Get Thee A Wife!

Yes, I'm a married man now, and have been for well over a month now. Life is good. I realize that I haven't really made a significant blog entry since the wedding. I'd apologize for that, but I'm not really that sorry. The fact is, I've had a lot more important things to do since then. Still, this is ultimately sort of a journal for me, so an entry on the events of the blessed day would not be out of line.

Last Hurrah
On the night before the wedding, Thursday, April 20th, we had a big to-do with Nancy's family. We met for dinner at her favorite restaurant, Sizzler. Steak and Malibu chicken seemed to be the preferred meal, though everyone ordered whatever they wanted. I was one of the first to arrive at the restaurant, even after getting into a traffic jam of the '20 minutes to go three blocks' variety. They reserved a room for us, and before long, we'd filled it with four generations of my future in-laws. Nancy and her friend Larkin arrived after a while—their manicures for the following day had taken a lot longer than they'd expected. Looked great, though.

After dinner, the party split up. The ladies all went off to do who-knows-what, and some of us guys took off for my bachelor party. But we're pretty much all LDS—plus we had all the male children in our custody—so we're not talking about anything too scandalous. We went bowling. That's right, five Mormon guys and five boys from 6 to 13 in a bowling alley late on a Thursday night. Woo-hoo!

Before this year, I think the last time I went bowling was in 2000 at Sam's college graduation in Nebraska. I bowled a game in the high 60's. The only person who didn't beat me was my niece Mikayla—who was 6 at the time. It was ugly. Then I went bowling with the in-laws in March for Nancy's birthday party. I bowled a 159, the game of my life as far as I can remember. So my bowling is wildly erratic at best. That night's games were somewhere in the middle. The first game I bowled a 121, which included clearing the tenth frame. That never happens. For me to clear the tenth frame is a statistically anomalous event, like Bode Miller winning a gold medal or Florida voters successfully choosing the candidate they want to vote for on punch cards. Anyway, I bowled a 96 for the second game, which wasn't bad, considering I blew the fourth frame. The alley we used measured ball speed, so we all spent one frame trying to see how fast we could get the ball to go. I got up to 20.2 miles per hour (about 32.6 kph), which was not even close to the highest (24.2 mph).

We all decided to call it a night around midnight, much to the chagrin of the kids who were all wired up on caffeinated soft drinks. Yeah, we'd pretty much let it all hang out that night.

A New World
We had an early afternoon appointment at the Salt Lake LDS Temple. The sealing ceremony was scheduled for 1:00 p.m., which meant Nancy and I had to be there at 11:45 for all the preliminaries. For me, it wasn't that big a deal. I just changed into my white clothes and followed the helpful guide to the designated waiting spot, and waited. And waited. As it turned out, Nancy's experience was not going as smoothly.

She had a lot of troubles with her dress, going back almost to the beginning. She found a dress that she really liked, but it was sleeveless, which doesn't work for an LDS ceremony. No problem, she'd been told, the dress shop could put sleeves on it and make it look beautiful. Except it didn't go that way. There were delays and misunderstandings, and a week before the wedding, she got to see the mostly finished product. It was awful. I never actually got to see it, mind you, but she said it had huge, bulky sleeves that made her look like she was wearing shoulder pads. Not petite, fashionable, figure-enhancing women's shoulder pads, but NFL linebacker shoulder pads. So a week before the wedding, she had to look for a new dress.

(One personal word here: Between her dress issues and my tux issues, I'd advise anyone getting married in the near future to give serious consideration to hopping a flight to Vegas. Take a suit and a nice dress. Hey, I'm just sayin'.)

Anyway, her family knew someone who owns a dress shop in Provo that specializes in Temple-appropriate wedding dresses. So they made their way down there, and within an hour, Nancy had her dress in hand. And I actually got to see this one, and it was beautiful. But I'm getting ahead of the story here. Nancy arrived at the Temple and changed into her dress, at which point the ladies there told her they didn't think it was okay for a Temple marriage ceremony. This was frustrating for Nancy, of course, but not as frustrating as the fact that she had to wait for about 20 minutes for the Temple Matron to come take a look at the dress. She finally arrived, took a look, and said, "It's fine." Nancy joined me shortly thereafter, and we were taken into the sealing room.

