January 6th: The Wedding Day

THE DAY...the day we waited patiently for, planned for, and counted down to for 152 days. The event for which families and friends had braved roads and skies for hours (and for some, many, MANY more hours than was originally planned) to share this moment with us. We are SO grateful to all of you who were there!! WE CAN'T SAY 'THANK YOU' ENOUGH!! WE LOVE YOU!

I feel like I should have some very profound thoughts to share here, but I have to admit that all I remember thinking is how happy I was to be there with Mark. To finally be there to make it all official. I was a little surprised that this momentous occasion passed by so quickly and calmly. All of a sudden, we were married and we were at the beginning of a brand new life together and I still felt the same way I did an hour before - like there was still something else that needed to happen to make it "real". Now that wasn't meant as a complaint because, at the same time, I feel like that's what it should have been like. This was something that we were both sure of and wanted. We were already so committed to one another that this really was just the "paper proof" of how we already felt and thought of one another...Crossing t's and dotting i's.

Mark and I had a lot of time to talk and take it in together. We arrived at the temple a little early which lead to the chance of sitting in the celestial room for a good 30-45 minutes before the actual sealing. Mark and I really felt blessed to be there - not just at the temple, but at that particular temple. A mere 5 miles away sits a La Quinta parking lot where 18 months earlier, on July 13, 2009, Mark and I had met and started the journey that lead to that moment.

I just remember sitting there and feeling so much peace and quiet happiness. It felt so good to be there with Mark - We were finally done being apart from one another, we could spend our days, hours, minutes, seconds together and no phone or webcam was required.

I still have to remind myself that I'm here for good...It still feels too good to be true.

January 5th: Bridal/Groomals

So Jennifer Gilmore rocks our world...

...SERIOUSLY!

She is the wonderful photographer who took our pictures in California. She's incredibly talented and so great to work with. We were so impressed and grateful for the wonderful job she did, we asked what we could do for her - she said to just let people know how much we liked her. So here you go guys...

WE ** LOVE ** JENNIFER GILMORE!!!

These are just a few samples of the pictures (some of you might have seen these already on FB) - there's a DVD coming to us, but these are just ones she gave us to use for the receptions. If you guys want to look through more of what Jennifer does...here's her blog and her website. She is also GREAT with kids! (And how do we know this, you may ask? She took McMullin family pictures and Cisternas family pictures on the beach as well - and the kids actually paid attention to her and smiled. Yep, she's THAT awesome.)

January 4th: Welcome to California!!

From the moment we landed at the John Wayne Airport, we knew we had made the best decision in the world.... A California wedding in January was the ONLY way to go.

We had just left dreary and cold Missouri for a very cold, foggy, and snowy Utah layover and then we landed in California to this - and pardon the lesser quality, these were all taken with my phone:

UNREAL! It was like another world...from white/gray foggy, cloudy weather to sunshine, blue skies, and palm trees - all in a matter of hours. Mark and I had an immediate change in mood and we just kept commenting over and over again about how great it was to be in California again, how much we loved it there, and how perfect it was to be getting married there. We were ELATED!

People have always asked us why we were getting married in Newport Beach - especially when he's from Missouri and I'm from Utah...and at the sight of the confused brows, I had our list ready to go. It went something like this:

1. Mark and I met there and...
2. He took me there when he proposed.
3. It was always one of Mark's wishes to be married in the Newport Beach temple...
4. Plus the Salt Lake temple would be incredibly busy because of all of the students marrying there during the semester break
5. The weather in Utah during January vs. California in January

Some might think we were stretching the reasons, but who cares? If you only get to do it once, you might as well do it like you want to and we both wanted California. We stopped by the temple that Tuesday afternoon and again, that feeling of excitement took over - who wouldn't want to get married here??? It just felt so PERFECT!

So Mark and I were lucky - our travel to California was pretty ideal. For some of our family though, it didn't go so well and a quick layover in Utah turned into hours!! Everything that could go wrong, did. Thankfully, despite all of the troubles, they made it in (although it was very late at night) and were able to have a good time (or so we hope). We're both so grateful to have wonderful people who trekked by plane and car to come and share this event with us. I know it came at a great sacrifice to them and we are just so SO happy that they were there to share it with us. I also know that a lot of you wished you could have made it and were there with us in your thoughts.

To ALL of you who were there with us and those of you who were there in thought:

THANK YOU!! We love you!! And we feel VERY LOVED!!