And the glory, the glory of the Lord...

Ever since I went to Eastern AZ College, I have looked forward to going back at Christmas time to sing in Handel's Messiah. Every song makes me happy inside! The past few years have been especially fun because my sisters have also been singing. Rachel wasn't able to this year, but she at least came to watch! Travis had never heard it before (with the exception of the "Hallelujah" chorus, etc.), and I'm not going to lie, I thought he would hate it or be bored (like I was when I watched it for the first time...). But he actually liked it!



Yeah, and if you're wondering about the socks...It was FREEZING outside! I didn't want to feel like I might die of hypothermia (maybe a LITTLE dramatic, I know), so I wore two layers of socks. The plan was to take them off before the show, but I was sitting behind two rows of people, and figured out no one would see my socks except the people sitting right next to me! Don't get me wrong, a couple of those people gave me really weird looks, but most of them thought it was a great idea. :)

Reception in Thatcher

So, I know I have a lot of pictures from the wedding stuff...but I love them all and it was such a good time, I'm going to post about all of it! So there, ha!

We had our reception in Thatcher a week after the wedding. Let me tell you, my mother and other family and friends definitely outdid themselves! The reception was PERFECT, pretty much what I've always dreamed my reception would be like. The pictures don't show everything, since it was so dark and it's hard to see the decorations around the yard. There were strings of white lights everywhere in the bushes, and my Mom had set up these posts with lanterns hanging from them. Then between each of the posts, she strung ribbon or tulle or whatever that stuff is (see how crafty I am [not]?) and tied bows on each one of the posts. And...the food table! I loved the food, the cake, the cupcakes, the AMAZING cheese log, punch, sandwiches, etc. and how they looked all nicely laid out...It was all so gorgeous! We were even able to borrow some big heaters due to the freezing cold weather! OH! And my mom got me a bouquet of tulips to use for the reception. I LOVE TULIPS. I honestly cannot give enough thanks to everyone that helped out! (I promise I will be sending out thank you notes soon...) :)

But, first things first. Leave it to me, the forgetful genius to forget my poofy slip. MY SLIP. Luckily, my proppy (not a real word, I know) photographer sister had some awesome poofy pettiskirts that I could borrow. With a few safety pins, we were in business!


:)

Picture time...








Ok, so this brings us to the cake. I honestly didn't care about having a real wedding cake, so I decided to have a fake one. I figured it would be cheaper, and I knew a wonderful friend who said she would help. I read up on it, watched YouTube videos, etc. As the wedding drew closer, my wonderful and sweet friend (who had a ton of stuff going on and a brand new baby), had to turn over the responsibility to me. Yikes! So, without taking enough time to think and stress out about it, I took all the supplies, hunkered down, and put the cake together. My first experience with ANYTHING like that. I just didn't give myself enough time to freak out. Honestly, I had to take the fondant off a couple of times to redo, but somehow I did it. I DID IT! I seriously can't believe how good it turned out. (And no hard feelings WHATSOEVER to my beautiful friend, promise! :))



And I LOVE the cake topper! I talk about it in the wedding picture post, but when I saw this, I HAD to have it! All the ones I saw in Michael's, Joann's, or any other "normal" craft store ONLY had the man trying to leave. That didn't work for us. I saw this one in the cake decorating store...It fit us perfectly.


So, the night turned out SUPER amazingly. I wish more people could have come to see all the beautiful decorations and everything, but it was so nice to see people and enjoy each other! We even were able to sit down and enjoy some hot cider at the end. Thanks for the cider, Gayle! :)

Wedding Luncheon

Ok, so yeah. I'm going to just kind of apologize now in advance for the rest of my blogging life: I will probably never be caught up, just like I am never caught up with my scrapbooking. Not at first, at least. I'm playing with different picture sizes, etc... Some of these pictures are going to be a little big, heads up.

These are all from the luncheon after our wedding! To be perfectly honest, by this time in the day, I was just about ready to be done. Travis and I were both being pulled in different directions, I wanted to talk to my buddies and family, we were tired (thank goodness we didn't have a reception that night, I honestly don't know how people do that!), and I, unlike some other brides, don't love large amounts of attention from a bunch of people at once. Plus, I didn't ever get to finish my veggies! Ha ha. Now that that's said, we did have a wonderful luncheon. It was basically a mini-reception, since we didn't have a full reception here in Mesa, and it was nice to see so many people there that we know and love. My aunt Marcy did a wonderful job with the decorations and I appreciate so much everyone that helped out with food, drinks, setting up, photographing, etc.

Thanks everyone! We love you so much!!

This is the church we had the luncheon in: the prettiest church in Mesa!

Marcy also made these little books for everyone to sign that had pictures of Travis and I when we were dating that she added special little quotes about love, etc. It was so awesome! I even cried a little looking through the book...

And now for the cake feeding pictures... :)




I got him good! ;) (Guess he did get me a little too...)


Some random pics...


The bouquet throwing...




Erica caught the bigger half of the bouquet, but my niece Felicity did grab ahold of the bottom part. Erica was super nice and let her have it! Felicity was so happy!



So, this brings us to the garter-throwing event...I had forgotten to buy one at the last minute, so these lovely girls offered to make one from one of the orange napkins:



They discreetly pulled me into the restroom and helped me put it on so we could have some garter fun... Love these girls! Thanks, Natalie and Erica! Then the silliness commenced. :)






Just some more shots.




Travis' grandfather also sent him a really special gift. He sent us the silver that belonged to Travis' late grandmother. It was really awesome to be there to help open the gift, Travis was so close with his grandmother and loves her so much!