Eleven Years--Happy Anniversary

Eleven years ago today, Matt and I were married in the Atlanta Temple.  It was such a great day, I love looking at the pictures and remembering what a beautiful day it was. (Unfortunately it was before digital cameras were common, so these are all scans of printed pictures--sorry for the bad quality.)

 The temple was so beautiful.  All of our family was there and it was a wonderful ceremony.  I was, however, late.  If you know me, I am never late (if it is at all in my control) and yet I was late to my own wedding.  The story is that I lived with 2 roommates in a house that was very close to the temple--walking distance almost.  The morning of my wedding my roommates cooked breakfast for all of us (my friend Chrissy had flown in with her baby Sydney and was staying at my house).  I didn't want to get all ready and then eat--knowing I would spill something if I did, so I waited until after breakfast to get ready....maybe I should have waited until after breakfast to get dressed and done all the getting ready earlier--because I realized I only had about 30 minutes until I was supposed to be at the temple.  I got there 30 min late (still before everyone else arrived, but 30 min later than Matt who spent the time wondering how I could be late for my own wedding). We were married at 12:30pm on August 6, 1999.

More temple pictures...

Our reception, while wonderful, had more than it's share of funny (now) stories.  It started with setting up for the reception.  I realized I had left the tablecloths at my house--really near the temple, but really far from the reception site--ok, not that far, but in rush hour traffic, really far.  I found a good friend and sent them to my house to get them.  About 20 min later I realized I left our guest book at the house too.  I couldn't reach the first friend, already in transit, so we sent a second friend.  About this time I realized I was too involved in planning my wedding and it would have been a better idea to back off on my part of running the whole thing.

Then came the cake...

The cake itself was great.  I loved it (not my style now, but a lot of things I did 11 years ago aren't my style now).  If you notice in this picture there is a cake topper.  If you were actually at our reception, you might not have seen a cake topper--you would have seen the purple bow and magnolia flower on the top of the cake... 

We were setting up for the reception and I had gone to my parents house to get a load of things to bring over.  When I got to the reception Matt's sister Jenny ran up to me and told me there was something she had to tell me before I went inside.  Honestly, my first thought was that Matt had left me (yes, I hate to admit it, but it was).  So when she told me that Matt's little sisters (3 and 5) had accidentally knocked off the cake topper, it was, frankly, a relief!

Then she told me that her parents had felt so bad that they were driving down to the bookstore (by the temple) to get a replacement topper.  I really didn't care if the cake had a topper--it was given by a good friend, but it wasn't worth them being late to the reception because they had to go get it...but they didn't have a cell phone, so there was nothing to do.

They did get back with a new topper...exactly like my first one.  When we went to cut the cake instead of the crystal version of the Atlanta Temple, there was a magnolia flower and a purple bow.  I looked at my mom and she shrugged...sometime during the reception it, too, had been knocked off and broken. 

I loved this part of the reception--I had a BMW Z3 that was leased for me through work.  I was really worried about driving it away from the reception because if anything was damaged I would have to pay to fix it...but Shanna and Jed did a Fabulous job decorating it--it was so fun to drive away in it!

The next day we had an open house at Matt's parents chapel.  It was so fun--all my family drove up for it and it was so casual and relaxed--it was nice to talk and have a good time after a busy wedding day (I did note that it was nice and relaxed for me--not so much for Matt's mom, who did so much with the food and decorations).

It has been a fabulous eleven years.  Lots of good times, enough of the hard times to  make us appreciate the good times, but looking back I wonder how I got so lucky to marry Matt--the best decision I have ever made.  I would do it again in a heartbeat!  Happy Anniversary!