Open House & Honeymoon

We flew out to Texas the sunday after our reception and wedding. It was the second time I have ever been on an airplane! I didn't think it was that bad but Dallon said it was one of the shakier flights he has been on. He also slept most of the way while I watched the inflight movie.   

After our honeymoon we had a s mall open house in the suburb area where Dallon's parents live. It was super cute! I guess someone in the ward had done a brown and yellow reception not to long ago so they had the chair ties and a couple other very fitting decorations. Sylvia put soo much into it to make it so cute! She made almost ALL the food pictured above as well as the center pieces and a couple other decorations around the room. Not too many people showed up and most who did didn't even know Dallon (he only lived in Texas for a few months). I think everyone had a good time though and I ate like 6 chicken salad sandwiches. 

A friend in the ward did my hair. It turned out really cool. Just a bunch of braids all intertwined. 

the family! It was so green and it seemed there were water canals everywhere!

Another friend in the ward went out with us and took some nice pictures. 

My bouquet smelled amazing!

The cruise was awesome! It's amazing how much they can put onto a big boat! It was like a mini floating vegas. They even had the casino placed strategically so that it was the easiest way to get around the ship. There were fancy shows that we went too. One was this vegas style magic show that was completely insane. I also could not get over how intimidatingly ripped all the on board dancers were... There were also shows where they used the guests to make a fool out of themselves, they were really entertaining as well. 

On the fancy stairs in our matching shirts.

On the outside deck under the life boats. They were really large and were supposed to hold a ton of people. There is also a night where you dress up fancy. Some people looked really extravagant. I borrowed the dress from one of his sisters. haha. 

Dallon ate TWO steaks every night. 

We bought a light up miniature ship! Just kidding! This is Dallon holding the Disney cruise that passed us on our last night on deck. 

Mexico was so amazing! Now when I see pictures of those beautiful white beaches with crystal clear water I can actually understand how amazing it is there. All the beaches we passed were so ideal it's strange that things like that are so natural and everywhere!

This was on our first shore excursion. A fresh water spring that was so clear and beautiful! There were fish in there that would nibble on your feet if you let them soak. The only bad thing is once I got out of the water I never dried!

So picture perfect I promise it's not photoshopped! 

Our dune buggy! We rode in a caravan of these for our second shore excursion! Dallon hit all of the puddles along the way soaking us and another couple we rode with in white salty water.

To cliche to not take a picture.

We went snorkeling! It was cool to see some of the fish and other things in the ocean but the water was nasty. You know how you see fake snow on movies and the people are fine but all you can think about is how unbearably cold that would be? Now I feel like that with salt water. All those movies with beautiful beach scenes and all I can think about is "Don't get that in your mouth!!!" I turned sideways to look back for Dallon while snorkeling and got a mouthful. It was soooo nasty. 

We had a wonderful time! I know Dallon already wants to go on another cruise and I just want to go stay on a nice beachside resort somewhere tropical. I'm so glad we got this experience it was such a good time!

October 5th

Thanks so much to everyone who was able to come out to the temple or to our reception. It was such a wonderful day and everything turned out so perfect! We could not have had more beautiful weather or a more flawless day. People often share their wedding disaster stories but I honestly can not think of anything that went wrong. (Though after the reception I didn't have a toothbrush and neither of us had a real change of clothes. From the hotel in Manti to my parent's house to the reception- I had lost clothes everywhere!)

We had our luncheon at the Manti House. 

The fish were an interesting idea. They initially started as a joke because I had heard of people doing fish as a center piece at a reception. We decided to go for it anyway because it would be fun and feeder fish are inexpensive.... well.... let's just say we had A LOT of little fish die. I almost feel bad. So if anyone is wanting to do fish at their reception just do betas and then give them to people when it's all said and done. We didn't give the gold fish away in fear that they would die and make the little kids sad. I did really like how they turned out though and I'm glad we did it!

Wedding cake, which I found on pinterest. We literally shoved 2 sunflowers in the top for the cake topper. I thought it was a really beautiful cake!

The guest book started out as a joke as well. I didn't want a fancy scrapbook because I didn't want to put it together- since, lets be honest, I probably would not have looked at all that much. And I didn't want just a signature book because I hardly remember names. I was looking at scenic Utah books and we were contemplating a temple book but just could not find anything we liked. Then, Dallon suggested a joke book! He wasn't very serious but we all loved the idea and found this book on amazon! People even asked if it was meant to be a signature book since it worked out so perfectly! Before the wedding we read through most of the jokes and got a good giggle over them. Dallon also made the little vase with the pens in it in his ceramics class and I glazed it!

All the yummy bread at our reception (which we didn't really get to try) with apple juice and hot apple cider.  Dallon's friend and relative, Julie Jones,   did the breads, cake and the backdrops- We could not have had all this good food without her! 

The jams were such a hit! I cannot believe how much everyone loved the jams. I loved them too. My mom might have said that WE made them but really SHE made them, all 300. I helped with the apricot (and burnt a batch). They turned out so good! We ate them leading up to the reception because we knew that we had made a little too much. I'm glad everyone was able to take a jar (or 5) but we did not actually get any :(. I'm only sad because I wanted to keep a cute jar for display or something. We can always get more jam next time my mom makes some and I think she kept a few cute jars too. 

My cousin, Sarah, along with Dallon's cousin McKaylee played the piano through the entire reception! I was so glad to have live piano music I think it added so much!

Is the first dance as awkward to watch as it was for us to dance?? And thank you to Brenda Bigelow, she did the ceiling with the tool, lights and leaves. That made everything so beautiful. 

Dallon does not look please about the decorations on the car.  

We had a wonderful reception and so many people came! I was so glad it was so loud and everyone seemed to be having a good time.

Thanks again to everyone who came and helped make our day special! We started on thank you cards and by started I mean we've done about 30 out of 100 or so. Being married is fun too and we had an amazing honeymoon on our western Caribbean cruise, I'll post about that another day!