ring ceremony

In order to accommodate our friends and family who were not able to make it to the temple ceremony in Houston, we drove back to Austin for a ring ceremony where we exchanged our wedding bands at Mercury Hall that evening.
Pause.  Rewind 7.5 months.  When I called my mom within an hour of being engaged, she asked me what kind of a "style" or "vibe" I wanted for the wedding.  I think I said something about wanting an antique feel but something that still had personality.  Not vague at all, right?  Maybe my memory is all wrong (and with all the things I forgot between my engagement and the wedding, I wouldn't be surprised), but I believe my mother called me the next day to tell me she had found the perfect venue for the reception.  When she sent me the pictures, I was amazed at how well my mom knows me.

Mercury Hall, the building, was built in 1904 in Mercury, Texas, and was moved to its current location minutes from downtown Austin in 1997.  It has gorgeous stained glass windows, beautiful wood floors, and is landscaped with massive oak trees, one of my favorite things about Austin.  It was perfect.
Back to D-Day.  My family was split into two separate cars, one with me, Matt, and two of my college roommates, and the other car with the rest of my family.  My family had to stop at my house on the way to Mercury Hall in order to retrieve things we (okay, I) had forgotten (namely makeup, flowers, jewelry, undergarments, veil... the list goes on).  Though I had a lot of fun driving back with my new husband and best friends, listening to Akon and playing Horse, one rule I would tell a bride is to never be separated from your mother on your wedding day.  The theme for the week was Austin traffic, and my family got stuck in it on their way to the venue, while I struggled to keep it together.  Oh, and somehow I also thought it would be a good idea to put my wedding dress in the car I wasn't driving in.  Not a good idea.  Moral of the story, never be separated from your mother or your wedding dress.
Once my family finally arrived with my dress and other essentials, I finally calmed down.  It was so fun seeing dear friends and family as they peeked in the bridal room where I was getting ready with my best friends, and it was an especially sweet moment as I saw Matt out of the corner of my eye in the doorway watching me get my hair done.  Jasmine came in to tell me how beautiful it looked out there, that she could see a part of me in everything, and that I should be in the moment.  My bridesmaids were so good at reminding me of that, to be in the moment.  It was my wedding day!  And from that moment on, I can really say that the next five hours, from walking down the aisle to our exit at the end of the night, were pure bliss.

Oh yes, how can I forget best friends and all-stars
Lauren and Laura printing out signage in the catering
room and the hallway??  These programs were
designed by Lauren and actually printed by a family
friend, they were beautiful!  I'll have to post
about my invitations later... they were my favorite.

Love our flower girl, Sofia, in this one!

land before time

My aunts love to make fun of how much I used to cry when I was younger.  My aunt Tara especially loves the story of when I was spending the night at their house and their dog Rusty kept howling because of a train going by.  When I asked why, my aunt explained to me that the train noise hurt Rusty's ears.  This information only made me cry uncontrollably as well -- poor Rusty!  Call it what you want, but I've decided to label my tear-prone behavior as an advanced gift of empathy. I still remember watching the first Land Before Time movie on the bunk bed at my best friend Emily's house.  I cried when Little Foot's mom died, and pretty much refused to see any more of the series after that.  Poor Little Foot!
My aversion to animated dinosaur movies does not translate over to their bones, though.  Matt's mom came in town this weekend and we got to spend part of our Saturday going to the dinosaur museum at Thanksgiving Point with her and Brody, Matt's nephew.  Brody wasn't so into the 3D dinosaur movie, but still looked adorable in the glasses.

The museum was actually really awesome, and it was fun watching Brody run around and having him tell us the names of the dinosaurs.  At the end of the museum, there were a couple big sand pits where kids could dig for "dinosaur bones," so we had to lure Brody out of it by telling him we were going to Chuck E. Cheese (I know, what is my deal lately?).  I wish I had a picture of Brody photo bombing some kid's party with the real life Chuck E. Cheese, it was hilarious.  He couldn't believe he'd actually met THE Chuck E. Cheese!

After that we went on a couple errands grocery shopping and to Target to use our very last gift card on a new duvet cover I've been eyeing for a while.  We bought that and a knife set for 40% off because both had been repackaged!  After that we went to Chick-fil-a where they gave us a free milkshake.  Matt refers to moments like this as fist-pumping God.  And I have to agree.  

God bless Texas

Happy Texas Independence Day!

After driving through a snow storm last night, I am missing Texas a bit more than usual today.

Here's to someday living in a place where I won't get funny looks for saying "y'all."

kicking off my year of kobe

I know I've read somewhere about the logic behind February having the least amount of days in the year, but I still think it got cheated.  February is my favorite month, and coincidentally both our birthday months.  However, since it has a couple days less than usual, I believe it makes it that much easier to make birthdays last all month long. 
As a birthday present to each other and to celebrate our 73rd day of marriage (that's one day more than Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries, obviously), we treated ourselves to some pretty amazing tickets to the Lakers vs. Jazz game.  Even though the Lakers lost, it was still fun to see our favorite players in real life!  Our seats were on the same side of the Lakers bench, so we enjoyed watching our mutual crush at all times.

You're welcome.

Lakers vs. Jazz

My birthday came first on the 9th, and in true boring-married-adult fashion I was most excited to go to a VIP tour of our new downtown grocery store prior to its opening a week later.  If you live in Salt Lake and haven't checked it out yet, you must.  It really will fulfill all of your grocery shopping dreams.  We've found bar-b-q sauce from the Salt Lick, who catered our reception in Texas, and Bundaberg "peachies" soda that Matt loved from his mission in Australia.  

