Wedding Photos

Yipee! Heather dropped our DVDs of the wedding photos off last night! I was so excited to see them :) We spent a few hours looking through all of them. It was exhausting! I don't know if I was more excited for the pictures or my mom, haha!

There is one DVD of all the edited photos, and another DVD with all of the raw photos. We absolutely love them! It was well worth the money. She even gave us the DVDs in our own customized case, which is absolutely beautiful. Here is what the case looks like.

I can't include all of the pictures (Sorry Mom!), but I've included some of my favorites from the ones that were edited. I think it would be fun if everyone left a comment of their favorite picture from each category and then their favorite one overall :) I'll name each one, so just reference the name of your favorite!

Jan-Michael, Katherine, and Couple Photos

This one I think, is my absolute favorite. The lighting, the coloring, the moment - it's all perfect! I think the reason I like it the most is because it has sort of an antique look to it. I'll call this one "Antique Kiss."

This is one of my favorites of Jan. I love when he laughs :) I know he would probably say, "But you can't see my face..." He just likes looking at himself (JUST KIDDING HUNNY!). He's going to tickle me later for writing that, or if he wasn't planning on it, he will now :) Hahah! He looks amazing in a tux, and I love how natural his pose looks :) I'll call this one "Happy Husband."

I think this is my favorite of myself. I like the pose. You get to see my jewelry, most of the dress, and the bouquet. I'm actually glad that I went with the smaller bouquet (10 flowers). They told me that I should get the 20 flower bouquet, but that would've been too much. I'm also glad that I went with the pure eggplant mini calla lilies rather than the Picasso kind (They looked good on the wedding cake though). I wasn't thrilled about the bow. I would've rather had it not-so-frilly and a solid color, but it wasn't awful. I'll call this one "Bride with the Bouquet."

When I first saw this one on Heather's blog, I knew that I would be extremely happy with our wedding photos. I think that the contrast is what really makes this picture perfect. Good thing Jan and I have opposite coloring. It's also a good shot of my hair (Thanks Kristine!) and makeup (Thanks Satie!). This one is "Picture Perfect."

This one is a good shot of us together and the temple in the background. It truly was a beautiful day. I'm very glad that we got married in the St. George rather than the Las Vegas Temple. I know it was more money and time for people to travel from the St. George Temple for the sealing to Henderson for the reception, but I'm really happy with the decision. The temple looks so beautiful and is such a pure white! Not only is it very beautiful, but there is a lot of interesting history here too. Number One: It is the oldest operating temple. Number Two: It was the only temple completed during Brigham Young's presidency. Number Three: It was the first temple where endowments for the dead were performed. Number Four: It has the most sealing rooms of any temple where endowments for the dead were performed. Number Four: It has the most sealing rooms of any temple (though not all are currently in use). Number Five: The Founding Fathers visited Wilford Woodruff in this temple asking him why their temple work had not been done! And Number Five: This is one of the only temples that doesn't have Moroni on the top. This one is called "St. George Temple."

Group Photos

I love this picture! It looks great overall, but then looking at individual faces is hilarious - like Leni, Carey, and Easton! Hahaha! I was worried about a picture like this, because I've seen signs at the temple that tell the photographer not to have the group shout or anything. Thankfully Heather told everyone to fake it, that way we could still get this great picture without ruining the spirit of the temple.

One things that surprised me was how busy the St. George Temple was. There were many weddings at the temple the same day as ours. I would have liked to be one of the only weddings, but I guess that is probably a hard this to accomplish in Utah! I didn't mind, though, as I was caught up in my own wedding, photos, friends, and family :)

This one is "Group Cheer."

Here is a picture of me with two of my sisters, Kimmie (on the left) and Stephanie (on the right). They were the only ones who were able to make it to the wedding and reception. I was very glad that they were able to come, because most of my sisters were not there. Kimmie is younger than me and Stephanie is older. And yes, I'm shorter than both of them... I'm the shortest of all my sisters. BUT! I'm glad I'm not tall: average is fine with me :P This one is "Sisters."

This is my picture with my bridesmaids. Satie (left) and Kristine (right) are two of my good friends. We were all roommates together freshman year in Heritage Halls. We didn't know each other before coming to BYU, but we became great friends. Satie and I have shared a room since freshman year, and it was sad to part. We aren't too far away, but we still haven't seen each other much since I moved out.

