our big party

I realized I've never blogged about our reception and since it's be almost a year, I figured I should get around to that. With the Mr performing in Peter Pan right now, I have some time on my hands. 

For our reception, we both just wanted a fun party. Nothing too stuffy, but still classy. I also wanted to keep it as simple as possible. Mostly, so I didn't become a Bridezilla. Another key factor was Chancho. We wanted him to be able to join in the festivities, duh!

With all of that in mind, we settled on an outdoor party and found a beautiful spot up Provo Canyon called South Fork Park. We also decided to have our big party the night BEFORE we got married. Why? Because it's our wedding and we do what we want!!! JK. While that is true, the park was reserved for our actually wedding day AND we had discussed before we even knew about the park about having it the night before so we didn't have a crazy long day and could just get married, say, "peace out!" to everyone and head on our honeymoon (we dated for a long time, folks....).

After finding a place, the next thing was food. We really only checked out one place and knew it was the place for us after meeting with them. It's Marvellous Catering out of Provo. You guys!!! Their food is so baller! We had pulled pork sandwiches, an awesome spinach salad, the best artichoke dip in the world, chocolate cream cheese cake, and strawberry shortcake. Since their food is so good, customers begged them to open a restaurant and they listened. If you ever find yourself in Utah County, you must try Molly's. They are only open for lunch, but they do serve dinner on Fridays. My mouth is watering thinking about their delicious food. Although we did serve cake, I'm not a huge cake fan. So we didn't opt for a traditional wedding cake. Instead, we had a wedding pie. Mr G's mom, Sharon, made her award winning peach pie that we topped with our lego miniatures and a mini Chancho. I made the "mr + mrs" banner too!

As far as decor goes, I let nature take care of most of it. The tables had burlap runners made by yours truly, mason jars with a few stems of white orchids in them, lace doilies, other decorative jars, and finished off with assorted pink frooties. I freaking love frooties! We hung some tissue paper balls in some trees, where we greeted our guests, and in the food canopy. What's a wedding without some dancing? We had a small dance floor with some bistro lights hanging above and around it. We rented the tables, chairs, and canopy tent from Alpine Event Rentals. I highly recommend them, because they were affordable, punctual, and had great stuff.

Since it was our party, we wanted to enjoy it! So we had a line for people to wish us well for about an hour. To make sure it stayed to just about an hour, we planned a short program after the line so we had a reason to leave our guest. 

The program consisted of Mr. G and I singing to each other and with each other. I sang Somewhere from West Side Story, Mr G sang a John Lennon classic, Grow Old Along with Me, and then we sang Lucky by Jason Marz and Colbie Caillat. Traditions came next with the garter and bouquet throwing. My sister's NOW HUSBAND caught the garter (guess it worked) and my niece, Allie, caught my bouquet (I decided on a baby's breath bouquet. I thought of a lot of different bouquets, but in the end baby's breath went along with my simple, but classy theme and matched the lace in the decor). Then we started off the dancing with I Got You Under My Skin by good old Frank Sinatra. 

We carried on with more dancing and actually getting to eat some of the food. Imagine that! Then we just spent the rest of the night chatting and enjoying all the love and support from our people. It was perfect. 

Then it was time to go home and get some beauty sleep and prep to become Mrs. Mr. G.

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new york, it got me!

My man and I took a little visit to New York last week (I'll blog about that later) and I was reminded of a moment I had in my first months living there. 

When I moved to New York, Mr. G would always tell me, "Don't let New York get you!". Meaning, don't get raped, killed, mugged....In other words, don't become an episode of Law and Order: SVU (which I had to stop watching after I moved. It freaked me out recognizing places they filmed). I didn't live in a super sketchy area, but I wasn't living in the poshest of places either. I lived in a neighborhood called Hamilton Heights in Upper Manhattan on 136th street, between Broadway and Amsterdam. It was a cozy, quiet street with an elementary school, tennis court, and basketball court, across the street. 

The view from my fire escape

My bedroom was tiny, but hey, it's New York, most are. The bed was placed right again the wall with the windows, with the window to the fire escape in the middle of the bed. See below. 

Upon waking up, I could look right out the window and see what the weather had in store for me.

One morning, however, I woke up and saw, not the weather, but movement behind the curtain. As my eyes adjusted, I realized that movement, was a man. Crouching. I thought:

"It's happened. New York got me! SVU here I come. Only I don't get to meet Mariska!"

Once the initial panic started to subside, I snuck to the foot of the bed by the wall, closest to the left side of the window, to peek behind the curtain to see my rapist/murder and figure out just how close he was to pouncing....and to see what my chances were. 

Now, you may be thinking, why didn't you just leave your bedroom? To that I say, rational people may do that and many other wiser things, but I was in no such rational state.

Anyway, what I saw when I carefully moved the curtain back, just so, was a man in a paint-suit, crouching to paint the fire escape. Not a crouching rapist. Phew! 

After the relief set in, I wanted to become a murder myself and kill the super who had not notified us that someone would be painting the fire escape. The super was not the sharpest tool in the shed (I could write many a blog about him...). 

