Wedding, episode 2... Honeymoon!

One month later, I continue writing about the wedding.  I'll have to be less detailed to be able to write about all the events, honeymoon, etc... there's just no time, and the longer I wait, the more I forget!

So... I left off at the luncheon.  The luncheon was amazing.  Mom had found the place, and it was beautiful, and the food was delicious.  Heidi and I and our parents were at the head table.  We waited a while for people to show up, and then Dad got on the mic, welcomed everyone, gave Heidi and I chance to say something, and then Uncle Steve said the blessing on the food.  I wish I had thought more about what I wanted to say, but I recently watched the video (Andy did a great job) and I think I did okay.  :)  I was just really happy to be married, and loved having so many family and friends around.  During the meal, Mike Morris made a toast.  He talked about how he and I have had a lot of experiences waiting in line... at a Weird Al concert, in the standby line for the Late Show with David Letterman, and then winning the same-day ticket lottery for Wicked.  He compared it to the people we've dated, disappointments, times we thought it would work out, and said that "Heidi is your broadway.  You have won the lottery."  It was a great toast, and once again, thanks to Andy for getting it on video.

One of the highlights of the luncheon for me was talking to Charlie.  I hadn't seen him in a long time, and it was great to catch up a little bit.

After the luncheon, we got all the framed pictures (for the reception) from Lindsay.  When I was narrowing them down, it seemed like I chose so FEW pictures, and then when I saw them all framed, I realized I had picked so MANY!  Now our house is a Heidi and Brett shrine... or an advertisement for Jenny Hansen's photography.  :)  I loved having all those pictures.  Anyway, we got the pictures from Lindsay and my suit from my Dad, and then we sat in the car for a while just talking.  When my parents were leaving (Dad driving), they circled around our car honestly three or four times, and my dad was smiling and nodding in a sort of "I like what I see!" gesture.  Heidi and I were laughing so much.  My parents are the best.

We went straight from the luncheon to a gas station... in our tux and dress.  I didn't have much gas, and definitely didn't want to stop between the reception and the honeymoon.  The guy at the next pump saw my tux, and Heidi in the car in her dress, and asked if we had just gotten married.  I told him we had been married for just a few hours, and he congratulated me and wished us well.  :)  Here's a picture I took with my phone at the gas station... nevermind the filthy windshield.

Then we drove to Garden Park Ward to deliver the pictures and help set things up.  IT... LOOKED... AMAZING!!!  Robin Lewis, Heidi's family's friend, along with Julie Crowell (I think?) had put together the most incredibly beautiful reception.  Wow.  I'll have to post pictures once I get them (Heidi and I still haven't told Jenny which pictures we want edited... I'm telling you, life has suddenly gotten SO DANG BUSY it's insane).  I won't take time to describe - thank goodness for pictures - but it was incredible.

We helped set things up until people started arriving, and then we made our way to "the line" to greet people as they came in.  We had talked about having a line for about an hour... nope.  We stood in line for the whole reception.  When someone came to ask if we were going to cut the cake, I couldn't believe it was 9:00 already.  It would have been nice to be able to sit down, talk to my groomsmen some more, eat some food, etc., but it was so fun meeting and greeting people, introducing and being introduced, that the time went by really fast.

The reception is definitely something I wish we could do over again and again.  There were SO many people to see, and so many of them that I wished I could have spent more time with.  Some people were there that I didn't expect, and it meant a lot to me that they showed up.  Then there were really good, close friends that I hadn't seen in a while, like Charlie and Shannon.  Like I said, I'm glad I got to talk to Charlie a bit at the reception.  Then of course there were my groomsmen.  We got some good photo booth pictures, minus JD and Kent, but it would have been fun to just be able to sit down with those guys for a while.  Anyway, it was a really great reception.  And the weather all day and night was so nice!

