February 7, 2012 was perfect. I loved my wedding month, wedding week and most especially my wedding day. My mom flew in the day before and Ben drove us over to Baton Rouge late morning. It was a lot of fun having her along for the 2 1/2 hour drive and having Ben tell her all about the area and different stories about growing up in the south. We got to the Baton Rouge Temple a little earlier than everyone else because I wanted some time to spend with my two friends from my childhood and my mission who flew in just for our wedding. Michelle and I grew up together in Iowa and have known each other since we were nine years old. Natalie is actually from Louisiana, but has been living in the DC area. We were mission companions in England and it meant so much to me that they were both able and willing to come spend such a special day with us. It made such a difference knowing they were there for me. I know how hard traveling across the country is and the only unfortunate part was not being able to spend more time with them! The weather couldn't have been better. The sun was shining and it was warm! The Baton Rouge Temple is a brilliant white and I am so happy we decided to be sealed there.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
{Louisiana Wedding Reception}


{UT Bachelorette Party}
I had two Bachelorette parties. My friends are spread out with several states between, so I celebrated a few times. I am trying to find my photos from Oregon, but I'll go ahead out of order and post a few from my Utah party. Angela and Nicole organized this one and it was exactly what I wanted before the big day. They invited all of my close girlfriends (and I didn't get an entire group photo...ooops!) and we met for SUSHI at Mikado. They decked that private room out with balloons, streamers, signs, confetti, presents and even condoms all over the table. Yes---the place was covered. HA! Those in attendance included: Angela, Nicole, Anmaree, Mandy, Laurie, Stacy, Faith, my Mom, Stef, Erika, Laura, Marissa, Heather and Cathleen. It was great...and I was so completely touched that they came out, despite the chaos of the night. I didn't get to spend nearly enough time with all of them. It was a big room and it was loud, but it meant SO much to me that they all came! Later that night some friends had to go, so our smaller group headed over to dance to the music of the Spazzmatics, an 80's coverband. It was fun of course, but I found it interesting that we all wanted to leave after an hour. Haha. True story. So much for living it up as a bachelorette :) I was perfectly happy with this and was looking forwarding to driving home and calling my future husband. Some things never change, but luckily that part of my life has. I love that I would rather be with him than out with strangers. Give me an hour here and there and I'm sure I will always be reminded of how good I have it. THANK YOU to all of my girlfriends. I love you!
{Last Minute Bridesmaids Dance}
We had a small wedding in Baton Rouge & Lake Charles, Louisiana and we were surrounded by Ben's friends and family, my mom, Michelle, my best friend growing up from Iowa and Natalie, my last mission companion I had when I was in England. My wedding day was perfect, but I missed having more of my friends and family with me. It really was great and I wouldn't change a thing. Honestly, I don't feel I missed out on anything, especially because my wedding festivities started last October when I went out to Bend, Oregon and my awesome friends Kellie and Becky threw me a Bachelorette party. Come July, the parties will conclude with a big shindig celebrating my wedding and my little sister, Jessica's wedding, with our side of the family. I didn't have bridesmaids at my wedding since it was going to be so far away. A few years ago, one of my favorite parts of celebrating Kellie's wedding was the time we got to spend with her while working on her bridesmaids dance. In October, I flew out to Oregon and about an hour before my Bachelorette party we had this great idea that we could choreograph and record this dance, sort of like the one we did for Kellie. It actually worked out rather well for the limited amount of time we had! I'm not quite sure how we did it, but we pulled it off. This is the end result of that idea. I love my girlfriends :)
Click here for Kate's "Bridesmaid" Dance.
{BenjaKate Wedding Slideshow}
We've been married almost four months and I am finally getting around to finishing up our thank-you's, printing copies of photos to send out to our families, updating our blog AND I just uploaded our wedding slideshow to YouTube so we could share it with everyone who wanted a copy (so far I haven't been able to burn it since the file is so big and I'm not techy enough to figure out another solution I guess). It is about 18 minutes long or so, but we love it. Without further adieu, here is more than you ever wanted to know about us :)
Click here for our WEDDING SLIDESHOW
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