Jessi and I were married on December 22nd 2012 at the Redlands, California LDS Temple.
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| My brother Simon & his wife Jan |
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| Cecily (my best friend) & her husband Brenden |
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| My parents & us |
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| The whole temple crew. |
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| Jessi & Susan (one of our photographers) |
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| Jessi and her Grandparents. |
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| The two families. |
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| Adam - brother & best man, Jessi, Me and Allegra - bridesmaid and sister (Adam's wife) |
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| Ashby & Lily (Adam & Allegra's kids) |
It was such a beautiful day. I will never forget it. After the wedding we had an amazing reception at my parent's house. They did such a fantastic job with everything. The decorations, the food, the cupcakes and the photography were all fantastic.
After the reception Jessi and I went to a little hotel in Carlsbad, California where we spent the night.
The next day we drove back to my parent's house, picked up all (well, most) of our things and headed off to Texas where we were staying with her parents and where we were also going to have another wedding with her family and friends.
It was going to be a 20+ hour drive to Texas so we wanted to split it up into three separate days' driving.
We also thought this would be a great opportunity to have a little mini-moon so we divided the trip into 6 hour days and we booked hotels (thanks to Jessi's parents!) in the cities where we stopped.
The first night we stopped in Tucson, Arizona where we stayed at this really cool little Spa which was built in the style of an old Spanish Mission and which still had the some of the original buildings.
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| The original fireplace from the mission. |
The next day we set off for Texas and got to our second hotel on Christmas Eve in a tiny town called Van Horn. The town was so small I could pretty much spit over it.
This hotel was actually a motel and was pretty motel-like. Needless to say it wasn't anything special but it was still nice to have somewhere to stay.
We opened up some presents we had gotten from our family members that night and then went to sleep pretty quickly.
Christmas morning came along and we got ready to go. After a continental breakfast in the morning, we left the Spit-Town of Van Horn and set off for a few more hours driving.
We finally reached Liberty Hill, Texas where her parents live at 5pm on Christmas Day where we unpacked and then had a little Christmas Present opening sesh and then Christmas Dinner.
That next week we spent just getting everything ready for our Texas wedding which would take place on the 28th. Jessi's parents hired a giant canopy tent, had a BBQ restaurant cater and hired a professional DJ.
The day finally came and we spent the day getting ready (well, Jessi did, anyway) and making sure all the decorations were in place. The photographer showed up around 2pm and we spent most of the afternoon taking pictures all around the house and the grounds.
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| Anson - Man of Honor, Me - Groom, Bree - Bridesmaid |
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| Jessi & Nick (Jessi's brother) |
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| You are correct...those would be goats. |
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| We are in Texas afterall |
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| Jessi and her Dad. |
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| Jessi & Parents |
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| Some of the family. |
After the photos, we got ready for the ceremony. Jessi wanted to have an actual wedding ceremony with an aisle and everything. It was supposed to take place inside the canopy but it was freezing cold that day and terribly windy so we had to amend things a little. We ended up putting the caterers inside the freezing tent (sorry!) and we had the ceremony in Jessi's dad's workshop (complete with vehicle lift!)
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| Waiting at the alter with Julio (Jessi's Uncle) & Nick (stand-in bestman) |
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| Jessi's vows |
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| My vows...from an iPod |
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| Jessi's Grammy |
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| Head Table |
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| Jessi is not wearing a polar bear...it was just cold in there! |
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| Joe (Wyatt Earp) - Jessi's Dad |
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| Daddy, Daughter dance |
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| She was thoroughly amused |
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| Garter grab/toss |
The ceremony started and Jessi looked gorgeous in her dress. She walked down the aisle to the song Reign of Love by Coldplay. Julio said his thing and we shared our vows with each other. Once the ceremony was over everyone was invited to help clean the chairs away and the food was brought out.
The day went off with only a couple of hitches: the DJ, thinking the wedding wasn't until the next day, didn't show up for 2-3 hours after he was supposed to so we had to use my iPod for the ceremony and a few of the dances; during the garter toss, I had a bag of miscellaneous items under Jessi's dress which I was going to throw out before I grabbed her garter. I threw out a stuffed Giraffe, a shoe and a cup but nobody really knew what was going on and so noone laughed except Jessi and I!
All in all, they were wonderful days and we are so grateful for all those who helped make them what they were, especially both of our families. There are too many people individually so I'll just do it here:
Thank You!
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