
The place wasn't hard for my daughter's choice of a Temple Marriage. Her great-grandparents were married here at the Manti Temple. They were her Grandpa Doug's parents and their parents were sealed here also. It would have been easier for us for her to have it at the L.A. Temple where we were married, but even Matthew had asked her at the Manti Temple to be married. They both had done lots of work there together for Temple trips. How could I then just say, it has to be at your home? This is home for her and just down the road from where she had been living at college.
Matthew gave Kiely such a lovely bouquet of fragrant lilies, daisies, roses and brown blooming grasses. It was gorgeous and caught the eye of every other bride at the Temple that day. I'm not just saying that...they told us.




This is me and my husband donning the designated orange. We are the producers of the receptions. The colors Kiely had picked could not be found in May, June, and July. Her color of orange I think was because every morning, all during high school, she woke-up and went to sleep gazing at this beautiful Hawaiian mural that covers the long, long wall of her bedroom and she also picked brown because it just matched her cowgirl leather image. And, as mentioned in the previous post her favorite song is, "Scatter Sunshine" Orange is the color with highlights and yellow sunbeams. Our town of Santa Paula is the citrus capitol of the world. We have lots of oranges and mornings are often orange. Yes, she did have early morning seminary and on the weekends were the milking chores to give me a break, so she always saw the sunrise and sunset. Yes, orange was the color.
This is Bree, Kiely's sister and the main person in charge of pictures. She has an amazing eye and actually majored in photography in college. We were blessed with her talent and organized ballet of moving the different subjects to their marks.

Below is the sweet little box trailer that we hauled all the decorations to Utah that we had worked so hard to find. Plus every single thing Kiely wanted from here. Her stuff, as in her bed and she moved-out. I promised I wouldn't even look at the things she was throwing away. I didn't. The big bedroom that held at one time, five girls, is now missing one little girl.

My girls all got together to strap Kiely up in her gown. Lots of laces and in the meantime as Bree is taking the pictures the three found-out why Kiely and Matt were late to the reception, too. But it wasn't because they were lost.






are a mix of strips of corrugated paper
for decorating presents and potpourri







This is one of the little flower girls. My granddaughter, Finlee. We never, ever thought orange would be so wonderful, so bright, so different, and so flattering to our skin tones.








We didn't think they would really use it,but it was so cute and so Kiely.
We all loved it. Two clothes-pins dressed-up.




May the best you've ever seen
Be the worst you'll ever see
May the moose ne'er leave your girnal
Wi' a rear drop in its een.May ye aya be hale and hearty
Till ye'r auld enough to dee,
May ye aya be just as happy
As I wish ye aya to be.
Be the worst you'll ever see
May the moose ne'er leave your girnal
Wi' a rear drop in its een.May ye aya be hale and hearty
Till ye'r auld enough to dee,
May ye aya be just as happy
As I wish ye aya to be.
Bruradrakt Med Krone

Kiely does have a little Scottish from my side of the family and my mother while in Scotland bought Kiely her lassie kilt in the clan of McKeans and they have the MacDonald tartan. It was the dress Tartan and the buttons of the velvet vest are nickle silver with the thistle emblem of Scotland on each one. I didn't notice until the reception and setting each item on the table. Kiely has had the folk costume since she was four.

The Norwegian Folkwear Bunad was made not just because Kiely loved it, but because I needed a heritage project for my Young Woman's Award. I didn't know I'd be adding so much more with the wedding dress and crown. Ephraim is in the middle a Scandinavian pioneer settlement. How fitting that she have these beautiful duds.




My mistakes:
First: Should have taken great care in the sending of invitations. I knew I counted right, but there were lots left over. We missed some dear friends and even Steve's very best friend, Randy Woodall and his family in Roy, Utah. But, they came anyway and it made my husband cry. Facebook is really nice that way...they new what was going on and they just came. Wow.
I should never had a contact number out there and available for all the world to see. I now have a caller that I don't know calling me day and night. Yes, the police are involved. Weird, huh?
I should have gotten a DJ. The aunts kept turning down the music. The Father/Daughter dance had almost to no music. The bride and groom dance was okay. Steve's aunts turned it up a little for that one, but the groom and his mother...volume down again, so they all could visit. And that's okay because Steve's mother needed to visit. A DJ could have moved the equipment, been entertaining, less irritating to all of Steve's aunts, and my worries. Lesson learned.
I bought way to much tulle for decorating. Too much ribbon, and too many flowers. The whole Stake Center Cultural Hall would have been covered, including the chairs, if I had used it all. Okay...being late has its advantages.
I bought clothes that were too hot to wear. What was I thinking? July in Utah...it's like desert.
The tablecloths that we had dyed were really a very dark brownish purple (more purple) but they couldn't be seen through the table covers. So, I wasted money on trying to dye them twice and also, I shouldn't have folded them so carefully, they were covered! No one was going to get off their galloping horse to look under the table covers or even look closely at the table covers. They were shiny and sparkly, and I loved them.
The worst mistake was that we should have had another time to decorate the Cultural Hall. We should have made it smaller and more intimate, with dividers. It was a huge place, but thankfully no basketball hoops in sight. The scouts had something the night before and the building had an activity for Saturday so clean-up had to be right away, also. I honestly would have come after the Scout Meeting, even if it was late. I would have been rested and calm during the reception. The event was just a blur to me because I was so tired. Everything about the reception would have been much easier.
We packed our food for our trip up to Utah, so we didn't really eat on the run by going through gas stations or drive-through places for snacks and junk food. But, by the time we went home all that "went-out-the-window." We should have prepared like we did coming out, we would have felt better, and the money saving would have been significant.
Good choice was to arrive at the Temple early. We were not rushed and their were a lot of brides, even on a Friday. A couple of other Temples in Utah were having renovations. One, was the Provo Temple. We had a wonderful and beautiful time in the Bride's dressing room and we able to visit quietly in the front foyer area before we ascended the spiral staircase to the tower sealing room.
The best things bought and were great purchases were the drink containers, of course the dress and veil, and the odd, but perhaps so perfect dark and varied orange-colored everything. I will never think orange with pumpkins again...well, maybe a little at Halloween. Funny I never thought of the sweet fruit and it's all around me. Isn't orange blossoms a traditional bridal bouquet? Zip! That came flying though my head and onto my blog...

Utah is the place to buy dresses, that's for sure. Here's the SAME dress Kiely was going to order from an online firm and have it made in Asia. This dress was also on sale, but Kiely had it already picked-out, it wasn't the sale (plus) it was the same dress and it was much less money. The veil that she picked was perfect because I couldn't have made a veil that was equal to what she found in Utah. The materials to make the veil would have been more than the store-bought one she loved. I wasn't there to help. But this was the dress she wanted. Camera phones are a great invention because I felt like I was there.

My friend, Gail drew the little direction insert for the second reception. How interesting that the flowers were Gerbera Daisies and there's the orange one.

