Hannah & Jake

My sister, Hannah, found a great guy, and they decided to get married. Jake and Hannah met in the BYU-I Spanish lab during Hannah's last semester of college. She travelled back to Rexburg on her weekends to see him for the next 8 months. They got engaged over the fourth of July and decided to make it a short engagement by getting married on September 3rd. Two months might be short by normal standards, but it was just enough time to make everything work for them. Everyone in the family came together to help make it wonderful! I got to do a couple of things for the wedding and reception. It was fun to do some crafty projects and a privilege to get to do them for my awesome sister. 

One of the most important things that we had to get done ASAP was to find a wedding dress. Since she didn't have much time, we scheduled an entire day of wedding dress shopping. Everyone came down to Provo since we have the biggest supply of modest dresses. I looked up every wedding dress store around and made appointments at each. It was fun getting to shop with Hannah. She tried on about 20 dresses, and still hadn't found the perfect one. There were several good possibilities, but she wasn't perfectly satisfied. Toward the end of the day, we went to a rental shop called Gowns by Pamela. It was an interesting concept where the dress actually came in two pieces. You could mix and match the different pieces to find the perfect style and fit. She tried on a bunch, but it wasn't until the last option that it really clicked. When she came out of the dressing room, you could tell it was the right dress. She was beaming, and she felt and looked beautiful. It was so obvious that this was the one! It was a fun girls day, and in the end, we got the job done.

My next assignment was to make some pallet signs for the reception. She wanted an elegant, yet rustic theme, and we thought the signs would fit the style perfectly. I wanted to make sure that the signs were generic enough that they could work for home decor after the reception as well. Her colors were navy blue and corn yellow. I used photoshop to come up with two designs that I liked and then got to work on the signs. Jonathon helped me cut the boards and nail together and then I sanded, stained, traced, and hand painted them. I was so happy with how they turned out. They were our contribution to the reception and also our wedding presents for the happy couple.

Finally, the big day arrived. Jake is from Las Vegas, so they decided to get married in the Las Vegas temple. All of our family drove down the day before for the wedding. When we were looking for hotels, we realized it was going to be a lot of money (2 nights X 5 hotel rooms) for all of us, so Claire had the great idea to look for an airBnB to rent. We found an awesome house on the outskirts of Vegas that had sleeping arrangements for all 20 of us. It was fun being all together, and was really the perfect scenario. We stayed up late talking the night before, and then spent the next morning helping Hannah get ready. Kym helped her do her makeup, which turned out beautiful. Then we sent her off to the temple while the rest of us got ready.

The temple ended up being a little crazier than expected. Jake's younger brothers were going to watch all of the kids, but they ended up being late, and when they finally arrived, the kids panicked because they didn't know them at all. It was hard to blame them. Jonathon kindly bowed out of the temple sealing and stayed outside to watch the 9 kids. It was so kind of him to do that. The ceremony was very beautiful and Hannah and Jake were happy and completely at ease with their decision to be married. One of the things I will remember about what the sealer said was "no matter what else happens, everything will turn out fine because the temple ordinance was the most important part." It was nice to hear that because there is always so much stress associated with weddings and receptions and making sure everything is perfect. It was special to be in the temple with family and to know that this was the most important part of the whole day.

After the sealing was finished, I stayed with my mom and helped Hannah put on her wedding dress. It had a lace-up corset back, and I was the one that had been trained how to do it. It was fun to be in the Bride's Room with Mom and Hannah, as she was so excited and so happy. From there, we went out into the sweltering heat to take pictures. The sealing was at 11:30 am, so the sun was directly overhead and hot. It was 103 degrees that day and so miserable. There was a fairly strong breeze that took a little bit off the heat, but it also made pictures a nightmare because everyone's hair was flying all over the place. The whole time I wished that I had tied my hair back, but it didn't really matter because Hannah looked beautiful. She had also done the Bridal pictures the night before in perfect weather conditions and ideal lighting, so it wasn't really a big deal.

 *professional photos courtesy of Maddie Claire Photography

Our Family (missing Ben!)

The Siblings!

Sisters

Hannah was sure missing her brother and bff, Ben, but he was represented in the festivities. 

We're glad he is serving a mission!

 While we were waiting for the rest of the pictures to get done, we took a few of our little family. We look exhausted and windblown, but it shows we were there at the temple. Sometimes that is as good as it gets.

The McDonald's hosted a family luncheon at a nearby church. We enjoyed lunch and getting to know them all better, then we headed back to the house to put the kids down for a nap. Jonathon stopped at 7-11 and brought back 5 huge slurpees for everyone to split. Everyone was so hot, so it was a welcome treat. We were all tired, so we lounged around for a few hours until the open house started. The open house was at another church, and luckily, we didn't have to do much but show up. I took some pictures at it, the kids ate some dessert, and then we headed home. After the kids were in bed, all the adults settled down in front of the tv to watch BYU play football against Arizona. It was nice to relax for a little bit after a very long day. BYU squeaked it out in the end with a game winning field goal by a freshman kicker. Ha! The perfect end to a great day. We drove home the next morning, and arrived back at our house exactly 48 hours after we left. It was a whirlwind trip, but worth it to support Hannah and Jake.

