I got to Salt Lake City on a Thursday and Melissa picked me up at the airport. We went straight to Temple Square and did an endowment session at the Salt Lake Temple. Melissa just received her endowment in January, so this was our first time doing a session together and it was really special. I had never been inside the Salt Lake Temple before, so it was neat to see the inside for the first time. It was all so big, so we kept having to ask temple workers which way to go. After the temple we had lunch at Kneaders and went shopping for wedding presents for Michelle. We opted for practical and got Michelle and Donovan a bunch of household things like toilet paper, garbage bags, and paper towels, because poor starving newlyweds in college need that stuff! Then we drove to my parents' house and hung out. Melissa and Elizabeth and I stayed up way too late talking.
I woke up early in the morning and couldn't sleep (maybe my body was telling me to get Kevin ready for school or something), so I finally got up and sorted out all the crayons and colored pencils and stuff. I think some of the colored pencils were mine from first grade because they had the old Crayola logo on them. When Ian got back from his paper route he sat on the couch and laughed politely at my jokes.
On Friday we spent most of the afternoon decorating for the luncheon and wedding. My Aunt Sue took my youngest sister Ellen shopping for decorations for the luncheon and I'm told that Ellen came up with most of the decorating ideas herself. Aunt Colleen and my cousin Aubrey came and helped too.
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| The head table with bottles of bride/groom skittles where Michelle and Donovan and the parents sat. |
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| The happy bride. |
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| FYI: taping tablecloths is a lot of work |
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| Michelle's friend Adam made this poster that they used instead of a guestbook. "Distance means nothing when one has a motive." |
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| Love my sisters! |
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| For the reception we had tables on one side and rows of chairs on the other so that people could move over to the chairs for the program. |
Michelle went with a vintage theme for the reception and hired a decorator who already had all the vintage furniture. The final result was very pretty!
In addition to the cake we had some of Michelle and Donovan's favorite things--popcorn, chocolate kisses, licorice, Star Bursts, mini muffins, and Reese's pieces.
Meet my new brother-in-law!
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| Ellen |
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| Practicing for the program |
The next day was the wedding. At one point Melissa, Elizabeth and I were all squished in the downstairs bathroom working on straightening all of Elizabeth's long, thick, curly hair, and then Melissa also fixed Ellen's hair. Fun times. Five girls means lots of hair.
Mom and Dad had to go earlier to the Brigham City Temple with Michelle, and then Melissa and I went a little later. Aunt Sue brought Elizabeth, Ian, and Ellen to the temple for pictures after the sealing. It was so fun to see so much family in the waiting room at the temple. There was lots of hugging. I don't get to see my extended family very much since we don't make it to Utah very often. After what seemed like a long time we went upstairs to the sealing room. My grandma sat with my mom next to Michelle, so I got to sit next to my grandpa and Melissa. After a while Michelle and Donovan came in and they were so excited. The sealer spoke for a while before performing the sealing. He talked about the plan of salvation and making covenants. One insight he shared was about keeping covenants. He talked about how at home he has saved some love notes from his wife and he keeps them because they are special to him. And similarly we keep our covenants. We hold on to them and treasure them because they are special and sacred to us.
Next Michelle and Donovan went to the altar and they were sealed for time and all eternity. There was a special and very peaceful spirit. Then we all got to go hug the bride and groom and then we went outside the temple to wait for them to come out for pictures. I didn't take a lot of pictures outside of the temple because you hire a photographer for a reason, so hopefully at some point Michelle will send me some of those. I was pretty windy and we all felt like our hair was blowing in our faces, but hopefully we still got some good pictures.
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| Ellen and Ian |
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| My charming grandpa. |
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| Dad sang a few of the traditional songs for the luncheon (Sunrise, Sunset; A Love Until the End of Time; maybe there was another one?). |
We cleaned up everything from the luncheon (putting it that way makes it sound easy, but it's actually a lot of work) and then there was actually some time before the reception. I think I got a nap, by which I mean I got in bed and jumped forward half an hour in time, so I'm assuming I was unconscious during that half hour, but I had no memory of being asleep. (I think any mom has experienced that kind of nap.)
Things were mostly ready for the reception, but we still went early to do some final prep, mainly making lemonade and popcorn and cutting cake. Just before the reception started we had more pictures in front of the backdrop which I'm assuming I'll see at some point. Michelle had some old mission companions there to help with food and the guest book, so I mainly talked to family.
Michelle asked me to MC the program, and it had been such an emotional weekend that I was a little worried I'd just sob at the microphone, but I held it together and the program was beautiful. I think Michelle asked a friend to record the actual program, but here are some videos I took the night before during the rehearsal when they were working getting the sound system right.
Melissa and Dad singing Perhaps Love:
Dad singing Turn Around:
Michelle also accompanied Dad singing The Men in My Little Girl's Life. When they were practicing I heard Dad say we're not allowed to get married unless we play this song, so it's a good thing Michelle passed the test. :) I didn't get a video of that one, but it was great. We are so blessed to have a wise, insightful, and spiritual man as our father.
After the program Michelle tossed the bouquet and she and Donovan cut the cake. We seriously considered hooking a fishing pole to the bouquet to make sure Melissa would get it, but didn't end up doing it. Fortunately she caught it anyway. After that the reception was pretty much over and Michelle and Donovan left (Aunt Sue got all the kids together to decorate the car). Then there was a bunch of clean-up and all the work of taking presents and supplies back to my parents' house. The living room and kitchen were full. Mom had a billion leftover mini muffins and chocolate kisses.
On Sunday we ate leftover mini muffins and went to church. In the afternoon Michelle and Donovan opened all of their presents and we were able to consolidate things more so there was space in the living room. I got to talk to my dad out on the front step for quite a while that evening.
On Monday my parents and I went to visit my grandparents for a while, which was of course really nice.
My dad took me to the airport that afternoon and I ended up having lots of time before my flight left. Delta is really fancy, by the way. I've never ridden on a flight with TVs before this trip. I didn't watch anything because I brought books to read and I didn't have earbuds, but I did like that I could check the flight status on the screen and see where we were and how much time was left. Unfortunately there was a lot of turbulence, which was no fun because I don't like feeling my insides bouncing around. Flying without kids is pretty fun, though. I got a lot of reading done.
It was great to be back home and see Ryan and the kids again. And my own bed.
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