Robin had set aside some salad for us.  Side note - I'm not sure if I believe in Robin.  I think she's kind of like Santa Claus - a legend of someone who is so incredibly giving and somehow capable of being in a million places at once, but can't possibly REALLY do all the things she supposedly does.  I don't know how she did it.  She was there for the bridals, loaned Heidi her daughter's dress, made the bouquets and boutenirs (I have stopped caring how to spell that word), prepared everything for the reception (centerpieces, tables, lights, linens, candles, food, etc. etc. etc.).  She and Julie did such an amazing job, and we had a lot of great conversations with Robin, too.  She is our hero.  And she had set aside salad for us.  We gratefully ate it, and headed over to the "photo booth" for some fun pictures before we went next door to Heidi's grandparents' house to change our clothes.  Then we were off on the honeymoon.  Heidi's dad returned my tux for me, which was a huge favor because it needed to be returned while we were on our honeymoon.

The drive out to our honeymoon... is hard to remember, actually.  I remember I was tired, and happy, and relieved.  There was SO much stress leading up to the wedding, and a honeymoon was exactly what we needed.  Finally we were married, all the stress was over, our families were taking care of the cleanup, and we just got to drive away to Park City for a few days of zero stress.  Our honeymoon was AMAZING!  I'm so glad we didn't go somewhere far away.  I'm sure that feeling is influenced by the fact that we didn't have a lot of time for a honeymoon because Heidi's in school.  But even if we had had a week or more, it was nice to have our car and be in a place we were somewhat familiar with.  We were never lost, and I remember feeling carefree and relaxed pretty much all the time.  So... here's what we did!

First of all, we stayed at the Grand Summit Lodge at The Canyons resort.  They accidentally upgraded us to a deluxe king suite!  Totally awesome!  I'm having trouble with a video upload, so I'll just put it on YouTube and add the link.  Anyway, it was awesome.  We got a call on Monday informing us of the mistake.  They were going to kick us out of the "suite" part of our room and give us the "deluxe king guestroom" we had reserved.  Or, they said, we could keep the suite for an extra $10 a night.  Now... granted our honeymoon was a gift from my mom and dad, this still would have been an easy decision even with my own money.  TEN DOLLARS for an upgrade that definitely should have cost hundreds?  Yes please!  So we had the suite the whole time, and LOVED it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFjpcyHzv7A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Acbw5fQMmw

We got there VERY late Saturday night, and managed to find a ward on Sunday that met late enough that we could get out of bed and make it to sacrament meeting.  It was fast Sunday, and we both bore our testimonies.  It had been a hugely spiritually significant week, with Heidi receiving temple ordinances for the first time, and of course both of us having a sealing pronounced on us for the first (and only) time.  We met some nice people there, but we were pretty anxious to get back to the hotel for a much-needed four hour nap.  Before that, though, we stopped to pick up some food.  We would have liked to avoid buying food on Sunday, but it was either that or go hungry, so we opted for takeout... from Ruby Tuesday.  Oooooh my gosh... we went back there later another day and both ordered the same things again.  I had lobster tail and steak, and Heidi had salmon.  YUM.  That night, I stopped by a Burger King and Redbox and brought back dinner and a movie... turns out Burger King has some seriously good non-burger food... salads and chicken sandwiches.  We went back there another day, too.

Monday morning we had room service breakfast (oh yum).

Then we went to the Park City resort and got a park pass for the alpine slide, zip line, coaster, and bunjee trampoline.  The first thing we did was the alpine slide, and I BAILED!  I should have taken it a little more slowly the first time, I guess.  I crashed, but didn't come out of the slide.  Instead, I slid along FOREVER with the sled half under me.  The side of me that wasn't on the sled got some major rub burns on my knee and shoulder, and a little bit on my hand.  My knee still isn't fully healed.  Ugh... that was not fun.  But we got some help (insert laugh) from a park staffer who asked if he could just give us some bandages because if he did the bandaging he'd have to fill out some paperwork.  Uh, yeah... I think we'll do it ourselves.

We went on the coaster once before we learned that we could ride on one car together... by the end of the day we must have gone on it three more times.  SO FUN!  We also did the zip line a couple times.  We had such a good time... and our camera broke... so we used some gift money and bought a new one later that night.  The last thing we did on the hill was the bunjee trampoline.  I had always wanted to do that, and I was EXACTLY the max allowable weight according to the scale I had noticed and stepped on at the top of the zip line (200 lbs... I think it was a little low, but hey, it's their scale, and it allowed me to go on the bunjee trampoline!).  It was really fun, but the highlight of the bunjee trampoline was Heidi's face at the apex of her jumps!  Oh my GOSH so funny!  Her eyes got so big every time!  We both did a bunch of backflips, and I had sore abs the next day.

