For anyone who is wondering why Mesa temple when the Gilbert temple is "my" temple. My parents were married in the Mesa temple in 1988, so it seemed a little more special for everyone that way!
Let's start out with the Friday before the wedding. Pam threw the best rehearsal dinner for us! The dinner was a more intimate occasion for our family and the bridal party. It was just so magical having not only both sides of my family in one room, but having both sides of Zach's family there too! PLUS some of my closest friends. It was so amazing! We had Cafe Rio cater, a soda bar and so many desserts! And the best dessert that was the best surprise for me were the macarons that Pam picked out! It was seriously so perfect. We ate dinner, parents, maid of honor & best man gave speeches, we tested my skills on knowing Zach's legs (lol) and taught everybody how to hustle in preparation for the opening dance party song at the reception. It all felt so surreal at this point... how was it really the night before the wedding?
And then all of a sudden it was my wedding day! Most of my bridesmaids came over in the morning to help me get ready. Lauren needed to be at a funeral for her friends sweet twins, but afterward came and brought everyone Jamba Juice, she was everyone's favorite for sure. Major shout out to Abby for taking photos for me since Drey needed to be at the funeral as well. Also shout out to Abby for providing the LipSense for me, so I could stay flawless all day ;)
Major shout out to Kara for doing my hair, and Steph for doing my makeup and making me not look quite as scary as I did for the bridals.
Eventually Zach picked me up and we made our way to the Temple! The two women who helped me through the whole temple portion were my Dad's students when he taught at Westwood once upon a time, so that was pretty special. But even more special than that was seeing ALL the people that came to our sealing. We reserved the largest room in the Mesa temple and we even had people standing. It was seriously the most overwhelming feeling of love filling the room. I wanted to cry just walking in and seeing everyone ( I locked eyes with Steph crying and that's what started it haha, I can't see other people crying and not cry myself). It took everything I had in me to not bawl my eyes out when I was kneeling across the alter with my soon to be husband! The sealing started at 11:15 and at 11:35 Zach and I were officially pronounced husband and wife (thanks to Sister Scott for looking at the clock for the exact time, you're a genius). I wish I could say it felt differently instantly, but I feel like I've been married to Zach forever so I didn't feel toooo different once it was all official, but oh dang I was just overwhelmed with HAPPINESS! I was officially married to my best friend and the love of my life, and I was surrounded by so many people that I love. A seriously magical experience.
After we got all changed (thank you to my mom, Steph and Lauren for helping me) my new husband and I met Sadie and Joann in the lobby with the MOST GORGEOUS bouquet in the world to get ready for my temple exit. Sadie exceeded my crazy succulent expectations ten fold. And that thing was a beaaaast, it was a work out just carrying it for the photos. We also met with Drey and Mykalin (our photographer and videographer) in the lobby to prepare for the big exit:
Then began the craziness of wedding photos with family. Wrangling all of us was not an easy task, but it was generally pretty stress free. The only annoying thing was standing on my toes so my heels would not dig into the dirt haha:
Allllll of my family
My immediate family and all my grandparents
All my grandparents
Granny & Master
Grandpa McLeod - honestly the cutest of all the family photos
Grandpa & Grandma Richardson
My parents
My family
Avery my queen!
Maxie Pad
My seesters
EJ
My wonder mom
Daddy-o
All my cousins!
All of Zach's family!
Zach's Grandparents!
