Personal History: Wedding and Honeymoon November 2005

My reception was exactly how I had always imagined it would be, a fall wedding with orange,brown, and red, and cool weather.  It was wonderful, we had our reception at Regency Garden in Mesa.  It is a really neat location with a garden feel.  Because we had only six weeks to get everything prepared we had to get stuff done and fast.  We got engagement photos, made our invites and sent them out really quickly.  One of my regrets in that, I know that I forgot people because I was just trying to get it all done fast.  Got my dress to be my, dream dress (by the way, having a seamstress work on a timetable turns out to be really expensive.)  My mom took charge of food and things were falling into place.  James was in charge of the honeymoon, for the time being.  One thing I had always been pretty firm on is my reception, I wanted to have it the night before my wedding.  Best idea ever, our reception was so much fun.  I spent all day getting beautiful and leisurely showed up at the reception which was a great party.  Afterward James and I went back to my parents house and got to eat, hang out, and kiss goodbye; knowing that in the morning we would be married.  I was able to focus 100% the next day on being sealed to James, I went to the temple in a church dress got married in my comfortable temple clothes and got to be in the moment.  I'm not saying it's the best way for everyone, but I loved it and I was so grateful that James agreed to switch things up.  The ceremony was amazing, my favorite part was walking into the sealing room and seeing all those people we loved their to support us, it was a wonderful experience.

Now, the honeymoon story is priceless.  James wanted to take control of that one and I let him go for it.  He asked me several times where I would want to go, and I told him anywhere.  He asked for dream destinations and I told him the pacific northwest (Seattle, San Francisco.)  I figured we were on the right track, he knew what I thought would be fun; a cold, snuggley honeymoon.  One day James asked me if there were any places I would not want to go on a honeymoon and I told him I wouldn't want to go to LA or Vegas, just not my sort of places.  This is just banter, we're just shooting the breeze talking about what if's and such...right?  Wrong.  Two days later James tells me that he had bought tickets to LA for our honeymoon....Uh, I'm a total jerk. How was I to know he had done that, but I felt horrible (FYI LA is not considered pacific northwest, just letting everyone know.)  I told him we would make LA fun, but he decided we could do something else closer, like Flagstaff.  We researched and found nothing. Flagstaff and romantic destinations do not go together, apparently you have to be an outlaw and want to hang out in a saloon in Flagstaff.  So ultimately I was put in charge of the honeymoon.  My good friend Amy and her family have a beautiful cabin in Greer, plans were made and we were granted access to the cabin for out honeymoon.  The cabin was a perfect choice, it was cold, and remote and all around fun....except for the fact that one day into our honeymoon we both got horribly sick.  It broke down several first married barriers, we were sadly both at our worst.  It made for some really funny jokes and funny situations.  My favorite part of our honeymoon was the trip we made into town.  We went to the local grocery store and got pepto bismol and sat in the parking lot chugging it down.  Now if that doesn't scream romance I don't know what does.  We laugh about it all the time, it is a great memory.  Unfortunately James may never be able to enjoy minestrone again.