Friday, November 7th was hell. That's probably normal for the day before any wedding, though. We won't talk about that day. November 8th, on the other hand, was great! We woke up in our separate houses after a night of constantly waking up. I went out to my living room, where Jeremy and Mary were. We talked for a while while waiting for Emily and Jacquelyn to get to my apartment (it wasn't quite Emily's apartment yet). Jacquelyn called and let me know that she would be there soon. Emily called me on her way over, saying that she had forgotten to take some ribbon home to her mom the night before and asked if I would take it over to her house while Jacquelyn did her hair. I said that Jacquelyn would be another 15 minutes, so she could do it while I showered and did other stuff. So that's what ended up happening. I consider that a foreshadowing of how our marriage will be. I wear the pants and call the shots! Kidding, kidding.... Once all that was done, Jacquelyn came over and did Emily's hair. That went perfectly smooth, which was quite a contrast from how things went the day before. As 10:45 drew closer, excitement was in the air. To help pass the time, Jeremy and I played one of our favorite Super Nintendo games, Secret of Mana, which caused Mary to roll her eyes.
Once it was time to go, we gathered our things and went out the door to find that it was raining quite a bit. We rushed everything to Emily's car and got in without her hair getting wet, so that was good. We stopped by Emily's house, then went to the bank, and then Arby's. The Arby's guy was funny because immediately after he asked what he could get for us, he said, "Will that be all?" before we could even respond, and then said "Just kidding, just let me know when you're ready." Jacquelyn got tons of Arby's sauce from him. While we were getting our food, Emily said that it was her wedding day, and the guy mentioned the weather being bad. It was kind of lame that it was raining, mostly because of the pictures, but we figured we could just get our pictures taken in the atrium at the temple.
On our way to the temple, we saw a rainbow, which was the second one Emily saw that day. She was very happy about that! When we were getting fairly close to the temple, I saw a van merging onto the freeway, and saw that it was my parents' van! Quiet a coincidence, if you ask me. Once we got even closer to the temple, we saw another car ahead of us, which was Emily's friend Mary's rental car, with Mary and Emily's family inside. All three of our vehicles were in a row. How random! When we got to the temple, Emily quickly exchanged some garments at the distribution center and we went inside.
The temple workers were expecting us. We were on time, but we still had to wait around for instruction. Emily was still somewhat stressed out because we were waiting around when it felt like we were supposed to be doing something. Before long, we went in to review the paperwork. Everything was fine, which was good. The lady told us that some couples in the past have forgotten their marriage license and they've had to turn them away. That would suck so bad! I would feel terrible.
After the paperwork, we got dressed and were sealed together. While it was happening, Emily cried, even though she tried not to. It was an awesome moment! Not the crying, but the sealing. There were probably around 25 people there. Afterwards, they all hugged us, and it was very nice. We then got ready to get our pictures taken. I went outside to get Emily's jewelry and our wedding bands from her car. I was very surprised to see that the weather was quite good! The sky was blue and it was nice and sunny! I told Emily the good news, and she was happy. We went outside and met up with our families and our photographer, Jade. We went to get our family pictures taken first. Throughout that, and also afterwards, there were some young women commenting on Emily's dress and shoes. It was funny to watch them be very stereotypical girls. After that, our families left to go get things ready for the reception, and we got pictures of just the two of us taken. Jade did a very good job, and was fun to work with. We're both very excited to see the pictures!
When the pictures were done, we went back in the temple to get our things, then drove down to Fred Meyer in Salem so that Emily could get some gels to put in her high heels. Unfortunately, they didn't end up being very good. After that, we headed down to Turner for our reception. It turned out pretty well. We talked with a few people at first, but then we went in the unused portion of the gym to wait for the ring ceremony to start. We talked a little bit with Kevin, Jill, Erin, and Jade. Soon, the ring ceremony started. Scott was the DJ, and he played Pachelbel's Canon. It was a little awkward walking out, because we didn't know exactly what pace we should be walking at. It wasn't too bad, though. When we got to the front of the room, our bishop, Bishop Russell, talked for a few minutes. It was very nice. We then exchanged rings. I dropped Emily's ring, and people laughed, but I didn't mind at all; I thought it was funny. After that, Bishop Russell said that people could come up and congratulate us, but nobody came up at first; people just sat there taking pictures. We think that nobody was coming up because everybody was waiting for our parents to go up first. Eventually people went up, though. Later on, my dad gave a blessing on the food and we ate. It was a very good dinner, very much like Thanksgiving. Everybody did an amazing job on the food. After a while, it was time to dance. Neither of us wanted to be the only ones dancing, but we were kind of forced into it. It was the Mariah Carey song "Hero", which Emily actually doesn't really like all that much. It went all right, though. Of course there were lots of people taking pictures of us. After a little while, Kevin and Jill started dancing too, which made us feel better, and then a few more couples. When the dancing was done, we socialized a little more, then cut the cake, which was quite awkward and pointless. I didn't mind too much, though, because that's just how weddings are. After a little more socializing, Emily and I decided to bail without letting everybody know. The only people who knew were Jeremy, Mary, the other Mary, and Jade. We just didn't feel like making a big scene. We drove away and left all the stress that comes from preparing for a wedding behind us. It was done and over with! It went very smoothly and we are both so grateful for everybody who helped us out. We have awesome families and friends.
We got gas at the gas station near Emily's house and then went to Lincoln City for the weekend. It was awesome, but we won't go into the details! The room was great, though. Here are some pictures of it:
We are very happy with how our wedding went, and we are ecstatic to be married!