New York may have not gotten me physically that day, but it definitely got me mentally. Thank you, Steve the Super....

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My man the knight

One time, my man let this other man know that being rude to me was not an option. What's funny to me about this story, is that it happened in the chapel of our church. 

Rewind to a few months back. 

Our sacrament meeting went nearly 30 minutes over. UGH! It is normal after a church meeting to talk with other members of the congregation for a few minutes afterwards or on your way out of the chapel, right? Right. Well, even though our meeting went over, we still had our small convos. Most of the pews had emptied and Mr. G went to the back to have talk to some dudes and I was towards to front chatting with my friend Connie about her poor little dog, Lucy, who had just passed away. A few minutes into our convo a family from the next ward to meet in the chapel walked in. 

They were there about 20 minutes early. Good for them!

Like I said, most of the pews were empty. In fact, I think all of the pews were empty. This family chose to sit in the pew Connie and I standing by in the aisle. The father said, "Excuse me" for us to let him in and we obliged. We even stepped a foot or two back to give proper space, but we carried on our sad convo about Lucy and how Connie's little girls were devistated about her death. 

About 2 minutes after the early birds sat down, the father once again turned to us. This time he said sternly, "I bring my family early to church so we can sit in the chapel and to be reverent and feel the spirit. It's extremely difficult to focus on that goal when you are irreverently talking behind us. Your meeting has been over for quite some time and you should be in Sunday School. The chapel is not an appropriate for conversations."

I think Connie and I probably looked like a pair of deer caught in headlights. We were stunned that we had been chastised by this complete stranger. Being the introverted lady that I am, I normally don't speak up for myself, but I couldn't believe he talked to us so rudely and self-righteously.

My response, "Our sacrament meeting actually just got out a few minutes ago, so, yes, I'm talking with my friend for a minute. I don't believe we were being irreverent, sir."

Rudey McRuderude, "I'm sorry, but it is and it's distracting."

Me, "I'm sure you're sorry, but there is a nicer way of asking us to take our conversation somewhere else." 

Cue our exit.

Of course, I went right to the back to tell my man about the interaction that just happened. Connie and I relayed the scene and Mr. G said, "Hmm mmm. Not OK."

He marched his handsome self down to the lone family, tapped the man on the shoulder, and said nicely something like, "You can't be rude to my wife. Especially since we're newlyweds, I gotta do my husband duty and defend her. So, it's not cool to be rude to her."

I think the man had a realization that he was a little outta control for the situation and apologized to Mr. G. Afterwards, we took our rude/irreverent/unrighteous group out the hallway. A few minutes later, the man sheepishly came over to me and apologized. I accepted. 

Turns out, he used to be the bishop of his ward and his big thing was not talking in the chapel and immediately going to classes afterwards as quickly and quietly as possible. To each their own I suppose.....

The whole thing wasn't really that big of a deal (it's not like he was swearing like crazy or beating on me), but it did teach me that my man would defend my honor no matter what. Win! 

shameless plug alert part 2

OK. So I have a few things I need to tell you about. 

First, my show. I've talked about it a bit, but I really want you guys to come see it. Tickets are flying off the interwebs (there isn't really a shelf for them to fly off of so....) and I wanna make sure you get a chance to see it. It runs Feb 14-April 19 and I perform Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday nights and ALSO all the 4 pm matinees on Saturdays (I'll also be doing some weekday 4 pm matinees. If you call the box office, they'll know which ones). You can get tickets by clicking here or by calling 801-984-9000. I play older Cosette and I'm in awe of the talent in this show. Seriously, everyone is crazy good. Intimidating actually (that's a blog for another day). Plus, JVJ looks like this under his prisoner/mayor costumes. You're welcome. 

Sorry, Casey!

Secondly, my husband (who also has awesome muscles) works for the great company called Dress Code. They make custom suits and dress shirts. You guys, if there is a guy in your life or you are the guy in your life, you're gonna wanna check them out. Before Mr. G worked for them, he got his wedding suit made from them and he looked like freaking James Bond. Like the really hot Daniel Craig version of James Bond (drool). Wedding season approaches so if you want to look super fly or want your man to look super fly for your event contact my man for more info ASAP (they take 6-8 weeks). Email him at ghansen@dresscodecustom.com. They are about the same cost as suits you buy off the rack, but you design them and they are made to your exact measurements.  Holla!

Mr. G looking hawt!

There was something else I wanted to talk about, but now I can't remember. It must be the old age setting in (turning 30 in less than 2 months. AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!) Maybe I'll remember and it'll give me something to blog about. 

Cheers!

2013 in photo review

This year has been one to remember. From moving from NYC to Utah, from theater to film, from engaged to married. It's been a goodie. Here are some of my favorite memories of this year in pictures.

WARNING: THERE ARE A LOT OF WEDDING PICS (It was kind of a big deal, OK....) 

Now, I'm not the resolution making kind of girl, but over the last little while I've been trying to be more kind, patient, genuine, and less selfish. It's a work in progress. Here's to a fantastic 2014!!!

PS. I'm pretty proud of myself for keeping a blog for a year. For a lazy/introverted Pisces, that's an achievement.