Shlepn Seven: The Real Royal Wedding

On Friday night, as I was about to leave the church parking lot after the reception, I saw this painted on my car windows: What a weekend. What a weddin’. Yep. That pretty much sums it up. And keeping with the tradition of procrastinating (I am going on the pioneer trek reenactment in about 16 hours for three days and have done very little to get ready) I will commence to blog about it.

First off, can I just say that this is pretty much a match made in heaven? To say that Jordan and Laura are in love is an understatement. Not to mention a dang good looking couple. Kate and Will have nothing on these two.

I guess we should start with when everyone started arriving from out of town. We had so many people staying here it’s hard to keep track:

From left to right: Chad McFadyen, Blake Hansen (and his wife Megan), Jordan, Spencer Flake, Jordan Tanner, Casey Goodman and Marcus Barton. Jordan spent the night here on Wednesday, but stayed with his parents in Maryland on Thursday night. And of course Jeff , Nathan and Tom

and Justin Stubbs—Tom’s friend from work and the wedding photographer were all here by Wednesday as well. Alas, we didn’t have all 7 of our kids after all because Mikey went to boy’s state. While I’m happy that he had the experience, it was also kind of a bummer not to have him here to celebrate with everyone. Jessica stayed at her place but was here a lot with Mark. It was most definitely a full house! I even numbered the towels downstairs so people could keep track of whose was whose. We kept everyone fed with a bajillion hot dogs which were irresistible thanks to the j-dawg’s sauce that Tom brought home with him. There were also chips and dips, watermelon, brownies and sodas to keep the masses fed that first night. All of the guys who came here were so much fun!!!

On Thursday the masses went downtown to check out the sights while the family went to the temple for Laura's first time through.

It was fantastic to meet the all of the Wades: Mark and Denise, Katie, Rachel and Eli. It was also fun to see Aunt Cindy, Jordan's incredibly accomplished aunt. The girl is amazing! We became reacquainted with, Alton and Diana Wade—Jordan’s grandparents who we had met when he was mission president here 10 years ago. We were supposed to go to the 10:00 session, but there was a key mix up so we ended up doing a special 10:30 session with pretty much just us Nielsons and Wades. Afterwards we all came back here for a cookout and chilled out for a few hours.

The wedding dinner at Clyde’s was an absolute blast. First of all—we couldn’t get over how much Mary Kate and Eli hit it off.

They were joined at the hip from the moment they met. The food was fantastic and the venue was private and intimate. We really got to know everyone. There was a cute video with Laura and Jordan talking about how their relationship got them to where they are now. It was so sweet. Then everyone introduced themselves. Then everyone told a story about Jordan and Laura. The Wades gave gifts to Laura to help prepare her for life with Jordan. It was really cute. No one went on too long and it was just a perfect evening.

Anna Melinda was here by 7:00 on Friday morning ready to do Laura’s hair. She is AWESOME. Thankfully traffic on the way to the temple was not an issue. We got there a half hour early and had to wait a while for Jordan to get there with his family. The sealing was fantastic. They are so in love and ready for married life. What a happy day for everyone involved!

Right when they were about to make their grand exit to the admiring masses another couple beat them to the punch so they had to wait a few minutes to come out.
What a stunning couple! Justin did a great job taking pictures—we all walked around to the back of the temple where the sun was in a better place and he snapped away for a good hour.

One of my favorite pics of the day, Eli and Cindy:Then he took a ton of just Laura and Jordan in front of the temple. I can’t wait to see them!!!

Laura and Jordan went in Jordan’s rental car and Tom, Dad me and Justin went in our car and stopped off at Chick-Fil-A on the way home so we could feed the crowd that was gathering at our house. We also whipped out left overs from the cookout from the day before. Everyone just chilled for a few hours before we had to get ready for the reception. The cultural hall looked amazing. I was so grateful for Nancy Williams who showed up to help with the Costco flowers that we cut and arranged in mason jars for the centerpieces. They really looked cool with the LED lights sparkling in the flat clear marbles. I was quite happy with how it all turned out. Our goal was to have lots of food and comfortable seating for everyone--especially the grandparents: As is always the case there were a few glitches but all in all I think everyone had a blast. I would guesstimate that we had about 200 people come through the receiving line. The line broke up after an hour and a half and then they cut the cake and had a dance party. Jordan’s friends were HILARIOUS dancing. Tom also did a good job emceeing and moving things along. It all happened so fast that I missed them running down the rose petal path to their car with all of the guests waving sparklers on either side. But Justin was right there photographing all of it. Thank goodness! What would be the point of coming 2,000 miles for your friend's wedding if you couldn't decorate his car?