More Wedding Day Details

I'm just going to jump right back in where I left off at the last post. After we finished taking pictures at the Temple, we drove over to the Wight House Reception Center in Bountiful for a beautiful and delicious luncheon. Margo put it all together for us. It was so pretty there and I think the food was pretty dang good, too. Margo did a great job planning that out for us. Unfortunately the photographer wasn't at the luncheon, but we have plenty of amateur photographers in our families that we have some evidence of the event. Here's a picture of Tanner loving the luncheon. You can kind of see the table setting in the background. We love green and orange!
While we enjoyed the tasty food, we watched a little wedding collage video of Johnny and me growing up. Johnny's brother-in-law, Aaron, made the video and he did a great job. I'll have to post it when I get a copy of it. My mom loved it so much she cried!

But the [happy] crying did not stop there. After we ate, it was speech time. Everyone at the head table said a little something - Margo, Daren, Mom, Dad, me, and Johnny. My parents could not stop the tears from flowing. I swear they were tears of joy! After Johnny's little speech, he surprised me and announced that he would then perform a song that he'd written for me! It was such a sweet song, and I have to give him major props for being brave enough to do that. He did a wonderful job; I just love it when he plays for me. Here's a picture that Emily got of the performance, and Johnny's brother Scott got the whole thing on video, too! He's making a video of the whole day and I think I'll get to see it this weekend when we all go to Layton for Memorial Day. I'll post it here, too, because it's going to be awesome.


I have to say something about Erin Lincoln Roberson, my oldest friend in the world. I moved down the street from her when we were five, and after years of carpooling and high school drama, both of us leaving Mountain Home for college, and now, both of our weddings within one year of each other, we've been through a lot together. I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in her wedding last summer. I was so happy she was able to make it all the way from Oklahoma to be a bridesmaid in mine! She helped out so much with getting things ready for the reception. And since my parents are basically an extra set of parents for her (you can never have too many), my mom had no hesitation in putting her to work while she was here. She even helped me move out of my old apartment and into our new place. So Erin, if you read this, thanks again for everything!


After the luncheon we had about an hour or so before we had to be at the reception to take pictures. We'd been so busy and on the go all day, we didn't know what to do with our little break. Luckily we had family everywhere so we decided to head over to Aunt Jan and Uncle Don's house (basically wedding headquarters) to hang out with my family for a bit. My parents and some of the extended family were already at the church preparing the food and getting everything ready, but it was nice to be able to just chill out a little bit with Grams, some of the Lanoys, some of my siblings, and my two cute nephews before the reception. I feel like their trip out to Utah FLEW by so fast. The wedding kept us busy for sure so we didn't get much (or any) relax time. I'm excited to go out to Arkansas in two weeks for the open house and then on to Branson for my family's annual condo vacation. It will be nice for the family in Arkansas to get to spend more time with Johnny, and vice versa. He's done really well and already visited Arkansas twice, but they were both just for a couple of days at a time, so this will be the longest amount of time we'll all be together and I know we're all stoked for some premium family bonding.

Anyway, our little break went by pretty quickly and the next thing we knew, we were off to the stake center for the reception. It went from 6-8 but we had to be there at 5 for pictures. We hired a company to do the decorating for us (it would have been too much of a hassle for my family to do it- the long distance thing made it difficult). I found this woman online who decorates for weddings and receptions, and she basically specializes in stake center receptions. Johnny and I met with her back in January or maybe February and planned out every last detail of this thing. I think she did a really great job, but I suppose I might be biased since it was my own reception. Either way, it was nice to not have to worry about decorating ourselves.

I loved our cake. I'm trying to remember the flavors of all the tiers... I think the top one was chocolate raspberry cake with a raspberry cream cheese frosting. The middle tier was most definitely s'mores flavored. And that means the bottom layer must have been the vanilla toffee cake with buttercream frosting. I think it tasted pretty good, but again, my bias...

