Sean’s Brother’s Wedding

This weekend Sean & I went to Utah for his younger brother’s wedding. While I wasn’t super excited to travel again, especially not to a wedding- it turned out to be a really fun weekend. I am not prejudice against all weddings- I’ve been to a few really fun weddings full of fun people, loads of great food & drinks and upbeat music thats gets everyone dancing. My friends Cory & Nicole and Harmandeep & Vik both had amazingly fun weddings. However, the difference is that these fun types of weddings are not usually of the LDS sort.

Through my years at BYU, I’ve experienced several traditional Mormon weddings. They are usually a reception lasting 2-3 hours in the church cultural hall complete with basketball hoop and fluorescent lights. Although the bride tries her best to decorate, nothing can really cover the fact that it is in a gym. Secondly, they never really serve dinner--just finger foods and pink punch so you always leave hungry. There usually isn’t any program- no speeches from the bride’s father, no best man or maid of honor to share embarrassing stories and no trivia games exposing the secrets of their youth and courtship. Rather it is usually just a drop in and do the “meet & greet” through the dreaded “Line”. If you’ve ever been, you’ll know what Line I’m talking about.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was no church or related gymnasiums on the itinerary for the day. The ceremony was in the morning at the Timpanogous temple, followed by a family lunch at Thanksgiving Point. The food was great, I got to see Larry, Gerri & Katryn from DC (among many other of Sean’s extended family), and they had a really nice program of short but heartfelt speeches and a cute slideshow. It was an intimate, classy affair.

(On a side note, Sean & I went out to DC last year and stayed with Uncle Larry & Aunt Gerri- and they are the coolest people. He is a democrat lobbyist on “The Hill” and has some great juicy DC tales to tell. She is down to earth and really open minded, and they have Katryn, their teenage daughter—who I love hanging out with her bc she reminds of Celeste and also reminds what it is like to be a teenager).

After lunch I kidnapped Gerri & Katryn, and we had a little girl time shopping and sharing family secrets (Im slowly learning the secrets of my new family). We had some great girl time, full of Express (my favorite clothing store), Starbucks and Krispie Kreme donuts! We didn’t really go in for donuts, just a diet coke, but as soon as we walked in the door they handed us 3 freshly baked (deep fried) glazed donuts. While it is relatively easy to resist the cold and stale grocery store donut stock, it is much harder to resist a steaming hot donut dripping with glaze… ummmm…. It was delicious. Gerri and I also bonded over our love for all things Coach.

Finally, around 7pm there was an outdoor casual reception in a beautiful backyard with a wide open view of the mountains. It was a really warm evening and there was a really cool jazz band providing grovy tunes and a chill atmosphere. Plus- Bonus, they have the yummiest wedding cake ever. So good that it rivals Betina’s German chocolate cake that she made for my wedding. This cake had a chocolate and a white layer- it was pudding cake, really moist and delicious with a custard and fruit center filling. I think I should be a cake taster in my next career. Sean and I both really enjoyed the evening.

We ended the night by leaving the reception around 9pm and hitting up Café Rio on our way back to Chateau Dave (Sean’s old roomate who we stayed with). Café Rio is my most favorite Fresh Mex restaurant of all time. I will have to dedicate and entire blog to Café Rio. I will do this once my crazy summer travels come to a close.

Alright- that’s all for now folks. We’re going to Hawaii on Tuesday and meeting up with my sister Patience there- Yippeee!! I haven’t seen her in 1.8 yrs, so this should be fun! I will be sure to tell all about it later.

XOXO

Eve