After our Park Pass time was up, we went to a sushi place we had found online, ordered some takeout, and went back to the hotel.  I think I must have showered, or maybe I was cleaning up my wounds, I can't remember, but I was distracted for a little while, and when I came into the living/dining room, Heidi had set up our food all nicely on the table.  :)

Tuesday we went on a HOT AIR BALLOON!  We had called around the day before and found a company that would give us a discount.  I said on the phone, "We don't have money, but we're pretending that we do because it's our honeymoon."  The pilot was really nice, and I asked on the phone if I could help him setup the balloon, which he was happy to allow.  Here are some pictures:

And here we are taking off:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRo75wfDpFg


It was a beautiful day, and the people in the balloon with us were really nice.  There was an older couple who had been married for I don't remember how many years.  Heidi asked if they had any advice, and the man said, "Just be patient with him.  He'll come around."  :)

After the hot air balloon had landed, it was still pretty early in the morning, so we went to breakfast at Treasure Mountain Inn.  Yummmm.  Then we went back to the hotel for a while, took a nap, and debated how we would spend our $200 gift card, which was part of the hotel package we had chosen for our honeymoon ($50 for each night).  We decided to get a couples Swedish massage at the spa, and wow... that was a good choice!  Holy canoli.  First we went and changed into robes, and then we sat down in the "relaxing room" on a nice sofa and drank some lemon water.  Then our massage therapists came in, introduced themselves, and led us to a dimly lit room with some kind of aromatherapy scents going on, relaxing music with nature sounds, and two massage tables.  They left to allow us to get between the sheets on the tables, and then they came back in and gave us 60-minute, full body massages.  I had to give a warning about my alpine slide injuries, and she did a good job avoiding them.  Oh my goodness... when they were done, Heidi and I didn't want to move.  It was amazing.  After that, we went back into the relaxing room, and they had set up a plate with a HUGE piece of chocolate cake, two forks, and rose petals everywhere!  And there was a card for us, too.  We sat and ate cake for a little while, and then took the rest of it back to our room.  Oh man... that massage was amazing.  We went back to Ruby Tuesday that night, pretty late, and then back to the room and to bed.

Wednesday was the last day of our honeymoon.  We went to Treasure Mountain Inn again for breakfast, and then back to Park City Resort to ride the lift aaaalll the way to the top, where we went hiking.  We didn't end up hiking very far, because there's an old mining facility up there that we explored.  It was all closed and locked, but part of the wall was broken open, so we went through and climbed down to the floor.  It was so old and kind of creepy and fun!  Here are some pictures...

 It was darker in there than it looks... the flash... well... did its job.  After exploring for a while, we climbed back out and hiked for a while.  We went to a garage type building where they had a lot of snow grooming equipment and (thankfully) they let me use their bathroom.  That made the rest of the hiking much more enjoyable than it would have been!

Eventually, we knew it was getting late enough that we needed to make our way back to the lift.  We had ridden that lift lots of times for the alpine slide and zip line, but we had never ridden it facing down the mountain... the view was amazing!  And we saw some deer on our way down.  It was a great end to the honeymoon - a nice, slow ride down the lift with an amazing view and lots of time to talk about the fun we'd had.

We got back to the car, drove back to Ogden, and decided we'd have one last "honeymoon meal" from Tona, which is where we met.  We called ahead, got takeout, and took it home.  I carried Heidi across the threshhold, and we went downstairs to our apartment to find JD and Natasha's paint job in our bedroom!  Natasha was also in the process of hanging curtains.  It looked so nice... and then we opened Aunt Marlene's gift (hoping it was a painting, and it was!).  We hung that on the wall of our bedroom, and it was nice to have such a good-looking bedroom to come home to.

We ate our sushi, and then started facing all the real-life stuff we had so blissfully ignored for four days.  :)

It was such a great honeymoon.  Mom and Dad, thank you.

And Heidi, I LOVE YOU!!!

