoy.

And I have to say; we really did enjoy ourselves thoroughly. In Japanese steakhouses, they cook the food right in front of you, doing lots of tricks and making clever comments. The cook who performed for us was obviously an inactive member because he told a bunch of questionable jokes but then mention that he had served for President Eyring and was trying not to “sin.” Anyway, the food was fabulous! I ate so much and was so satisfied that I couldn’t think of any reason why Erik wouldn’t propose!

That’s how good it was.

Erik and I decided to climb the Y after our dinner, so around 9:00 pm we made the trek up Y Mountain. I remember that it was a particularly easy climb up and we observed that it was probably because we’ve been exercising a lot this summer; we were just in such great shape! The only disappointing part about our assent to the top is the fact that Erik mentioned that we should have brought Chris and Megan with us. Chris and Megan?! Are you serious Erik? I could hardly contain my disappointment. As much as I love Megan and Chris, I had originally been convinced that he was going to propose! But with Chris and Megan in the picture, how was he possibly thinking of proposing to me... I nearly crumbled to the ground in a swoon. Just kidding. But he really did trick me into thinking that maybe he wasn’t going to propose after all.

Anyway, on our triumphant entrance to the top, Erik sat me down on the top and we began to talk. We talked about the constellations that we learned about on our Valentine’s date in February and about Provo and all the lights. We looked for all the temples in view (I think we could see three), and kept each other warm. At first Erik complained about all the people who were on the Y, but as we kept talking, people started drifting back down to the bottom of the Y and we were all by ourselves, romantically looking over Provo.

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ell, I don’t think this book would be complete without explaining to you how I got engaged. It was probably not the most dramatic, romantic proposal on earth; and yet, in my mind, it was so like Erik and so perfect for me that I loved it anyway.

Let’s face it; I knew he was going to propose. I knew he was going to propose probably a month and a half before he proposed! And so if I knew he was going to propose, how was he going to propose? Well, this was his proposal: he’d just take me to fun places that week so that I couldn’t tell which day he was going to pop the question. That’s a good way to propose, right?

Well, after a series of hikes, restaurants, movie nights, and more hikes

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(we like hiking), the day finally came.

It all started as we were going on our break Friday afternoon. He told me that he wanted me to get off of work at five and fix myself up because he was taking me somewhere awesome. Of course the first thing that popped into my head was “is he going to propose,” but I just couldn’t decide because he HAD told me he was purposefully taking me to lots of cool places to throw me off. So I wasn’t sure.

I remember curling my hair and putting on extra make–up before he came to my apartment in a blue BYU shirt that I had given to him for his birthday. He looked handsome, I must say. But then again, he always looks handsome in the clothes I pick out for him! We drove all the

Okay. So first I have to tell you about my friend, Kelly. I love her to death, but I also disapprove of her boyfriend. One day, Kelly was telling me how her boyfriend was going to propose to her except that he forgot to get a ring pop at the grocery store, so he wasn’t going to propose.

What?! A ring pop?!! I was flabbergasted. In fact, I was so flabbergasted that I ranted and raved about it to Erik, telling him how appalled I was that Kelly’s boyfriend would dare give her such a cheap, unromantic, not–very–tasty ring! You can’t ever propose to me with a ring pop, I told Erik. Now wait a second; don’t get me wrong! I know that tons of people have proposed with ring pops because they don’t have a ring yet, but I just didn’t want one. A rig pop?! At least give me a chocolate pop for goodness sakes!

him (we had kind of picked a ring already), he was going to give me something else. So he pulls out a brown box, and inside is.... What?! A ring pop! Erik!! You cannot propose to me with a ring pop! (That’s what I told him). But I admit I just couldn’t stop from laughing; the whole thing was just so hilarious. The ring pop was squashed in the little box, unwrapped, with brown paper surrounding it. I tried it on, smiling, and it wiggled furiously around me finger; it didn’t want to stay on it was so big! We’re not really engaged are we, Erik? After all, I did tell him that I didn’t want to be proposed to with a ring pop. He laughed, taking in my happy confusion. SO like Erik to give me a ring pop. A ring pop?! A ring pop for goodness sakes! I was determined that we were not engaged yet, and told him between my bursts of laughter. But then he did exactly what I had wanted all evening. He began to get on his knees. He actually had something else for me! Then he took out a black, velvet box and asked me to marry him. He told me that he didn’t want anyone to be his wife except me, and that he would try his best to make me happy.

Simple, but exactly like him. And perfect for me. After we hugged and he gave me a big kiss, I told him first that I loved him and then that HE had to be the one to put it on my finger! He didn’t know that, but quickly accommodated me. The ring fit (snugly), and I was happy.

