Eyrealm: Catching up to the Wedding!

Who knew that planning and pulling off a 10th wedding would be so time-consuming and so much fun! Even though I admit that I begged Charity not to have the reception at our house because I knew it would be so much work, I’m so happy that’s the way it turned out! Our house really needed a face lift after 7 years of living and two previous wedding festivities as well as numerous Power of Moms retreats and all that’s involved with the comings and going of a big family.

Even though there was a lot of “stuff” to take care of to prepare for the wedding, life went on in the midst of it all. I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I have posted on this blog. I need to highlight a few of the fun events that were run-ups to the wedding. So for the sake of family history, here we go.

We attended a fabulous concert at Leon and Karen Peterson’s incredible home on the Weber River:

We spent a quick a quick two days to close up everything at Bear Lake (sigh).

And we spent a momentous day with the Carver Family and ours when our darling Cami was baptized. She had to wait a whole year to be baptized while she suffered through a cancer relapse and a complete bone marrow transplant. No one will ever know what this little family has endured except those who have!

It was such a joy to see her darling daddy baptize her and Millie’s Dad confirm her a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Millie is Cami’s dear friend who lost her life to cancer last year. Cami gave an astonishing talk at her funeral. It was a friendship made in Heaven which will continue there in eternity. The love in that room was so thick you could cut it!

Love this family! (Sorry Chris this is the best one I got!)

We had such a lovely lunch afterward at the Carver home. Chelsea is one incredible mom!

So many cute cousins and one very happy mom!

Then back to the myriads of decisions and errands for the wedding….choosing just the right pens for the sign-in book at the wedding. Finding the “right color” of navy was tricky!

There are hundreds of texts on my phone. The back and forth went sometimes many times every day!

Finding just the right linens for the tables was among those texts. Thank goodness for those texts that include pictures instantly! What a world of difference from our first wedding!

And trying to figure out how long mums would last….

And what to do with Ian’s favorite candy….

We oogled over the darling bow ties that came for the boys via text!

People came out of the woodwork to help make the event a success. Our dear friend Molly Wetzel painstakingly painted three signs to direct traffic on the night of the reception and then flew off to Spain to meet her new grandbaby. Molly you are a hero!

Every other weekend or so Charity and often Ian too came home to make arrangements for the wedding. Plus these two spent many hours writing thank you notes to every single one of the 70 people who came to their wedding dinner as well as getting a good start on all the thank you notes for the exciting pile of gifts from so many generous friends.

One of the great highlights of the run-up to the wedding day was the celebration with the wonderful people from our ward (our neighborhood church unit) who have known Charity since she was knee high to a grasshopper! Heidi Shipp offered her beautiful home and so many people brought fabulous food, lovely gifts and fond best wishes.

Charity and Ian shared their engagement story which was delightful and Ian was a hit!

Such dear friends organized and pulled it off with grace and class!

It was a beautiful day with such dear friends! Here is Teddy, a childhood friend of Charity’s surprised Charity (along with her wonderful mom). Even though they moved away after spending much of their childhood together, there they were to support this fun 3vent!

Many hours were spent by these three moms trying to clean up the creative messes of these three amigos. The above two were known for running up and down our street in their birthday suits at age 2 and 3.