Wedding, etc.

Yeah, with a title like that, you know this is going to be a long post... deep breath...

I'm sitting in the Howard Johnson hotel in Rocklin. I went to church, and I caught up on Survivor... which might be my second choice for a religion. Ah crap, we learned about idol worship today. Church was really good, and I needed it because I was so sad to see Heidi leave today. She's back in Utah by now... or soon. Driving with my parents. Anyway... let's go back a couple weeks...

The week of the wedding was STRESSFUL of course. Heidi and I had a couple of rough days, and then one of the most comforting conversations I've ever experienced. (Now I'm hesitating... maybe I should be writing in my journal instead of the blog... well I've got a week here alone, so I'll copy this into my journal and fill in details later). Ahem... so, we had a great conversation where we worked things out. I love her so much.

The day before the wedding, I went to Melissa's house for a delicious breakfast that I'm afraid I didn't get to enjoy as much as I would have liked! Lindsay organized the event, and it was great to see a lot of my family. Plus I needed them... there was a lot to get done and I knew they would help. Thank you, siblings and parents. Melissa submitted a picture order to Costco, Julie picked up the prints, Lindsay picked up the frames... if I try to list what people did, I'll forget something. I just had a lot of help. Thank you.

Haha... one detail I might forget one day if I don't write it down is that Heidi had moved her bed into our (now "our") house, and she slept for two (?) nights on couch cushions pinned in the corner of her room by a laundry basket. Thank goodness Scott Bell came over with his Blazer and helped me move a mattress to her house. I ended up moving it back by myself... it fits in the civic! But it was more fun to have Scott's help, and Heidi and I got to talk to him for a while, too.

The night before the wedding, Heidi was over until very late/early moving stuff in, packing for the honeymoon, etc. The next morning, I found a card she had left for me. It was the greatest start to the day. Well actually, the START to the day was my phone alarm... and 30 seconds later JD knocking on my bedroom door saying "Natasha made breakfast if you want some!" Oh wow... 60 seconds earlier and it would not have been as cool. But that timing was PERFECT, and breakfast was my favorite - French toast. For those who don't know, JD and Natasha are our friends and landlords that live upstairs. We rent their basement. What a great start to the day. And THEN I found the card, which included a list of 27 (plus more in the margins) reasons why Heidi loves me... written two weeks after the first time we spent any time together. She had saved it, and gave it to me the morning of our wedding. It was wonderful.

I got ready to go, and then had to bring Heidi her dress at Quinn and Kristy's. So I saw her, hugged her, and said, "Well aren't we just breaking all the rules?" We also broke the rule about not seeing her in her wedding dress when we took bridals/groomals. So we're rebels, what can I say? Then we drove down to American Fork. I was in my car by myself, and the Bates (Quinn and Kristy) had a carfull right behind me, including my Heidi, who was singing "Don't Stop Believing" at the top of her lungs, I hear. :)

We arrived at the temple a bit early... perfect. We waited by the recommend desk for a while, and I saw Bishop and Sister Ferrin arrive. I love them. A few other people arrived, and then we got escorted back to a little office where they made sure they had our information correct, checked our marriage license, etc. Before long we were all dressed in our temple clothes, waiting in the celestial room. As it turned out, we got to sit together in the celestial room for almost an hour because Heidi's grandparents were running late. It was really nice to have all that peaceful, yet anxious time together in the celestial room before our sealing.

Finally it was time to go in. We stopped in the hallway outside the sealing room to meet our sealer - George D. Durrant. I recognized the name, but didn't realize it was actually the same man that my dad and I had listened to during road trips. We hadn't requested anybody, so we were just meeting whichever sealer had been assigned to us. What did he say to us out in the hall? Oh yeah... I remember some... he told us the basic agenda. We sit in the little bench, he talks for a while, then when we actually do the sealing ordinance, he told us we could look at him or at each other, it didn't matter. He said it might be nice to look at each other when we say "Yes," but again, it didn't matter. He was so nice. When we walked into the sealing room, he shook mom's hand, and mom's reaction confirmed that his name wasn't just familiar - he was the guy with the talk tapes. :)