All of our family and friends were already there and seated when we came in. We met the sealer, Philip Sonntag, a kindly older gent who had actually been the President of the Portland Temple when Nancy was there as a missionary. At this point, it's traditional for the sealer to stand and give the new couple some advice, then move on to the ceremony. That's not what happened for us. Elder Sonntag grabbed the one empty chair left in the room, pulled it up in front of us, sat down, and began to talk to us. He asked us both a lot of questions about how we'd come to be there and what we were about to experience. About 80% of these questions were directed at Nancy, much to her amazement (and my relief...I had enough trouble with my 20%). At one point she even said, "I didn't know there was going to be a test!" But in his questioning, he reinforced to us and to those assembled the doctrinal significance of being married in the Temple.

He also gave us some advice and some perspective in his comments and questions. By being married in that place, he said, were we creating a whole new world together. The fate of that world would depend on our choices and how we treated one another. He asked me at one point if I knew why girls were created. I answered, rather astutely, I thought, because men needed the help (see Genesis 2:18). No, he said, girls were created to be spoiled. Yes, he said that where my wife-to-be and all our friends and family could hear it. No way out for me, now.

He gave us a couple of other pieces of advice. For one thing, he told us never to forget to thank the Lord for bringing us together. That was interesting, because I've always thought that my meeting Nancy was more than I could reliably ascribe to coincidence. Second, he told us to live within our means. This is advice we hear in the Church all the time, but I thought it was especially appropriate to emphasize that to two people about to start their lives together. I've had difficulty with debt before, and I'd put several of the wedding expenses on a credit card. Now I just need to make sure I stop using that card, now that all of that is taken care of. It's been in the drawer since the end of our honeymoon.

Then he married us. To kneel across the altar from Nancy and be sealed to her for time and eternity—to know that the authority that bound us transcends Earth and time and death—is beyond what I can describe in words. Peace, excitement, unspeakable joy. This is just a fraction of what I felt in that holy place.

We stayed there for a few moments as the rest of the group filed past us on their way out. We shared hugs and handshakes and tears and laughter with everyone who had come to be with us. Afterwards, we made our separate ways back to the dressing rooms to prepare for the ordeal of pictures.

Shoot Me Already
And it was an ordeal. Most of the invited family and friends were already on the east steps of the Temple when Nancy and I got there. But I couldn't find Curtis, my best man. We sent someone to locate him, with no success. So I went myself. Yes, that meant I left everyone waiting for me, but it didn't bother me much. It was my wedding, not theirs, and I wanted Curtis in the pictures. So I got him, and we started.

The wedding photos took forever. First we had a series of pictures at the east doors of the Temple. It's traditional for couples who are married there to get pictures on the steps, so we did. Then we had pictures on the annex lawn, at the reflecting pond on the Main Street Plaza, and in the courtyard in front of the Church Office Building. Our photographer, Joy, had multitudinous ideas for pictures, not all of which we were particularly thrilled with. But we endured and smiled and tried to do things as quickly as possible. I understand that these things take time. But we were looking at getting to the reception late, and didn't think that would be a good thing.

Then she started taking pictures of the flowers. This drove me—drove us—crazy. Sure, the flowers on Temple Square are always beautiful, but focus, lady! We're paying you to take pictures of us, and we've got a schedule to keep. You can take pictures of the foliage on your own time.

(We finally got the pictures—or thumbnail previews of the pictures, rather—back a couple of days ago. There are 26 pages' worth of them. Pages 13 and 14 are all flowers, except for one picture of 3 kids who weren't even with our group. Amazing.)

Assume the Position
Next came the reception. We had reserved a beautiful reception hall called The Old Meeting House We got there about half an hour after the scheduled start time (see 'photographing flowers' above), but it didn't seem to cause any problems. Those who got there before we did went ahead and got the party started.

