To Eternity And Beyond

WE DID IT!! On Tuesday, December 30th, 2008, Nate and I were sealed together for time and all eternity as husband and wife. What a blessing it is to know that we have the opportunity to be together forever.

Looking back at the pictures, the day really did go beautifully but it wasn't with out a few stressful points. When we told people we were getting married on a Tuesday we got a lot of crazy looks. No one gets married on a Tuesday. Even when we scheduled our sealing with the temple we were the only one's scheduled, so we expected everything to go easy breezy as we drove over to the temple Tuesday morning. Much to our surprise, as we pulled up the place was a beehive of activity. The parking lots were completely full and there were a number of other cars circling for a spot. We gave up hunting for a spot and ended up parking in the dirt lot Northwest of the temple. We scurried over with all our bags in tow since we were now 5 minutes late and arrived huffing and puffing as we tried to catch our breath. Not exactly how I pictured the start of my wedding day. When we got settled we found out that they had 80 missionaries there that morning for some sort of zone conference and 10...16...18 (the number kept growing with each person we talked to) weddings scheduled. Guess we weren't so crazy after all, we were trendsetters.

Dressed, ready, and miraculously back on schedule we waited for our ceremony to start. We waited, and waited. The other couples around us were all taken in and we continued to wait, when we overheard that the couple before us was scheduled to start over a half hour before, they barely got into the room about 5 minutes before we were scheduled to go. Our ceremony was short but beautiful and sweet. It was such a blessing to be surrounded by so many of our loved ones.

A few other hiccups happened that put our morning events further behind and as Nate and I reflected on the morning we realized that everything that had happened was stuff that was out of our hands. We had planned everything to the "t" and almost every step of the way that morning we hit a bump. My dad in all his fatherly wisdom suggested that maybe we were being taught a lesson that you can plan everything perfectly but life still happens. I think we're still learning this lesson to this day.
In the end the wedding and the reception were beautiful. It might not have happened exactly how I pictured but it was still wonderful. Our friends and family were great in the amazing love and support they gave us in pulling the whole thing off. We were surrounded by loved ones young and old, reunited with people we haven't seen for far too long, and everyone had a good time (at least that's what it looks like in pictures). In the end we're now husband and wife together forever.

P.S. Check back "soon" for a slideshow of more wedding pictures. Our photographer Bob Kaufman took so many beautiful pictures it's taking me a while to put them all together.