Pretty Oma
Roger & Sherry
Don & Janet
Zach's immediate family + grandparents
The Walton's needed another girl
Such siblings
Scitt rules the world
Nice brothers
Scott
Jonah is so Honah in this photo
Zach's parents
Zach & Pam
Zach & Thane
Zach with my in laws (aka his parents)
1/2 of the Reese family
The greatest and cutest family on earth... also known as the Garricks
After all the family photos we then did all the bridal party photos/video. I am going to leave out the individual photos with each bridesmaid/groomsmen and just add those ones to Facebook so you all don't go tooo crazy looking at too many photos:
Alright from left to right I will introduce the bridal party:
Parker Whitmore
Jonah is Honah Walton
Keaton McPeek
EJ Richardson
Jacob "Cob" Wagher
Scott "Scitt" Walton
Trevor Gonzalez (best man)
Zach Walton (groom)
Sydney Walton (bride)
McKenzie Richardson (maid of honor)
Chastity Laskey
Steph Shaw
Lauren Stahle
Abby Quaranta
Jenny Aranda
Sadie Whitmore
This is the result of me standing on my toes for too long in the dirt
LONG LIVE THE FAM
The 1320 Beezies of 2016
3/4 of the OG 1320 beezies
And for extra fun Brittany, Deezy and Andy for coming to the temple exit because they are the best of the best
And then after all the bridal party photos there was just Zach and Sydney photos/video:
I was truly so exhausted I needed to sit a lot
I was starting to get pretty dang hungry at this point because I was too anxious in the morning to eat breakfast. I was so starving that after we were done I just needed to go through the easiest drive thru... and that drive thru was Burger King hahaha. Not the most glamorous first meal as a married couple, but hey I will take it!
While we were driving to the venue there was a big fiasco about us not having the full thing paid off, which was a buuuunch of bull crap because I went through so much crap trying to make sure we paid this place off. But it was all resolved by the time we got to the venue.
I am so appreciative to all my family, the bridal party (plus Andy and Derrick) and all my moms helpers for going SO HARD during the set-up! Everything came together so quickly and I was barely even stressed, which is all I could have asked for! The only stressful part of it was just hunting down my bridal party to prepare for part two of the bridal party shoot with Drey. My wedding was on the night of many Homecomings for high schools, and so when we were taking our photos at the Grove there were SO many other kids there so we kind of had to fight for our spots a little bit, but we did it and I am so happy with how they turned out. I am so grateful to have had an easy going bridal party who put up with my need for having thousands of photos taken, I am sure they will forgive me now that we actually have the photos. And these ones are just too good for me to not post a million, so you're just going to have to bear with me plz:
After that session was done we went back to Noah's, very quickly got rid of my heels (haha you will see I look so small in all these reception photos), and did some final touches on everything and then all of a sudden the reception started! I wanted our reception to be a cross between a standard mormon reception and a normal reception. So I didn't want to have a receiving line... I just did not want to stand there for so long or make other people wait in a freaking long line just to say two words to me. Instead I did a grand entrance with my bridal party (my dad introduced everyone as if they were wrestlers, it was pretty funny):
This was my big bridal party table at the front of the room! I wanted my bridal party to feel like they were more than just bodies in wedding photos, so this was a nice way for them to stand out (along with the grand entrance of wrestlers of course)
Then it was dinner time! I of course had pizza at my wedding, because I am not all about those fancy wedding meals because I just don't like fancy meals. The pizza was from Rolling Stone Pizzeria and it was sooooo good. We got to choose 5 different pizza styles along with Italian salad. My mom also brought rolls and spent the day before making pasta salads, she's wonder woman! We also had a variety of sparkling juices available for everyone.
Since I didn't want to do assigned seating, it was a buffet style dinner. EJ was the MC of the night and did an awesome job directing tables to get dinner.
Once Zach and I were done eating our food (we were too excited to eat too much, which I truly wish was not the situation) we went around and talked to everyone! I seriously highly recommend this over doing a receiving line, at least if you are like me and do not enjoy being stationary for a long period of time. It was pretty magical just having so many family and friends in one place. The entire night just felt so surreal... like ALL these people were there for me and Zach? It was crazy to just think about. Everyone made us feel so loved the entire night!
The guest of honor: Charley Larson
Some of my coworkers: Alyssa, Bridgette and Brittany!
The world's hottest couple featuring Andrew's masterpiece he made for me
Once everyone had some food in their stomachs we did the cake cutting:
Then there was the bouquet toss (song choice: Man! I Feel Like a Woman)! The succulent bouquet was a beast but it was also very fragile, so it didn't stay compleeeetely in tact during the toss, but that just allowed for more people to get a little piece!