We went in, had several more pictures taken with family and friends, and then gathered for a ring ceremony. Since my family aren't LDS, they weren't able to join us in the Temple. Some of Nancy's family and friends couldn't attend the sealing either. So instead of exchanging rings following the sealing, we had a separate ceremony to include them in the experience. Bishop Larry Groves, the bishop of the ward where I'd lived for the past year and a half and where we both live now, took the microphone and welcomed out guests. He talked a little about what had taken place earlier in the Temple and what it all meant. Then he called the two of us up to say a few words. Finally he had us exchange rings and turned the event back over to our families.

Then came the reception line. We stood in place for almost two hours being greeted by friends, family, and people whose identity was a compete mystery to me. Actually, 'stood' isn't entirely accurate. I sat in place for a lot of it. My bad ankle was killing me by now (partly because of some of the uncomfortable poses required by our photographer), so I dragged over a chair and had a seat. My family opted not to stand in line, so it was pretty much just me and the in-laws. The receiving line started to run low about the same time the other scheduled events were approaching, so we started making our way from our perch atop the reception area's stage down along the line, meeting the other well-wishers part way. We finished the greetings just in time for the cutting of the cake.

We talked a little about this before it happened. Nancy said she wouldn't get me all messy if I didn't get her all messy. Yeah, right. I gave her the slice of cake as delicately as possible. She returned the favor by smashing my slice all over my mouth, cheeks, and chin. So I gave her a big messy kiss. It was fun. Next came the tossing of the garter and the bouquet. I don't remember who caught what, but apparently somebody's got a great picture of me removing the garter—with my teeth. We finished the event with an hour or two of dancing. Our first dance was "Feels Like Heaven" by Peter Cetera and Chaka Khan. Nancy starting singing diva-style when we hit the first chorus, and neither of us could keep a straight face after that.

Vandals!
I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to welcome a new couple into the ranks of the married by vandalizing their vehicles. I know the concept dates back a long, long time. I guess people just weren't very bright back then.

When I noticed that most of our siblings and their children were nowhere to be found late in the reception, I made my way out to the parking lot, expecting the worst. Once on the scene, one of me new in-laws asked which car we were taking. I thought seriously about pointing to a car at random and turning them loose on some other poor sap. But I didn't. I told them instead, not entirely truthfully, that we weren't sure which of our cars we were taking, but probably hers. This was a mistake, as they interpreted it as an invitation to decorate both our cars.

We came out later to find both of our cars covered with pink and white window paint, toilet paper, Oreos (a criminal waste of good cookies, if you ask me), and peel-off stickers. And of course they had tied—and wired—cans to the back of both cars. Thank heaven they hadn't left prophylactics stuck to the side of the cars. That would have been a bit much.

One interesting note: a couple of the 'kids' (yeah, right) went a little nuts with the decorations. They had drawn and written all kinds of things all over the cars with the window paint. It all came off my car when I washed it a couple of days later. Unfortunately some of it didn't come off Nancy's car. So to this day, the Maxima still has some pink and white squiggles on the roof and bumper. Thank heaven the really risqué stuff came off.

I was originally pretty annoyed by all of this. I thought it was pretty thoughtless, and that if people had read the directions and limited their graffiti to the windows, everything would have been okay. I really wanted to complain to someone about it. Nancy didn't seem too stressed. "People's feelings are more important than the paint job," she said. Married less than twelve hours, and she's already establishing herself as the mature one in the relationship.

Nothing to Do, All Day to Do It
We headed to an undisclosed location in Park City that night. For the next three days, we relaxed and recovered from the weeks and months that led up to the big event. Aside from a BBQ with my family on Saturday night, we had no real plans and no obligations to keep. It was a refreshing change.

We ate at a couple of nice restaurants in Park City. We hit Ruby Tuesday, the Claim Jumper, and a teryaki place whose name I forget, all excellent. We wanted to go to Main Street Pizza & Noodle, but when we got there, we found the place closed until further notice. Apparently, they'd lost their liquor license. Too bad, because we'd eaten there before and really liked it.

We reluctantly left the hotel and returned to the real on Monday, April 24th. Since then we've spent a lot of time and effort making our apartment into a home. Truth be told, Nancy has done most of the organizing, and I do a little grunt labor now and then. But the place is really taking shape. We've had a few guests over, and they've enjoyed it. It's fun having our own place.

And that's where I'll leave it for now. It's been a lot of fun so far, and it only looks to get better.