He said so many great things during the sealing, and he was definitely inspired. He mentioned some things that were so personal to Heidi and I (journal this part), and he talked about opportunities and scenarios we'd face in our future together. I felt like he talked about me a lot, and he said some very complimentary things, but I kind of felt like Heidi was getting left out. I talked to my dad about that afterward, and he pointed out that Brother Durrant had focused on me because of the blessing and opportunity and responsibility I had to be married to Heidi. That's true. I was definitely the luckiest and most honored person in that room! Anyway, a lot of it was personal and sacred, so I'll save it for the journal. Those of you who were there, please send me an email with what you remember from the sealing. We want to remember as much of it as we can. It was a wonderful, beautiful sealing. Most people reading this already know that in temple marriages, we don't say "I do." We just say, "Yes." Well, when I proposed to Heidi, her response was three distinct nods and a whispered, "Yes" with a huge smile on her face. She did the same thing in the temple, and it was our own secret memory right in the middle of our sealing. I love her for thinking of things like that! I loved knowing that this was it... this was making it official. We were getting married... not in a futuristic "we're going to get married" sense, but we were actually in the ceremony and ordinance, getting married.

After the ceremony, we got to greet and hug everyone as they left the room. Heidi's dad hugged me and said, "Now it starts. Now it's your job to take care of her." I said, "I will work very, very hard." Bishop Henrie may have looked happier than anybody... although he usually does. :) He is such a great man. It was so great to hug each of my siblings. When Julie and Chester were preparing for their sealing a few years ago... wow, more than a few, Julie told me about it by "inviting herself to my wedding." She called me in the middle of a crappy day of pest control sales, and told me she'd be at my wedding because she and Chester were going to the temple. I've lived in Julie's basement, and she has really helped me a lot during the hardest times of my life, so it felt like a team victory when I got to hug her in the temple. We both knew that we both made it... and now I'm thinking about how much I'll miss my family when we're in Hawaii... but I'm sure that thought is harder to bear right now because I'm also away from Heidi. Anyway, back to the happiness! The sealing was wonderful. After we hugged everybody, we went out into the hall to figure out where we were going next. The lady that was helping Heidi was one of the first to greet us, and I said, "Sister [forgot her name], I'd like to introduce you to my wife, Heidi." :) She guided us to an elevator, and then to the dressing rooms.

After I put on my tux and checked the mirror, the man that was helping me showed me a seat where I'd wait til Heidi was ready. It wasn't long, and one of the temple workers said, "Well, I'll say you did better than the last guy. He was waiting forever!" Hahaha... I thought that was pretty funny.

I went out to meet Heidi, and of course she looked amazing in her wedding dress. We walked out past the recommend desk and into the foyer, but before we went outside we practiced a dip... AW now everyone knows we planned that. :) But hey, that's not a moment you want to mess up! We walked out the doors, people cheered (which they're not supposed to do at the temple... shame shame), we hugged, kissed, dipped, kissed, got our pictures taken, kissed, etc. I love the picture Melissa posted of Heidi and I hugging Veronica and Austin.

Holy crap uploading pictures on this blog makes me want to smash things. I'll post all the pictures at the end, and they'll probably all end up at the top.

...regaining composure........

So... we had a bunch of pictures taken, and Andy started videoing stuff. We still haven't watched the result, but I'm really looking forward to it. During the week leading up to the wedding, Heidi faced a lot of unnecessary stress imposed by people who... were trying to be helpful? And aside from that, my only sadness was that Andy had moved out. I hardly saw him during the pre-wedding days, and it was weird to know he wasn't my roommate anymore, and never would be. The happiest times of my life have been when I lived with Andy... until now, of course. But even saying that makes me a little sad. But it's not that big of a deal, really. Of course we'll always be good friends and have plenty of opportunities to do stupid, funny, adventurous, and/or lazy things. The end of an era, the beginning of a better one.

Anyway, after the pictures we went to the luncheon. I had forgotten to look up that address, but fortunately when we pulled over to text/call/look at the map, Heidi's parents passed us, and we followed them to the luncheon.

Holy moley... that might have to be all for now. I've been typing my fingers off, and we just got to the luncheon! More later tonight, or possibly tomorrow.