Carrie And Ben

Sitting in a tree . . .

On March 8th my sister Carrie got married.

She married this Banjo-serenading patient-with-the-inlaws dude, Ben. He’s pretty cool.

They started dating last spring, though they’d first met a few years back at BYU.

And then last summer things took a serious turn. Carrie dumped dude #2 to focus solely on Ben. That’s commitment in the Carrie universe.

Then last fall it became more of a question of when, not if. And when the finally did get engaged in November, we were all excited for her.

THE PREPARATION

But she planned her wedding for early March. She and I had a full-on-fight about this. (Seriously, in the Costco parking lot). But she won. And that was the only kerfuffle we had when it came to the wedding. After that I did a better job of minding my p’s & q’s and behaving like the helpful/supportive sister I wanted to be.

I knew I was expecting when she announced her engagement, but I hadn’t announced the impending baby (and associated nausea). Still, I wanted to be part of the fun! I volunteered to decorate the reception center.

When I hadn’t done much by the end of January, I think I stressed Carrie out and she almost had a break down. But I assured her that it would be fine (fine!) because we had the plan pretty much laid out, it was just a matter of execution. And execution (once the plan is laid) is the easiest part.

Finally, about three weeks before the wedding I buckled down and started to work on the decor. We made tissue-paper pom-poms for the ceiling, photo candle votives for the table, floral centerpieces using roses, babies breath, and willow branches that we spray painted the turquoise color and then hand-glittered with my snow glitter. I also made some graphic chalkboards for the various tables, buckets for the sparklers for the final send off, and a ribboned entry path.

Leslee came over about every other day for the last two and a half weeks and we worked on these projects together. For the floral arrangements I was able to call in my friend Nicole (Thanks a kajillion, again, Nicole!) to show us how to do the arranging.

We set up the morning of the wedding. All family of the bride came over and helped set up.

THE BIG DAY

The night before the wedding Carrie had the wedding dinner at her childhood friend’s house (Morgan’s). It was lovely. Of course, I was 40 minutes late because I had been told it was at 6:30 and never looked at the invitation to confirm (Carrie was handing out bad time information all weekend!) Everyone else figured it out, but no one called us until we were just walking in the door – very late. Oops.

The next morning we set up for the reception and then went home, got ready, and went downtown for the ceremony. It was beautiful.

After the temple pictures we all headed back to our house where we had about 40 minutes to relax until we had to get over to the reception.

The reception was fun, and beautiful (if I do say so myself!). Carrie was a beautiful bride, Ben was a handsome groom, and the whole day was smooth and flawless.

AND OTHER THOUGHTS

Olivia was SO excited for Carrie’s wedding. She really got into the whole excitement of the event, especially as we worked on the decorations.

Everett, on the other had, was very NOT excited for Carrie to get married. He whined and complained every time we talked about it. I think he has worried that Carrie being married means she will no longer be his Carrie. And that’s true. It’s just a reality that will be interesting to watch him adjust to.

Congratulations Carrie and Ben on your lovely day!