Last week was our 4 month anniversary and I decided it was high time to post our wedding photos! These first photos are from our Groomal session with our photographers Dave and Nichole Van from NicholeV Photography a few weeks before the wedding. Nichole has been my photography mentor and it's largely thanks to her that I have been able to take my photography hobby and get good enough to make it into a business. Before we put our deposit down at Thanksgiving Point I checked with Nichole to make sure they were available that day to shoot our wedding since I really wanted her to be our wedding photographer.
These were taken at Thanksgiving Point right after the tulip festival had wrapped up. When Nichole posted this first photo I was blown away. My friend Lisa Frehner did my hair and makeup and my friend Sydney Young helped me get dressed. It took a small army to get these awesome shots but it was definitely worth it!
Jared and I had decided that it was really important to us to have a real wedding rather than elope or go to the courthouse or something because we felt like it would be a good thing for our kids and we wanted our families, our brothers and sisters and parents, to be able to get to know each other and celebrate together after all of them suffering with us through our long and painful divorces. Even though it was a hard decision to not invite more family and friends, it turned out to be the right decision for us and I'm glad we did it that way.
These were the invitations that went out to our immediate family. I am working on some wedding announcements that will go out to our friends and family with pictures from the wedding. Since we kept our guest list small and since we got married on a Monday rather than on a weekend, and since I did some trade, we were able to keep our expenses down. My mom said that on the way home from our wedding my dad was guessing how much the wedding cost and when my mom told me what he said I had to laugh because he guessed it cost a lot more than it did. We definitely got a lot of bang for our buck.
When our big day arrived we headed to Thanksgiving Point to get ready...
After we got ready we headed over to the ceremony site and I couldn't believe how amazing the flowers looked! I had previously worked with Lori and Delene from L Floral Studio because I photographed their floral arrangements for the Send Out Cards catalogs last year and I knew they would work their magic, but what they created was truly magical. To say I loved the flowers would be an understatement for sure. Ashley Wortley, our wedding planner from Thanksgiving Point, had coordinated everything beautifully. When she first showed me this location she said they normally put up round tables on the grass for dinner, but as soon as I saw the long grape arbor I really wanted to do a long table. Even though they had never done a dinner under that arbor before, she made it happen and it was perfect! Thanksgiving Point was amazing to work with, they even provide their wedding parties with a Fairy Godmother to coordinate all the little details the day of the wedding. When Jared first suggested that we consider Thanksgiving Point as a venue I thought it would be really expensive, but after checking around I found out it was actually less expensive than the other venues by quite a bit. And really nothing can compare to those amazing Thanksgiving Point Gardens. Exquisite and right out of a fairy tale.
We decided to get all the formal posed pictures out of the way before the ceremony so that we could have dinner immediately following the ceremony. With 6 kids of our own and lots of nieces and nephews we wanted to keep all the kiddos happy!
The Franson Family!
The Malouf Family!
After all the hugging we went to eat dinner and it was delicious. My brother Sam, the foodie, said it was the best wedding dinner he had ever had.
We thanked everyone for coming and a few stories were told...Clara talked about pudding :-)
Our programs...
I asked Dawn, one of Jared's sisters and a talented graphic designer, to create these beautiful keepsake family trees that everyone received so that everyone knew who everyone else was. There were lots of people for everyone to get to know in a very short period of time. After the dinner my parents told me how much they had enjoyed talking with Jared's parents at dinner and that I had married into a quality family, but of course I already knew that!
Before cutting the cake Jared and I snuck away for just a few more pictures while our families were invited to walk around and enjoy the beautiful gardens.
The kids, however, thought decorating our car would be much more fun than walking through the gardens! I love that the kids had so much fun!
The beautiful cake was created by Katherine O'Donnell, one of the sisters who served in Argentina in the same mission that I served in. It was not just pretty, but delicious!! The sugar flowers on the middle section were a huge hit with the kids. I don't know if the kids actually ate any cake, but they sure loved the flowers!
Then it was time for the first dance. I knew our families were not really into dancing but I tried to think of ways to encourage them to dance so before the wedding I sent around emails asking what everyone's favorite and special songs were. Everyone basically told me they probably wouldn't dance anyway--party poopers! However, after Jared and I danced to 'Bless the Broken Road' by Rascal Flatts the next song we played was 'Let it Go' and then the kids went wild and danced their little hearts out and had a ball!
Thank you everyone for all your support and love. I feel guilty that I haven't written thank you notes yet, but I hope that our friends and families know how much we love and appreciate them. Our wedding day was just perfect, and we are so grateful for everyone that played a part in that. Thank you thank you!!!
...and they lived Happily Ever After.