And so that’s my story. But of course we still had to wait two months until the actual wedding day. Most of it was spent working at Independent Study, wishing that the summer were over so that we could GET MARRIED ALREADY! I don’t think I’ve ever wanted the summer to go by quickly like I did last summer.

Working at Independent Study was extremely nice, however, because I had plenty of down time to work on the wedding. My mom was busy planning the Washington reception, so I was doing most of the Utah one. I probably called my mom at least twice a day, though, asking about this or that. We created, addressed, and mailed all the invitations, created desserts lists, scheduled the temple, worked out tuxedo and bridesmaid dresses, altered my dress, and the list goes on.

I remember one particular day when Erik and I spent eight hours making lemon cookies and German chocolate cake for the wedding. We had decided to make all of the desserts ourselves, and so we had gone to my Aunt Teresa’s to begin baking. I know very well that Erik is always willing to help me out, but I was thrilled that he helped me for such a long amount of time and didn’t even complain that it took so long. After all that baking, Erik and I really didn’t want to see any more German chocolate cake and smell lemon for quite a while. Don’t worry though; we got over it!

I feel very fortunate because we had a lot of people who gladly helped us, and gave a lot of time and effort to make my day amazing. For example, my dad’s boss let us use his “reception center” in his back yard for a reception area, which I was thrilled about because I had always wanted an outdoors wedding. Megan, one of Stasia’s good friends didn’t need her wedding dress anymore and so she let me use and alter it to fit my size. My Aunt Cody let us borrow her colored lanterns to hang on all the lights that were strung across the patio. Kristi spent time and effort helping make desserts and plan my bridal shower. My Aunt Teresa helped out so much with desserts and decorations. Everyone’s generosity helped me prepare a fabulous wedding.

So, now that that story has been told, I will go back to the Y Mountain.

Erik and I were romantically sitting there (haha) when he suddenly began telling me that since the ring was taking a long time to get to Page 9

Our Wedding Day

Our Wedding

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ell, to start off I got sick about four days before the wedding. I was going to work the week of the wedding, but I started getting a headache and a sore throat on Tuesday at my bridal shower, and by the next day, I didn’t want to go to work, so I spent the day packing and napping. I then got a fever the next day and just stayed in bed completely, getting up only to eat a little bit and get a few necessary things with Mom for the wedding. By Friday, I felt a lot better, but Mom made me stay in bed most of the day. Looking back, I almost think it was a good thing, because I didn’t know what was going on in the wedding prep department, so it probably eliminated a lot of stress. I’m just glad I wasn’t sick on Saturday too.

The bridal shower was very fun, despite the fact that I wasn’t feeling well. I was so happy that so many people came! Erik’s family, the Halls, people from my singles ward, and Aunt Joy and Faith were there. Erik’s family is so amazing! Their presents were very thoughtful; they are very personable people. Erik’s mom gave me an afghan blanket that she made herself, and his Aunt Marcia gave me a quilted blanket that she made as well. Kristi made the entire so much fun with all her games, awesome decorations, and lots of cheesecake. Lisa and Julia know me too well; they gave me a cookie cool rack and a pizza pan. I felt like I got more presents at my bridal shower than I had in three Christmas’s combined, and yet we got three times more from our reception!

On Wednesday I went to take my endowments out. I don’t know if Mom has told you about this already, but when we went to the store to get my temple dress, we figured out that Mom’s temple recommend was expired! So, the lady there practically freaked out more than Mom did (surprisingly), and called the recorders at the temple. The lady was so frazzled about Mom’s recommend that she forgot to get half of my stuff. Anyway, the recorders called Mom back and told her they were going to call the Bishop and Stake President in WA and everything would be ready by that night. And sure enough! When Mom got to the temple, there was a special slip there that let her in. I’m afraid I was still pretty sick when we went to get them taken out, but it was an amazing experience anyway.

Can I just say that everyone is so beautiful in the temple? I loved it. :) Papi couldn’t come since he was still working, but Mom, Erik, and Erik’s parents came. I took them out in the Provo temple.

Thursday I moved completely out of the Villa, and moved everything to Aunt Teresa’s house. She was such a lifesaver! She let us use her kitchen to make dessert, took me to Costco, made fruit tarts for us, let me use her room when I was sick before the wedding, and store all my stuff while we were on our honeymoon. She even gave us presents for both the bridal shower and the reception.

She is amazing :) Friday I spent most of the day at Aunt Teresa’s to recover completely. I also sent Erik on all the errands that I was going to go on myself before I got sick. He is so helpful! Does everything for me. I also moved my stuff to the Legacy House to make it easier on Saturday.