Notice the bare feet
Griffin and Jacob fought for it
And then it was time for the dancing. We started off with mine and Zach's first dance. We chose "You're the Inspiration" by Chicago for our first dance. This song was individually in our favorites list growing up, and when I found out that Zach loved that song too my heart pretty much melted. I am a product of my parents who were young in the 80s, so my childhood was filled with 80s classics like this. I remember very distinctively on a road trip that Zach and I were on in 2015, we were driving out of Sedona into Flagstaff and I put this song on and he told me it was easily one of his favorites, and we just sang it together and it was a moment of pure bliss. The only moment to top that is when he sang this song to me when he got his wisdom teeth taken out, that's love people.
Something that was really important to me was that Zach and I would not be the only ones dancing the entire time. I made it a point for EJ to invite everyone onto the dance floor after the first chorus. It is so awkward when you are the only ones dancing in front of a bunch of people, and this way we weren't the only ones dancing for three whole minutes. And this was only one of two opportunities for slow songs throughout the whole night, so that way all the couples could get their fix.
Then we did the parents dance. I decided to combine the parents dance into one because that just seemed liked a lot of time for people to be watching people dance. I decided to go with What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong for this dance. I always think it is so weird when people do love songs as their dance with their parents... it honestly makes me very uncomfortable, so I wanted to go with a song that was clearly not a love song, but also not specific to daddy/daughter and mother/son. I do have to point out though that when I was a child I wanted my daddy/daughter dance to be Heaven by Warrant haha, I think that would have been a little too much 80s in one night.
We of course invited everyone else to join in on this song as well!
This was everyone's favorite part of the wedding video
Then the real dance party started. EJ was the DJ and let me tell you it was LIT! I wanted to do a big group dance at the beginning to get everyone out onto the dancefloor... and I have a small obsession with the hustle and the song September by Earth, Wind & Fire so that's what I went with!
Special shout out to Chastity, Lauren and Steph for helping me change out of my dress half way through very quickly so I could enjoy as much of the dance party as possible!
That Andigail so hot right now
My gorg cousins
Again our guest of honor having the best time of all
Seriously guys this was the most magical night of my life! I can't thank everyone enough for coming and partying with my and my brand new husband! Marrying Zach was the best decision I ever made!
And just because I am photo obsessed, here are a bunch of detail shots from the night:
So I was really struggling with coming up with a wedding hashtag, because you have to have one! But as I was looking through pinterest I saw this idea where you make an entire instagram account for your wedding and you just give everyone the username and password. I thought this was GENIUS because whenever I go to a wedding, I'll take lots of photos but I never really want to post them to my Instagram, so I never end up using the hashtag, and this way people could post a million photos and not think they were spamming their followers. I am SUPER happy I found this pin, I have loved looking at all the videos and photos that people caught on the wedding day. Oh and don't worry the password has since been changed in case you are creepy and want to hack the account.
Our cake was made by Iced For Life. The top layer was Oreo and the bottom layer was white almond... SO DELICIOUS! My mom also duplicated these recipes and made a bunch of sheet cakes so everyone could enjoy the cake for dessert!
Shout out to Thane for this geometric masterpiece
This was how I asked Zach to winter formal in 2012
Merilee Kenney made that cute sign for us!
My mom and the McLeods made these pastas look so professional!
For people who aren't about the dance party, or who have more kids than they can count we had one of the rooms in the building be a movie room. Avery was in charge of this room and picked out the kids movies that were going to play. We also had another room right next door that was the gallery room. That room was filled with random memories over mine and Zach's 3 1/2 years of dating, like the mountain dew sign you saw above. McKenzie also made a slideshow of pictures of me and Zach that played in that room.
Venue: Noah's Event Venue
Photo: Drey Johnson Photography
Video: Conway Captions
Dress: Brilliant Bridal
Zach's suit: Express
Bridesmaids shirts: Neesees Dresses
Bouquet: Florals By Sadie
Pizza: Rolling Stone Pizzeria
All other food: My mom because she's dope
And the biggest shout out to all my my mom's friends who helped out so much with setting up, keeping everything refilled and stocked during the reception, and taking down. You guys are all queens to me!
If you just scrolled all the way to the bottom and didn't read any of that, here is the amazing video that Mykalin (Conway Captions) made of the wedding day. It's all of the above but in a few beautiful minutes (and let's just talk about how she nailed the song choices, she rules):
A night to remember!
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