1st Round of Wedding Picture Party

So if you didn't know already, Chelsea is home from Italy. I know you can't tell from the blog but she is here and I finally got to pull my head out of the oven. And boy has it been a wild ride this last month. It seems like a dream now that I look back, everything happened so fast but it feels so good to finally be done with everything and back to regular life. From the second Chelsea stepped off that plane, we were off to work planning out every detail of our up and coming wedding, with a lot of help of course. Not only did we have to plan a wedding but I had to finish up my first quarter of grad school and study for finals. Luckily I managed to pass even with all the distractions(Chelsea).

So our wedding started with Chelsea showing up an hour late to the temple, which had me pacing back and forth in the waiting area. But luckily for me she did not have cold feet and finally arrived. We raced through all the prep work and finally made it to the sealing room where our guests had been patiently waiting for 2 hours. I guess we wanted to make a fashionably late entrance. The sealer assigned to us must be a comedian for his occupation because he was busting jokes left and right. It was kinda annoying because he was interrupting the sacredness of the moment but it was funny also. I've never heard so much laughter in a sealing room before. People in the hall had to come in to tell us to be quiet. But we finally made it through and Arlan Anderson even gave us a 6.5. Then, since the temple had just opened up because of Christmas, there was like 27 weddings that day which meant a long line for the grand exit on the steps. Our guests patiently waited another hour and a half until it was finally our turn for 15 minutes on the steps.

Chelsea's parents are professional photographers but they also needed to be in some of the pictures so they hired some assistants. This meant we had about six photographers AND a videographer all going at us at the same time. I never knew where to look all day, but I'm sure we got some awesome pics. Kevin even had about 50 tacos and chips and salsa delivered to the temple to snack on in between the photo sessions, except Chelsea didn't get any because I did my first good act as her husband and didnt save her one.


After another 2 hours of posing for pictures we were finally done...for a while. It was then off to the reception at the Coco Palm, with a little lunch my mom packed for us to nibble on the way. Chelsea and I arrived at the restaurant and it was mayhem. They were still in the process of setting up and I couldn't believe how much time and effort was put into the decorations. It looked amazing. Chelsea and I wish we could have had time to just walk around and look at the stuff cause we never even had the chance to. We had an awesome guest book made for us by Chelsea's mom and even a chocolate fountain.

And then the scariest part of the day finally came....the first dance. Chelsea and I had taken dance lessons twice cause I am probably the worst dancer alive. I thought I could handle a few steps that we learned but as soon as we started that dance my mind went totally blank and I forgot the routine. I still managed to get a few twirls and dips in but I felt like an idiot. Oh well, it was all for Chelsea anyway and she was happy. We danced to Michael Buble's Everything which is the song that we danced to when I proposed.

Dinner was served, amazing salmon and chicken, some toasts were made, the slideshow was watched, the money dance was danced, the cake was cut. Chelsea threw the bouquet which was caught by my cousin Sabrina. Then I went hunting for that garter on Chelsea's leg and finally found it. I shot it out to the bachelors and it flew right to the one person not even trying to catch it. It bounced off Kevin's chest right into his hands. I think the garter was guided mid-flight into Kevin's path because it knows something we don't, what does it know Kevin, hmm?

Then it was off to the Mission Inn for the night, in our chocolate covered marshmallow car, followed by a cruise to the Bahamas. Get ready for the honeymoon post because boy do we have a story to tell, plus lots of awesome pics. We are just so happy that everything turned out great and that it is all over now. We are happy to finally be settled into our new apartment in La Jolla, even though our mattress hasn't been delivered yet which means sharing a twin bed between the both of us. Thanks to everyone who came and participated and gave us gifts, and to Kris and Sabrina for most of the above pics and to everyone that helped set up, especially Chelsea's mom and her friend Julie. We couldn't have done it without them. We will have professional photos up soon too. It was a great day and couldn't have turned out better, except for the cars that got broken into in the parking lot of the Coco Palm, of course.