I let them pick out their own dresses. If they were going to spend money on them, I wanted them to choose something they would like and something they would wear after the wedding. I think they did a good job of choosing. They look really good with the white cardigans and calla lilies too. I'll call this one "Bridesmaids."

This one we can call "Family." Starting on the left is Lito (Jan's stepdad), Leni (Jan's mom), Jan, Me, Patricia (my mom), Kevin (my dad), and Debbie (my stepmom). I'm so grateful that they were all able to come :)








Wedding and Reception Details

This is a photo of the rings together on the bouquet. I thought the rings wouldn't look that great together, because my ring is so dainty and made of white gold while his is very bold and made of tungsten. They both look wonderful separate, but we didn't really buy them to "go together." This photo makes them look good together, though. This one I'll call "Wedding Rings."

Although this is a picture of me, I included it in this section, because it is mostly a picture of the wedding dress. When I was searching for wedding dresses, I actually was thinking of getting one with a lot of beading, but originally I wanted a simple dress like this. It was exactly what I had imagined. The alterations for the hem and the bolero were a nightmare. On my first fitting, I almost fainted! I felt bad for the seamstress, because I think it really stressed her out. I'm not sure what happened. It was probably just because I was standing (in 3 inch heels) for over an hour trying to be completely still. Thankfully it all worked out! I think my favorite part of the dress was the sash that went around the waist and tied in a bow in the back. It is difficult to see in this picture, but it looks really god especially with the train in the back. I got this beautiful dress at David's Bridal thanks to Dad and Debbie! This is called the "Wedding Dress."

This is our wedding cake made by Vonda Rodarte who is from Jan's home ward. She did a beautiful job. This was one thing that the Bridal Fair help me with, because that is how I got an idea of how I wanted the cake to look. I don't know what it is, but I love the messy-neatness of the texture. And I knew I didn't want fondant, so this was perfect. It was perfect weather, too, so the frosting didn't melt. The actual cake was chocolate with a raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting - my favorite! It was delicious! Call this one "Wedding Cake."

Call this one "Happily Ever After." This is the front door of the Noorda's house, where we had the reeption. Carey and Cindy were SO great! Thanking them for everything they helped us with would be filling this entire blog post! Not only did they let us use their backyard for the reception, but they had some decorations for us to use, and helped us set up and clean up the reception. Cindy even hosted my bridal shower, which was absolutely perfect, back in February. They really helped make our wedding day the start of a truly "Happily Ever After."

Here you can see what the centerpieces looks like on each of the tables. The extras were put on the table where the slideshow was being shown. The wedding favors were truffles in the brown boxes. Jan and I put those boxes together ourselves. It took quite a while to finish them - more than two movies worth of work! I'm not sure what happened with the extras, but I'm glad we didn't get them! We would have gained lots of weight eating those... and the extra cake too! This one can be called "Flowers and Chocolate."


Reception

This is some of my extended family who were able to make it to the wedding and reception. From the bottom-left it goes Stacey, Kelly, Peyton, Taylor, Logan, Aunt Debbie, Uncle Greg, Kelsey, and Aunt Michelle. I'm glad they were able to come. Thankfully I have some extended family who live out here in Utah!

This one is called "Extended Family."

We did a ring exchange at the reception. Since Jan is a convert, most of his family (and some of mine), couldn't come into the temple to see the sealing. The exchange didn't go exactly as planned, but it worked. Also, you can see that I'm no longer wearing the bolero. I'm wearing Cindy's cardigan, because I left the bolero at the temple. Thankfully, most people thought that I was wearing it because it was a little bit chilly. I'm actually glad that it worked that way, because it was a little cold when it got dark. This one is the "Ring Exchange."

This is us in the car heading off to our hotel. Everyone cheered us off with sparklers. Some of Jan's friends decorated the car for us. Jan was very thankful for the decals rather than something that might hurt his precious car :) Inside were some decorations too. Included inside were some fake flower petals, some of which we are still finding in the car to this day! Funny story: I didn't know that the flower petals were static-y. When we got out of the car to go into the hotel, the flower petals were sticking to my back and butt all the way up to the hotel room! How embarrassing, hahaha! Oh well! We will call this one "Headed Out."

There will be more wedding photos on the "Pictures" page. Maybe I'll even have Jan do a post of some of his favorites so he can include his family as well. This post took soooo long to do - partly because I'm at work doing real work in between :) I hope you all enjoyed the pictures as much as I did! I'm excited to see which ones everyone liked!