Here's the whole reception. I was so happy we chose to do it in a church. I think they made it look classy and we saved money because the church is free! No regrets from this girl.

The centerpieces that I was crazy about! I seriously will never tire of these two colors.

And here's the candy buffet:

That's enough pictures without people in them. One of the biggest things that made our day so special was all of the wonderful people who were there with us. Here's some of them:

We love the bridesmaids

And the groomsmen aren't so bad either...

Johnny's immediate family

My immediate family

I don't know what I'd do without my sisters

... or brothers

And I'm positive that Johnny feels the same way

After the reception finally died down (I think it was around 8:30 or so), Johnny and I were sent off in our very decorated car. We stayed at a hotel in Layton that night, then drove to Jackson Hole the next day. Our honeymoon was so much fun and very relaxing once all the wedding and school stress was over. Yay for vacations!

Honestly, April 23, 2011 was the best day of my 21 years. Everything went so smoothly and we had so much fun celebrating our marriage with everyone! I'm so grateful for all the help from friends and family and even strangers that made this wedding happen. We feel so blessed to always have sweet memories of our wedding day that we can look back on in the many years to come.

This should do it for the wedding posts, with a couple of exceptions once I get those videos in my possession. So if anyone is still reading, thanks for bearing through all of this!

Since Day 1

Confession: I've had a thing for Johnny since day 1.
How could I not? He's cute and clever and so very funny, and that was just my first impression of him. If he would have asked me out that first night I met him over at his apartment, I would not have hesitated a moment before responding in the affirmative to a complete stranger. As most of you know, the situation did not even come close to playing out that way, but it all worked out in the end.
When we were still in the friend zone - and by "friend zone" I mean hanging out every single day for about two months - I wished so much that he would just ask me out so we could at least give things a proper try.
After we had gone on a few dates (and endured countless long talks about our potential future, or at times, our lack of potential future) I was absolutely sure he was what I wanted. Eventually, he became sure of it, too, just in time for me to go home to Arkansas for the summer.
So we did the whole long-distance
dating thing for 2 months. It was a long two months but such a good way to start a relationship. When I got back to Utah in the fall, after talking to him on the phone every night for an hour or two, I knew he was serious about dating me. And like I said, I'd been serious since day 1.
Dreams of marrying that boy after school got out the following April quickly entered into my mind, where they were happily entertained until he made them a reality with a surprise visit to Arkansas on New Year's Eve 2010.
The rest is history, and here we are today.















On Saturday, April 23, 2011, Johnny made all my wildest dreams come true. We were sealed for time and all eternity in the LDS Bountiful Temple, surrounded by 70 loved ones. Here's where I tell you a little about our absolutely perfect in every single way day.

I woke up bright and early that morning to get my make-up done by my lovely big sister Emily. After that we rushed over to a salon so that my mom and I could get our hair done. I was basically excited beyond belief at this point, but also worried that some little detail would go wrong on our big day. Once our hair was done, Mom and I went to Johnny's parents' house to pick him up and go to the temple. He was already wearing his light gray suit and looking so dang good.

We had a sealing room reserved for 50 people, but apparently we're just really really popular because when we got to the room, there were 70 people crammed in there! It was so wonderful to see everyone there to support us. My grandma even came! The little trickster had a health setback and wasn't going to be able to fly out for the wedding. I was crushed when I found out. - I lived across the street from Grams for most of my life and I could not imagine getting married without her. I couldn't believe she made it!


We had a beautiful sealing ceremony and then got ready to make our exit from the temple. There were even more people lined up outside the doors to greet us. I'm not real big on being the center of attention, but it was so fun to walk outside and see dozens of people who traveled from all over just to see us get hitched. We felt so loved!

Then, we took lots of pictures outside the temple. Here's a few (ten):

This post has suddenly become forever long, so we'll leave off here for now. I'll update about the rest of the day soon!

Is this gonna be forever?

