Our Wedding Day

I never got nervous about getting married throughout the planning process.  I figured I'd just get nervous the night before and the day of.  But Sarah came to visit last night and it was fun to see her since she just flew in, and then I fell asleep quickly that night and got plenty of rest.

This morning I woke up early for my hair lady to come over, and I was perfectly calm!  I guess I was confident that getting married was the right choice for me, so I had nothing to worry about.  I ate some lemon curd toast while I waited for my mom to finish with her hair appointment, then the two of us were off to the temple!

In typical Bailey fashion, he was a bit late along with his dad who was his escort.  Waiting around on your wedding day is pretty frustrating because all you want to do is get married!  It was cool and all when our sealer left Bailey and I in the celestial room for about an hour.  Like, it was super special, but we were kind of worried that they forgot about us in there, haha.  We had just gotten dressed in our temple clothes which was a little emotional with my mom, especially when the lady said, "okay mom, now the next time you see her will be in the sealing room".  But, of course, it was like 9 in the morning and the sealing wasn't even until 10.

Before our sealing we chatted a little with our sealer who was a super adorable and funny little old guy.  And finally, he took us to the sealing room!  It was so special to walk in there and see so many faces that we loved.  It meant tons to have so much of our family there!  The sealer sat us down and gave a little intro before the actual sealing.  The actual sealing was an amazing experience, and so beautifully simple.  Just like that, Bailey and I were husband and wife!  Everyone came to hug us as they left the room, and I just cried because I love my husband and my family so much.  It was a happy cry!

Luckily my wedding getup is pretty low-stress.  I threw on my dress, and soon enough Bailey and I found ourselves just inside the temple doors, ready to make our grand exit.  We don't know how to look exciting, so our photographer had to coach us a little.  She said to walk out a little, kiss, walk a little more, and kiss again.  So we did just that, and it was amazing to walk out to another crowd of loved ones.  It was especially amazing to see all the family and friends that came to support us even though they couldn't come to the actual sealing!

The grandmas swarmed us first, and Bailey and I had to split up to make sure all the old ladies (and everyone else of course, haha) were hugged.  I was so happy to see my beautiful bridesmaids, who all have meant so much to me throughout my life!  The photographer got many pictures of us along with our family and friends at the temple, then she sent them off to take time to get pictures of just Bailey and I.  I know I've said this many times, but oh how I love Heather Ellis!  She knows exactly what she's doing, so she knows how to get great pictures quickly.  So soon enough we were off to our luncheon!

Bailey's family did the cutest job of putting together the luncheon!  They rented a little building the the church owns (the exact place Kylie and Seiji had their wedding reception) and filled it full of cute flowers and pictures of Bailey and I!  Zupas catered, and we all had a fun and delicious lunch.  I changed into a dress that my good friend Julie (who also happens to be my cousin and boss, haha) had given me for Christmas, just in case I spilled some soup.  Tends to happen.  Luckily there were no such incidents, which is great news because I really love the dress that I wore.

My uncle Rob was able to get away from work for a little bit to stop by.  He confused my mother in law by pretending to be just some worker stopping by for some food, since he was in his work clothes, haha.  But it was so great to see him, and he gave a really sweet little presentation.  He pulled out a big ball and chain from the large pot he had been lugging around, and while everyone expected some jokes or something, he turned the whole thing around and said something about how marriage is hard, and one person can't carry the weight alone.  He had us both hold it up together, and talked about how we both have to work hard and support each other, because now we are a team!  It was beautiful, and it really is cute to see my tough uncle cry.

After the luncheon was over, we had quite a while to wait before we could go start setting up the reception area.  Bailey and I were already tired from the day's festivities, so we spent the time resting and making sure that the flowers were all ready to go.  His aunt Kristy did all of our flowers, and she did an amazing job!  She really caught on to the style I was going for (she didn't judge me for wanting an all-leaf bouquet), and the flowers couldn't have turned out any better.  Our one problem is that I had her order way too much!  So we sorted through them and figured out which ones she could take back for store credit.

Super exciting, I know.  But soon enough we met everyone at Wadley Farms for setup and pictures!  All of my bridesmaids were there (Kylee had made it down from Logan after one of her finals!), and we got their cute flower crowns on.  I loved seeing all those girls together in the dresses that I had taken so long to find!  It is no simple task for a girl who is so picky, and trying to find spring colors in February is exceptionally hard, haha.  But I think they all looked really good together, and that the color scheme worked well.  It would have been easier to buy them all the same dresses, but that seemed way too formal to me!

Bailey had picked out the groomsmen outfits, and I think they were super super cute.  We dressed our little ring bearer, Liam, similarly, and he looked freaking adorable along with our also adorable flower girl Ally.  I couldn't get over how cute the two were!

Four generations!

We got many pictures, but the time flew and it was time for everyone to sit down for the ring ceremony.  It was a really simple ceremony in an old railroad building on the property.  Each bridesmaid walked down the aisle with a groomsman while Canon in D played.  Then went little Liam, shyly but proudly carrying our rings tied to a small piece of wood, then Ally who threw lemon leaves from her basket.  I got to walk down the aisle with my dad, which was really special!  Bailey's bishop, Bishop Lewis, gave a sweet speech about the significance of the rings, and we were able to put the rings on each other before we exited the building.  It was short and sweet, but super beautiful!

While everyone hurried and set up for the reception, Heather took us around the venue to snap some final pictures of the two of us.

Then Bailey and I pretty much stood in one place the rest of the evening along with our parents.  The line never ended!  So many people showed up, but it was so fun to see them all and visit for a bit.  We stood under a little pavilion with wisteria growing on it, and around us were trees and gardens.  It was really the most perfect place for our reception!

To our left were tables set under trees and hanging lights.  On the tables were doilies hand-crocheted by my great grandma Okuda.  On top of those were antique bottles from my Grandma R.'s collection, with just a little bit of baby's breath in them.  It was super beautiful, I'm so grateful for all the help people gave to make my plans come to life!

We had an Italian soda bar which was fun and delicious for everyone.  We also served pie, which was actually from Smith's (after trying all of the pies in the land, it was decided that Smith's had the tastiest and cutest pies)!  Haha, it all looked pretty delicious, and my dad can confirm that it was.  He kept disappearing from the line to sneak some pie from the kitchen!

Once 8:30 rolled around, we went to cut the cake.  Simone made my cake, and she did the most amazing job!  She made it perfectly in my style, and it was super beautiful.  Not only that, but it actually tasted good!  I guess Europeans use marzipan instead of fondant, so I was bummed when I only got to eat a bite of that tasty lemon cake (don't worry - mom stuck the top in the freezer for us to eat after our honeymoon)!

I had Kristy make a special little bouquet with flowers for throwing.  The toss didn't work out very well, because everyone told me that if I threw too high it would get stuck in the trees.  So of course I threw too low, right to the crowd of little girls in the front!  But oh well!

Our grand exit was complete with giant sparklers.  Nobody even lit us on fire!  We exited right to Bailey's mom's car.  We thought we were being all tricky not taking Bailey's car, but I guess people knew our plans for taking a different car on our honeymoon.  So of course they trashed it and filled it with gross things, but I guess that's what you do for weddings!  We hugged everyone goodbye, and we were off!