Erin and Rich's Wedding

I was honored that Erin asked me to be her escort for her wedding. The Phoenix temple is so beautiful! It was a lovely wedding. 

We wanted to be at the temple by 11:30 AM. We left at 10:38 AM and got there at 11:43 AM. Erin had just arrived. They led me to the bride’s room and she was just about to get her dress on. I helped her with her dress a little bit. I did her make up. She'd had her hair done by a friend. I made her make up super simple but it looked really nice. I basically put on the same things I wear but pretty muted. I didn't put an upper eyeliner on her or foundation but I did most of the rest of it. By 12:30 PM, she had to go do the veil ceremony. The assistant walked me to the waiting room where everybody else was. Reid and Jackie Stinnett were there. So was Martin and his wife, Evelyn's son. I didn't know anybody else. They eventually let us into the sealing room. Betsy and Geoff came which was nice. It was a beautiful ceremony. I hope Jim and Carol were able to be there; I'm sure they were. The sealer said something nice about Rich's mom who is deceased, but he didn't mention Jim and Carol but after the sealing when he had them stand in front of the mirror and he had Michael and I stand with them and Rich's dad, Rich brought up that Jim and Carol are also among the angels watching them. There were quite a few people there. They had a bit of a receiving line with everybody so I waited out in the hall so I could go back to the bride’s room with Erin. That's when I introduced myself to Rich's dad. He said thank you for having such a nice sister-in-law. I told him I can't take credit but you're welcome. I helped Erin get situated and we gathered all of her things. They sent me outside to tell everybody they were ready to come out so they all started gathering and the photographer told everybody to line up in two lines and then Rich and Erin came out.

We stood around while they got some pictures taken. We were in a couple. Rich and Erin started walking around the temple to get pictures taken and Michael and I weren't sure what to do because we wanted to go home and get the boys but we didn't want to just leave and we were watching some of their stuff. Eventually, I found them and we put their stuff in Rich's car and then we came back and handed him the keys and said our goodbyes and left. We got home to pick up the boys a little after 3:30 PM. We wanted to leave by 4 PM because I had asked when they wanted us at the reception and Rich said 5 PM but I told him I wasn't sure if we could make it by that early but I told him we would do our best and aim for 5:15 PM. It turned out they didn't really do much for pictures anyway so it worked out fine. We got there just a little before 5:30 PM. When we got there, Rich and Erin were just starting the receiving line. Their decorations were so cool! They had so many pretty Disney decorations. A lady in Rich's ward collects Disney snow globes and so those were the centerpieces for each table. We got in the receiving line so we could have a turn to take a picture with them since the boys weren't in the pictures earlier. 

They started dinner at 6 PM. Steve was there and he sat with us. We had a fun time. After dinner, Erin and Rich had their first song and then they sat down at their table. They had asked if one of the boys would help them out and Daniel said he would. His job was to go get a plate with spaghetti and a meatball on it. I went with him to make sure he did it right. I told him to carry it like a waiter and he did. He brought it to them and they did the Lady and the Tramp thing. He was so proud of himself. He said, "I didn't mess it up!" It was pretty cute.

We did some dancing and line dancing. We even got the boys to get up with us but Jonny wouldn't dance very much. A couple of people introduced themselves to us. I told Michael we should walk around and meet everybody in Rich's family. As we started doing that, we noticed his kids were leaving out the side door so we went out there to say hi and catch them and meet them before they left. There were five of his kids and they were very nice. One of Rich's boys said, "It's our cousins!" That was sweet. We met Laney, Susanna, Timothy, Andrew, and Daniel. Daniel is the one who just returned from his mission to Korea. I had spoken to Timothy at the temple while we were standing around waiting for Richard and Erin to get their pictures taken. I talked to him for a little while. He loves international travel and is studying international relations. He was pretty interested in Nathaniel being in the graduate program for linguistics. His brother Andrew also came up and said hello. Apparently, Andrew was child number five, which makes him the middle child. I said our Andrew is the middle child, also. Anyway, that was the conversation we had at the temple and we talked to them all in the hallway for a little bit before they left. They were going to a young single adult activity. We also went up to the table where some of Rich's siblings were sitting. His brother James and his wife Laura had introduced themselves to us at the temple and his sister Christine had come up and introduced herself and then we also met John and his wife and Christine's husband Eric. Eventually they started karaoke. They only had a few numbers scheduled so I signed us up to sing Living on a Prayer as The Mays. I got Michael and the boys and Steve to all go up there and Erin joined in. That was pretty fun. I jumped up when they started singing Summer Nights from Grease. Some of the singles friends were up there and I joined them. The last song of the night was Bohemian Rhapsody. Michael even got up to join that without me prompting him. The boys joined him and I talked Steve into doing it too so I could get a picture and some video. 

Then Erin and Rich had their final dance of the night. Then we stood around for a few minutes and said our goodbyes. Michael drove us home. We got home at about 10:30 PM. It was a wonderful day, but Michael and I are so exhausted!