First of all, happy one-day-late Mother's Day! I was sad I couldn't be home with all my family for the holiday, but it was nice to talk to Mom on her special day.  She is seriously the best mom ever.  Sorry to everyone who is not my sibling.  I aspire to be just like her when I have kids of my own and I'm so thankful for her example of what it means to be a good mom.  Love her.

Even though I wasn't able to be home for Mother's Day, I did get to spend it with Johnny's family in Layton.  We had so much fun.  Saturday night we had a BBQ and s'mores around the fire.  We always have so much fun with the Allred's - I'm lucky to love the family I married into.  On Sunday we had a nice big family dinner after we got home from church.  We even had a little birthday party for me and for Amy, who turns 19 on Wednesday.  Margo made a delicious 3 layer yellow cake with yummy chocolate frosting (my favorite).  I got some lovely presents from Johnny's family and then we gave Margo her Mother's Day gifts.  It was a very fun night.

Now, about our first week of real life (post-honeymoon). Johnny and I are having so much fun!  He's working full-time and I'm only getting like 25 hours a week at my campus job.  We are both home by 5:30 at the latest every day, it's beautiful.  Johnny is taking one online class this summer, so he has to work on that occasionally, but other than that, we can just play once we're done with work during the day!

Johnny and I both have Tuesdays off, so what else could we do but a little car maintenance? Johnny taught me how to change the oil in our cars! We changed both of them that morning which definitely had me feeling so handy and mechanically inclined.  Then we did some shopping and bought a few household items.  One day our apartment will be entirely put together, and I'm thinking it will happen before we move out of it next year.  Then we ate a delicious dinner at Chili's with a gift card we got from my cousins Jon & Erin.  Our first date night as a married couple was a smashing success.

Friday night we went to a free rooftop concert by a local band, Fictionist.  I was introduced to them my freshman year because my friend Jace is the brother-in-law of their lead singer.  I thought they were way good and had been wanting to take Johnny to one of their shows since we started dating.  Turns out, that lead singer, Stuart Maxfield, was in my bishopric last year in my student ward.  His wife (Jace's sister) was my Sunday School teacher! Weird, right?  Anyway, I heard about Fictionist playing at this free rooftop concert series that Provo is doing for the summer and decided to go.  Luckily I have the coolest husband in the world who enjoys concerts as much as I do, so he was more than happy to accompany me.  And we even saw the legendary Sarah Price Edwards as we were leaving the show!  That was a delightful surprise.  I'm glad my husband got to meet my roommate from freshmen year.  And the show was very good.  This band is really getting popular.  They are actually in a contest to be on the cover of Rolling Stones Magazine; they've made it to the final four! Just vote for them here and you won't even regret it at all.  Yay for local talent! 

I also have Saturdays off, so last weekend I went to a BYU Baseball game with Brittnye.  Her fiance Dave is on the team, so they're kind of a big deal.  I think the game lasted like 2.5 hours.  I didn't have sunscreen.  Now I'm ridiculously burned with real cute tan lines all over my body.  Besides the sunburn though, it was so fun to see Brittnye!  She was a bridesmaid in my wedding, my roommate all last year, and one of my best friends since sophomore year.  She gets married June 25th in San Diego and I can't wait to go there for her big day!

It's safe to say that marriage just feels like a huge party all the time.  I'm glad we have the summer to be carefree and have so much fun before we hit school hard again in the fall.  Needless to say, I love married life. Forever.

Addiction.

When we decided back in February that the middle tier of our wedding cake would be s'mores flavored we didn't know just how much s'mores would be a part of our new little Allred family.  Since we got married 9 days ago, we've probably had them 4 times.

We seriously just can't get enough of these decadent treats.  And don't even think that we let the absence of an open fire keep us from making s'mores - we've become pros at oven s'mores. 

I'm pretty sure we have established a pretty solid first Allred Family tradition. 

Oh and speaking of the new Johnny and Sarah Allred Family, I'll post all about the wedding once I get the pictures from the photographer.  Basically, it was the best day ever, so get excited.