Festering Wounds and Wedding Festivities

Monday night was a bachelorette party for Lyndsie Smith, my good friend and pseudo-sister. It was wonderful to see a bunch of my friends and ex-roommates who are now married and never hang out anymore. Like Emarie and Sarah. I also made friends with a photographer, Natalie, who took our roommate pictures once. It was fun, but not nearly crazy enough. Apparently the same could be said of the bachelor's party, which ended in a testimony meeting. No one even had to catch and kill a pig as a rite of passage. Next time...

Due to the time-consuming nature of my unpaid day job and the oppressive dryness that is Utah summers, I have to exercise at weird times. On Tuesday I went running at 5am without contacts on an unfamiliar street with limited light and extremely uneven sidewalks. Long story short, I ended up skidding along the concrete and getting a decent abrasion on my leg. Which then got extremely infected. So I've been dealing with that all week. 

Before the infection set in. 

Wednesday was the rehearsal dinner. Thomas' parents were diplomats in Sweden, so his Mom set up the table accordingly - thus I was sitting with complete strangers: a bridesmaid/husband, a family friend of both families, and Ryan's mom/dad (a PT). They turned out to be quite enjoyable company and I feel like we all got to know different sides of the family better. Also a group of strangers has never wanted me to get married so badly.

Story 1. For some reason, my table was front and center, as in blocking Thomas/Lyndsie from the rest of the tables. I was wearing my bridesmaid shoes to kind of break them in, and I told them as much when they pointed out a scuff mark on the back. Thomas replied, "Breaking them in?! What, did you run a marathon in those things?" Drama queen. He also tried to uninvited me to the wedding, that punk.

Story 2. At one point, the emcee was introducing different parts of the family, so we could have an idea of how everyone knew the couple. I was there as a bridesmaid, but Lyndsie's family has this joke with me. Because I remind them so much of their missionary son, Jake, we decided that I'm his replacement "Jacqueline" until he gets back, and am kind of adopted into their family. So when the guy asked for siblings to stand up, Mama Smith was urging me to stand as well, but the other two brothers were in the back corner, so it looked like it was just me standing and it was awkward.

Story 3. Before the dinner started, Mama Newell told me at one point, music would start playing and the groomsmen would all start dancing. Then the bridesmaids were supposed to join in. Then we had about a minute to get everyone in the room to start dancing. When it happened, I was the only bridesmaid to start dancing and turns out it was the wrong song. Two minutes later, it happened again, and that's when I was supposed to join in. This is why you don't invite me to nice things.

Lyndsie and brother, Clayn.

 Part 2: The Wedding. I drove up to SLC with the Coveys, the Sagers, and Mama Sagers (who I ate dinner with the night before). We listened to Hamilton, a crowd favorite. The sealing was done by Neil L. Anderson, so that's cool. He talked a lot about how this is an age of disposal, where things are discarded easily and marriage should not be so. Half of the wedding party served under PRoney and met him in Nice, France.

We took a couple pictures outside, but the groomsmen weren't wearing their green gingham shirts or bowties, so it was limited for now. All I wanted was one selfie, but Thomas looked over from the middle of taking family pictures and mouthed: "You're last." Don't worry, I got it.

Our car had a late lunch at Cubby's, which was delicious. I highly recommend the Dragonslayer. And Mama Sagers said anytime I want to hang out with a 48 year old woman, call her up.

Here it is. The sassy couple. Love 'em. 

 We met back up like an hour later to set up for the reception. We took lots of bridal party photos that I'm excited to see. The photographer was funny - I liked her a lot. There was a string quartet and a random door on the lawn and lots of snacks with a loooooooonnnnnggggg line. And no dance party, which we were disappointed about because Thomas loves dancing and we didn't get a chance to see Boden get super sweaty. Last wedding, he looked like he just got out of a swimming pool.

Okay. The bouquet toss. Normally, I really don't put too much effort into this silly tradition, but this time was different. First of all, when it was announced, everyone's parents that I had met over the past few days started chanting my name. Second, I know there were other unwed bridesmaids, but they were scarce to be found, so it ended up being me among all the small female children. Third, these kids were vicious. They started smack-talking me, telling me they were going to get married first and there was no way I was catching it, blah, blah, blah. I caught Lyndsie's eye and said Throw it high. Game over. I dove over half of the kids and smashed the bouquet, but it was firmly in my grasp.

The night ended in a lighted balloon send-off, which was magical. Let's do it again sometime, single friends Ben, Corbin, Boden, and I.

Butch stole my phone while I was taping him. Not even mad.

The rest of the week was still exhausting with Fall Camp, but it ended a tad early on Th/Fr/Saturday. Porter came to hang out one day. The next day, I found him napping in my bed. He helped me bring all my stored boxes to our house so I could unpack. Friday night, Hannah and I watched a mix of Naruto (BELIEVE IT!) and She's the Man, a classic. Saturday, Greg and David Monson took us shopping. Later, Hannah's friends came over to watch The Other Guys, which was okay, but not as good as I expected. And I just found out that our church is 12:30-3:30, which is the literal worst. Not only because it is super late, but because every other week, I have to do rehab from 12-2ish with the football guys.