  

After the tour, we stopped by our favorite dessert place in downtown called Gourmandise.  I got chocolate covered strawberries and some kind of heavenly pastry filled with whipped cream and covered in powdered sugar.  It was divine.  Matt got a chocolate covered peanut butter cookie and a dark chocolate mousse cake.  It was all amazing.

My sister-in-law, Stacie made me this yummy red velvet cake from scratch!  Stars and USC colors... two of my favorite things!

Flowers from my family... we've had fresh flowers all month!  That's what a birthday, Valentine's Day, and a husband being nearly 2 hours late for dinner will do for you.

Valentine's Day falls halfway between our birthdays, and we decided to have a nice meal at home and watch a movie.  I made a fancy tasting meal that was super easy: steamed broccoli, baked stuffed chicken and roasted potatoes with ranch seasoning.  The prep time seriously took me about 20 minutes and I made brownies while the meat and potatoes baked.  After a long day at work, that is what I call perfection.

My first time getting flowers at work!

Since Matt was having a milestone birthday and I knew he wouldn't let me if I told him I wanted to have a party, I decided to throw him a surprise party.  I don't really have the creativity nor do I have the patience to throw a homemade party, much less keep it from Matt.   This and the fact that our apartment is pretty tiny led me to the decision to celebrate his 25th birthday in style at the infamous Chuck E. Cheese.  After spinning an elaborate web of lies the day of his birthday, Matt finally arrived with his friend, completely surprised!  

how cute is that picture??

blowing out the candle

Matt had a lot of fun talking to people he hadn't seen in a long time, and we had a blast using our golden tokens to play games and take photobooth pictures.  I will have to scan those in later.  Thanks to all who came!

I am sad to see February go, but have a lot to look forward to in March!  Namely spring break, March Madness, the new downtown mall opening (including Chick-fil-a), and IMAX tickets to the Hunger Games!  Hope you had a wonderful month of February!

the temple ceremony

Our wedding ceremony took place in the morning on November 22, 2011 at the Houston Latter-day Saint temple. 

 

Fun fact: When the Houston temple was built back in 2000, Matt went with his family to the open house to tour the temple and his sister Kristin remembers him telling her, "I'm going to get married here someday!"  Since the San Antonio temple is closer to Austin, that's the one we had planned on getting married in, but the scheduling just didn't work out so we ended up going to Houston instead!  So Matt's 13-year-old prediction came true.
  
Because of our religious faith, we believe that families are eternal.  As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we believe that a man and woman can be married not only for this life but for eternity.  This sacred and special ceremony can only take place in a temple.  To us, temples are literally houses of the Lord where individuals make sacred promises with God.  Our ceremony was very small and so beautiful!  I was so grateful for everyone who came; when Matt and I walked into the room where we would be married and saw everyone waiting, I became so overwhelmed at the love I felt there.
As weddings go, not everything was perfect.  As we walked into the temple, it started raining and I worried we wouldn't get any good pictures.  However, when we came out of the temple the rain had stopped, and instead the sky was just overcast, which was perfect for the pictures!  We left my bouquet in the hotel refrigerator, I left my makeup in Austin, and I lost Matt's wedding band.  My sweet sisters shared every piece of makeup they brought, and my clutch brother jetted back to the hotel while we started taking pictures to get my bouquet out of our already-checked-out-of hotel room, and searched under the seats in the car (all while driving) to find Matt's wedding band that I must have dropped as I got out of the car!  All's well that ends well.
Our wedding photographer was Jessica Shumway, and she was one of my favorite things about the day. 

some pictures of our cute nephews and nieces

friends

our family

It was a beautiful day that I will always remember. 

If you have any questions about temple marriage or why we decided to get married in the temple, please feel free to ask me!  I know it is something that isn't very well understood, so don't be shy!  If you'd like to do your own research and then ask me, feel free to check out this website and get back to me. :)

the rehearsal & bridal luncheon

Mercury Hall had an event the night before our wedding, so we had to do our rehearsal in the morning.  It was actually the first time our families met all together!  This day started off a little dramatic and only continued...  
Many thanks to my bridesmaids Julie and Jasmine, without them I would have zero documentation of any of the events preceding the wedding.

Outside Mercury Hall

Sisters Hilary & Hannah

Rehearsing :)

MOH & flower girls

"rehearsing"

ring bearer Brody and flower girls Bria and Sofia

Bridesmaids Jasmine, Jen, Hannah, and Hilary

My cute siblings

Parks family

Following Mercury Hall, the girls went to the bridal luncheon.  My mom's sweet friend lives near Mt. Bonnell and she hosted a beautiful lunch for us at her house.  I gave my bridal party super cute tote bags my mom made.  The bags were filled with a "bridesmaid survival kit" including band-aids, safety pins, mints, and other things.  I highly recommend this because these items definitely came in handy throughout the next 36 hours.  
                                     

the whole gang - thanks Julie!

The drama of the day included car wrecks, getting pulled over, Matt texting my dad that he and my brother were going to jail, the workers at the salon getting into a brawl (verbally and then physically), credit cards not working, my dad nearly getting stranded at the airport, renewing car registration in Pflugerville, driving to the airport numerous times... and probably more that I'm still not aware of.  On this day, I was most grateful for a family that just laughs and carries on.  It allowed us all to actually have a lot of fun the day before our wedding.