Our Next Beginning (And the End of My Super Cheesy Story)

I never planned on being a 19 year old wife. Marriage was the last thing on my mind when I met Jason, and yet being married to him is the absolute best thing that ever happened to me. It's taken me a lot of time to come to grips with the fact that this is in fact what I'm supposed to be doing with my life, but when I look back and notice how I've changed since meeting him, I know that this is the plan God had for me. And I love Jason more than I ever knew it was possible to love a man and I wouldn't trade him for the world.

This breakdown was totally justified
though because A) the water I spilled
was purple and B) there was a LOT of
it and C) it's made out of flowers and
D) it's gross.

The last few months have been so fun, but also hectic and exhausting and I'll spare you the details. The planning was never anyone's favorite part of a wedding anyway. The days dragged on and on and finally, after weeks of communicating between our parents and selling our old apartment contracts and moving me into our new apartment and planning the reception and open house and luncheon and a spontaneous breakdown over some spilled water, the week arrived.

Friday morning, Jason's mom took us out to breakfast and then she and Dayna took me to get my nails done for the wedding. My mom has never really been into the girly stuff so I'd never been before, but I had a lot of fun except for the part where I learned that my ticklish feet don't handle pedicures well.

That night Amanda helped me into my wedding dress and did my hair and makeup and jewelry and we drove to the Payson Temple to take some pictures. Mom and Ash tried to come and surprise me by being there but we accidentally ended up following them to the temple so that didn't work out super great. Glenn, our photographer, had us do a "first look" picture so Jason was facing the temple when I walked up behind him. When he turned around we got our first look at each other in our wedding clothes and suddenly the whole thing became so real. 

Let me take a moment to tell
you that I am EXTREMELY
EXCITED for Mamma Mia 2.
EXTREMELY.

Neither of us are particularly photogenic but we had a blast taking those pictures and Amanda was an excellent assistant. After we finished, Jason drove back to his house and Amanda and I went to Katie's house in Genola where we had an ice cream party and watched Mamma Mia with my mom and Ash and Katie and Jeff and had an all around great time. I finally fell asleep around 1:30 in the morning only to wake up four hours later.

The morning vaguely reminded me of the wedding morning scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding except on a much smaller scale and I didn't wake up with a giant zit on my face. As Amanda and I followed Mom and Ash to the temple, I got a phone call from my mom informing me that I'd inadvertently left my wedding dress at Katie's house. Oops.

It was all right though. Katie brought it with her a half hour later in plenty of time to change into it after the ceremony. Jason and I got our marriage license signed and some other pre-wedding necessities done before meeting our sealer and walking into the sealing room together.

What a surreal experience that was, sitting there in our temple clothes with all our closest friends and family gathered around. The sealer talked for several minutes about the covenants we've made throughout our lives, ending with a commission to treat each other like the King and Queen we can become, and suddenly we were there kneeling across the altar from each other, promising to love and care for one another for time and all eternity. And then we were pronounced husband and wife and it was the happiest moment of my life.

At our luncheon we had a short ring ceremony, which I loved because Dad got to walk me down the "aisle" (or at least across the church gym) and all the people who couldn't attend our sealing got to be a part of our wedding still. For the luncheon, (this is the "cheesy" part of my super cheesy story), we'd wanted to get Little Caesar's pizza to commemorate the night we met, (and also the night we got engaged, and also lots of other nights) but Jason's brother Ryan could get us a discount at Dominoes so we did that instead. Still, pizza is pizza. We had fun mingling with friends and family we hadn't seen in awhile and Jason was only a little upset to find that the car had been decorated with silly string.

Once people began leaving we quickly changed and Dad drove us to the airport where we boarded a plane for San Diego. I'd never been on a plane before and I'm sure my excitement was a little childish but I had a ton of fun.

Some highlights from our honeymoon included:

•  a sighting of the unfortunate Lesser Kudu at the San Diego Zoo

  

  As far as we know, the Lesser Kudu is the only kudu in existence.
  There is no Greater Kudu. It is simply lesser because of the fact
  that it is a kudu.

• as well as a pretty cool view of a bobcat

• a thrilling game of Ticket to Ride, which I won, as we stood in line for hours at Sea World, (pro-tip: don't ever go to a theme park on the 4th of July)
  
  
  
  
  
  
• a formidable sand castle constructed with only our bare hands and a rather feeble Burger King cup
  
  
  
  
• going inside what seemed like an actual castle on our visit to the San Diego Temple

•  and braving the chaos of Californian shopping malls (surprisingly not nearly as crowded as Utah ones, and not surprisingly waaayyy too expensive). 

In short, marriage is awesome and we are blissfully happy, and occasionally tired and grumpy and a little bit wary of our interesting next door neighbor and all the random people trafficking in and out of his door day and night. It's an adventure, and it's our adventure, and life has never been better.


P.S. An excerpt from my life that accurately sums up what being married to Jason is like:
Jason and Kiersten: [walk into Panda Express]
Jason: Can I sample some of your shrimp?
Kiersten: Babe, you're allergic to shrimp. This is a bad idea.
Jason: [eats shrimp anyway].
Jason (20 minutes later): I don't feel good.
Kiersten: Hmmm I wonder why.
Jason: It's your job as my wife to stop me from doing stupid things!
Kiersten: ...