The Impossible Day

In my defense, I wrote a post about a month ago but the stupid blog-spot decided to only post one paragraph. I tried to save what I had, and hurry and re-write it, but then the website deleted the entire thing. Anyway, I got busy and all of those fun excuses. After that it was just a matter of being stubborn since all I got was crap from Kristen and Jaime. I can't help myself! That’s why they call me stubborn!

For this post, I decided to write a bit about the day which nobody thought would ever come and then post a couple of pictures from the day. The day of which I am speaking is my brother Brady’s wedding. The blissful day occurred on February 9, 2006. For those of you who remember the day I said that he finally announced his engagement, yes it was just a short time ago, and yes the wedding did take place rather fast. From the outside looking in, everything was great. The flowers, the awesome decorations, and the gigantic buffet table which included all-you-can-eat shrimp and cocktail sauce. From the inside looking even more inside, I have come to a few conclusions about Mormon weddings.

Conclusion #1:

Wedding receptions should only take place at reception centers. This is not only a stress free tip for the parents, but it saves each member of the family the headache of setting up, and what’s worse, cleaning up until all hours of the night after the couple has already left. Some people spend more money dressing up the LDS chapels to not look like the church that it is. If they don’t have the usual sheet cake/frozen cheesecake crap, they are spending BOOKU bucks on catering that nobody else really appreciates. They are just there for the free food anyway. Most probably didn’t even bring a gift.

Reception centers do all of the decorating and catering, all you have to do is pick the menu and the style of cake you want. The other great part about reception centers is the fact that all you (by you I mean the couple and the families of the couple) is show up and then leave when it is over. If nothing else, please make sure you have other people doing all of this. The last thing anyone wants is to have to stay and clean up after you have already had a long day. I have been on both ends of the spectrum. The reception center vs. the church gym, and I personally have to choose the reception center. Brady’s wedding was in a church, and we got very lucky. The stake was a having a Valentine’s dance the following night, and said they would clean up if they could use the decorations. Despite this, we were still there cleaning until 2:00 a.m.

Conclusion #2:

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER get married around Valentine’s Day! Brady was a bozo, and didn’t get his act together in time to give his poor [wife] any time to plan anything, except for the weekend before the most expensive holiday ever. Many items, specifically flowers in this case, were like twice the price as they would have been even two weeks before. I guess the “custom” is that the groom pays for the flowers. In our case however, we were quite shocked to learn that the bride (ok, so it was pretty much mostly the bride’s mother) spent over $1500. Not only did every table have a big vase of flowers, each of these vases had roses in them. Roses are the worst during this holiday. I think they almost triple in price. The four, 8 ft. buffet tables were strung with roses, the bridesmaids had roses in our bouquets, and the bride had a huge bouquet of roses. While talking to my sister who got married in July, she said that she spent barely $40o and she had two receptions! Just say NO to February weddings!

Conclusion #3:

It is a very good thing that only Brady has to deal with the mother-in-law. The woman drives me nuts! Going back to my first conclusion, families should just show up and let someone else stress out. We were supposed to show up to the church no later than 5:30 p.m. for pictures. When we arrived at exactly that time, the mother of the bride is running around in sweats setting up the place with her husband and son also in casual attire. The photographer arrived shortly there-after, the bride and groom just got there and spent almost an hour just getting ready. The bride (her name is Lauren by the way) asks her mom to help her, and the mom tells her she is too busy getting the rest of the stuff set-up and helping get the food ready. Since my mom wasn’t doing anything, she went and helped her, but come on lady, FORGET THE DUMB FOOD AND HELP YOUR DAUGHTER GET DRESSED FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! IT IS HER WEDDING DAY!

I am sure that Lauren didn’t think anything of it, because her mom is that disorganized all the time. I felt bad for the poor photographer and videographer who just wandered around taking pictures of whatever and whoever they could. The pics I am posting up came from my sister Meagan’s camera and a couple maybe came from me. Neither of us, strangely enough, took any pictures of the bride or of the bride and groom together, so I have to apologize up front for that. The reception started at 7:00 p.m. and when the first few people came, they were forced to go watch the video for a bit while the photographer finally got some pictures of the families (the bride’s family to be more specific was still taking pictures).

Conclusion #4:

Ok, so it wasn’t all bad. Like I said before, from the outside looking in, you would never know, but I have been trained be overly picky! All in all it worked out very nicely. Brady really wanted my older brother Mitch to be able to attend and be around for the wedding since he missed my sister’s wedding in the summer due to his baseball season conflicting. We didn’t know at the time when Mitch was leaving to go to spring training. We thought it could be toward the end of February, but again, Brady & Lauren wanted him there so they wanted to make sure they did it fairly early in the month. As it turns out, Mitch left exactly one week later.

Hey look I found one!

My Brothers & Nephew (Taylor, Thad, Easton, Brady, Mitch)

The church before the lights went off. The buffet table is in the middle.

The top of the cake.

The Loverly Sisters! (Meagan & Ericka)

Check out these hotties! My favorite is the one in the middle!

Look out all two year olds, here is possibly the cutest of them all!

The white chairs were rented because the mother of the bride
didn't like the way the church chairs looked. Lauren's mom is the one
on the far left. Then Meagan, my Mom, Ericka, and Gage (Meagan's BF)

I think the guy is trying to dance, but at the buffet table?
All he has to do is move about five feet the opposite direction
behind those tables in the foreground and he is on the "dance floor."
This pic shows some of the decorations. The lights and ball things
were strung horizontally across the ceiling of the church gymnasium.