The BIG DAY! It was a little bit crazy that morning because my hair wasn’t working properly. I was originally going to do something really fancy in my hair, but since I got sick on the days that we were going to practice, I put in in a simply low hairstyle with white flowers in it. I actually do my hair like that all the time at work, but of course it just wasn’t working that morning! So, we ended up leaving for the temple 20 minutes later than we had planned, and I got all flustered about it, but in the end it really wasn’t a big deal. The Jordan River temple was pretty busy, but I really didn’t mind that much. We still took our time.

So many people were at the sealing! It really was a wonderful experience. I have to say though; I didn’t realize that the sealing was so short! The entire ceremony was only about 10 minutes long!

Short and sweet. Erik and I got his ring online and it ended up being a little bit too small, and it took me forever to get it on when we exchanged ring, which was kind of hilarious. There I was in the sealing room, trying to smash a ring on his finger. I felt like Cinderella’s sister trying to put on the “missing shoe.” We got him a bigger ring after the wedding.

I’m afraid Erik and I are very awkward when it comes to coming out of the temple and knowing what to do. We even forgot to kiss when we walked out! Who does that?! Oh well. But I was very pleased because the flowers were beautiful and the bridesmaids looked amazing in their blue dresses. Papi seemed a little bit stressed when he was taking pictures probably because he hasn’t done a wedding in a long time, but I think the pictures ended up great. It was extremely bright and hot outside, my legs were seriously dripping with sweat under all the skirt I had. We had a pretty big turnout since both our families are pretty big, yet the pictures didn’t even take that long! Papi Page 11

Our Wedding was pretty much finished at 1:10 and the luncheon didn’t start ‘till 2:00, so we just tried taking random pictures until it was time to leave. :) We got to the luncheon late (ironic since we finished pictures so early), but it didn’t really matter because they caterers couldn’t find the building and were 45 minutes late! We didn’t start eating until about 2:30.

Maybe I especially loved it because I was hungry and could finally take a breather. By then, Erik and I were, of course, starving. We had been on our feet all morning and it was pretty nice to finally sit down.

By the way, Erik looked smashing! When we went to a tux rental, I didn’t really find anything that I wanted for him. So we ended up having him wear a white vest and tie, and he had a light purple flower on his suit. He looked fabulous! Absolutely darling! The groomsmen wore black vests and yellow ties.

The reception area was beautiful! Grandka grew zinnias and sunflowers for the centerpieces on the tables, and Mom put them in blue tinted canning jars and teal ribbon. Aunt Cody gave us her paper balloon lanterns from her and Uncle Bruce’s wedding, which really made the place look amazing. Aunt Teresa also had yellow squares that we put around the canning jars. It got dark pretty quickly which was also nice because we turned on the lights and it look fabulous.

After talking to lots of people and taking a break to eat some of the treats (we just couldn’t miss out on them!), we finally got around to cutting the cake. I had always wanted to shove cake into my husband’s face when we cut the cake, and guess what?! I did! Erik shoved a humungous piece of cake in my mouth and I just barely smeared more cake on his face before he caught me. What fun! I always, always wanted to do that... It is during times like that when my competitiveness always kicks in.

I thought we’d be able to rest a little bit before the reception, but that didn’t happen either. My hair was falling out a little bit, so I re–did that, fixed myself up and by then it was time for the bridal party pictures. I thought a lot of them were fun and creative.

Kelly caught my flowers. I feel like I did pretty well on gauging how far to throw them. And no dance. Erik really didn’t want to, and I never had my heart set on having one, so we just skipped it.

Finally! The reception! I was a little bit anxious because we didn’t finish the bridal party pictures until a bit late, so people were already coming. By the time we started a line, almost everyone was already there!

But maybe that was a good thing, because we didn’t have to stand for too long. You would be surprised at the amount of people who were there from Washington. The entire Ripley family came, Sis. Allen and King, Sis. Newlun, and… Okay, maybe that was it. It felt like it was a lot though. Bruce and Cody also came down from California. Anyway, everyone complains about lines, but I actually had a good time talking to people especially since I know I wouldn’t have talked to them if we didn’t have one.

By then the reception was pretty much over! We just talked to a few more people, and snatched ourselves some more dessert. We also had to take pictures with Mom and Papi since we hadn’t gotten those yet. And of course during all this time, the Halls were covering our car with just about everything they could think of! Whipped cream, marshmallows, writing paint, balloons... The entire inside of the car was filled to the brim with balloons. Tessa also kissed a piece of paper with her red lipstick and they stuck that on the car too. When we finally started walking to the car, they started spraying us with that silly string can things. Stasia manages to get pretty good pictures of us getting sprayed at.

And then...

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Our Wedding

We drove off!

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