The reception in Idaho was a lot bigger of a deal for our family than the Open House because we were in charge. We had a few days to recover from Vegas before the next trip. Since the previous trip had been so fast, we decided to take the boys out of school on Friday so that we had a little bit more time to spend with the family. I was also in charge of making the wedding cake, and I wanted plenty of time to get there and get it decorated before the reception. 

Growing up, Hannah had always wanted a party atmosphere at her reception, so it was not really a surprise when she asked to have it in the backyard and to have a waffle bar. That just seemed to fit her happy, relaxed personality so well. Mom and Dad worked hard making the yard look beautiful, and I chipped in with lots of ideas on decorating. Mom called me almost every day that week to discuss certain things about the reception. It was fun to get to help make it all happen. Hannah's main theme was built around the idea of rustic, but elegant (i.e. think burlap and lace) with sunflowers and navy blue accents. On Friday night, we gathered all of the decorations that mom had been collecting along with tons of flowers and started to set up the backyard. While we were originally unsure where everything was going to go, it all started to come together.  We spent the majority of Saturday morning finishing up the decorating. I was so impressed with how it turned out. In my mind, I pictured something beautiful, but I was overwhelmed with how lovely it really was. We created an entrance by draping the pergola with white sheets so that it created a soft tunnel-like feel where the guests could enter. My sign got to go on the outside of this to welcome everyone. 

Once inside the yard, we created a border with bows and huge pots of yellow flowers. This helped direct everyone where to go and added a stunning and colorful element to the yard.

We borrowed an old wagon from Aunt Jill where we put presents. 

The entrance to the garden was draped with sheer curtains and the guest book and a beautiful wedding picture was set up in front of it. The curtains blew softly in the light breeze and added a whimsical feel.

After all the decorating was done, it was time to get the food ready to go. I was in charge of the wedding cake. Over the previous 3 weeks, I had tried several different recipes and ideas until I found one that I really liked. Hannah and Jake weren't very particular about what they wanted, so I got to be creative. They knew they wanted a lemon cake, and they wanted to cut it at the reception, but not serve it, so it could be nice and small. Since it was going to be stacked, it had to be a denser cake to hold up all the layers. I chose a lightly lemon butter cake from Martha Stewart, a lemon curd filling, and cream cheese buttercream frosting. I made all of the cake the day before we left and took them with me in a cooler. I brought a huge box of decorating stuff with me to do the actual frosting and decorations. I decided to get the cake done and out of the way so that I would have time to fix anything that went wrong. While everyone was busy with other things on Friday night, I set to work on the cake. If there was one star of the show, it was the mixture of the lemon filling with the delicious frosting. When I was finished with it, my dad and brothers literally scraped every last drop out of the bowl and ate it straight. I'm glad they approved :)

For the decorations, Hannah mentioned that she liked the look of frosting roses, so that is what I did. It is really quite easy to do, and they look fancy and elegant. I just took a large star tip and swirled the roses on the two layers. Then I topped it with a bouquet of flowers and pearls that I made.

I really thought it would be stunning to put the cake on a circle cut out from a tree (apparently they are called "tree cookies"). I had seen some really pretty examples on Pinterest and searched all over for something similar. My Uncle Geoff heard what we were looking for and was so nice to make us some for the reception. They turned out amazing and really added a lovely element as the cake stand. I finished it up, put it in the refrigerator and didn't worry about it again until right before the reception. It worked great and turned out lovely! 

But wait.... There's more to the cake story! At the beginning, Hannah had jokingly said that she wanted a velociraptor on top of her cake. She loves dinosaurs, and especially the movie Jurassic Park. I laughed the suggestion off and didn't think much of it again. About a week before the wedding, I sent her a picture of one of my practice cakes. She responded with "Where's the velociraptor?" Again, I laughed and joked about it, but I didn't really think she was being serious. After yet another comment by Jake about velociraptors, I realized that what had started out as a joke, had taken hold, and they both really wanted velociraptors on the cake. I wanted her to be happy, so I consented to make a groom's cake with velociraptors on it... No, seriously, velociraptors! Since it was such a last minute realization, I wasn't really prepared. I called my sister-in-law, Kym, and asked her if she knew where to find velociraptors. Luckily, her kids had a whole box of dinosaurs and she was able to find a matching pair. While in Idaho, she took the time to make cute little wedding outfits for the dinosaurs so that I could put them on the cake. In the end, it totally fit their personalities, and I am glad that we did it, no matter how silly it was. They loved it and felt special that we had done something just for them. Haha! It will make for a great memory when they get to eat it on their first anniversary.

The waffle bar was delicious and so fun. Mom bought some heart shaped waffle irons, so the waffles were extra cute. There was strawberries, whipped cream, sprinkles, butter, nutella, two kinds of syrup and ice cream to put on top of the waffles. What a fun idea Hannah had. Besides the waffles, we had fruit kabobs, and frappe (a sherbet slushy drink). Everything was a huge hit and we got lots of compliments on the food.

The reception looked beautiful, the food tasted amazing, and the atmosphere was so welcoming. We had music playing in the background, the kids were playing around the yard, and everywhere people were socializing and enjoying each other's company. It was all just perfect! Congratulations to Hannah and Jake!