Our Special Day

Special Memories from my wedding day

• How incredibly amazing Roger was to me. He gave me anything that I could have wanted during our entire trip.

• I don’t think that I have ever felt as special as I did getting my hair done, my nails done, in my dress, makeup done and knowing that it was my special day. It was an amazing sense of happiness that I just don’t really know how to describe.

• I love that we were able to get married twice in 2 days. We originally got married on Saturday the 14^th at 7:00pm. Then due to a camera mishap, they weren’t able to video tape that ceremony so they offered to let us get married again the next day inside the chapel where they could video tape it. So that’s what we did. I felt like this helped me to justify the cost of my wedding dress- I got to wear it twice.
• The night before our wedding, we met with Roger’s parents at the Nugget in Reno to see the Oak Ridge Boys in concert. This was a great concert. I have always liked the Oak Ridge Boys. Even when I was a little girl, I would ask my mom to play the album over and over for me. So we were there watching the concert and I remember Joe Bonsall (in photo above, Joe is the one wearing the black and white pin-stripe suit) mentioning that the following evening would be a very special event for two of the audience members. He said our names and they put the spotlight on us. A little birdie (aka my mother-in-law had mentioned this to them.) They all wished us all the best for our lives together and then they played us the “Elvira” song which has always been my favorite song of theirs. It was so incredibly thoughtful of my mother-in-law to do this and just added a bit more excitement to the night.
• After our first ceremony, we all went to the Peppermill Resort and had a fabulous dinner at the Island Buffet. We had shrimp, steak, crab, salads, pasta etc. We were also able to have our choice for dessert. It was kind of nice for everyone to be able to pick anything they wanted for our “wedding dessert.”
• It was very neat to be able to travel around Nevada, California and Utah during our honeymoon. We spent the week relaxing and doing whatever we wanted whenever we wanted. I was very excited to have the opportunity to meet Roger’s Grandpa Ewing. He was a very special influence on Roger and was just such a sweet and loving man. Grandpa Ewing was the president of the Boise Bible College here in Boise, Idaho for many years. We also toured Camp Pendleton when we were in California. Camp Pendleton is the United States Marine Corps base where Roger spent his time when he was an active Marine. This was also the first time that I was able to meet Roger’s Great Aunt Vickie. We were also able to stop along the way. One place in particular was Salt Lake City. We went to the spaghetti factory for dinner before driving home. It was very beautiful to see all these different places.
• “Watch out for that tire!!” – This is a funny story that Roger and I tease each other about once in awhile. We were driving home from our trip and we had made it to about Twin Falls, Idaho when it was dark and we were starting to get tired. Well, we didn’t want to stop and try to find a hotel to stay in Twin Falls. So we decided that we would just take turns driving and make it home that night. Somewhere shortly after Twin Falls, Roger noticed that there was a huge chunk of a tire in the middle of the road and swerved to miss it. I was already sleeping in the passenger seat but must have been aware of what had just happened. About 30 minutes later, I woke up suddenly and said “Watch out for the tire!” It may just be one of those things that seemed funny because we were so exhausted and so determined to get home. I remember that my bed never felt as good as it did that night when we finally got home.
• We took our pug puppy Kojak with us on the trip. He was such a good puppy. We had to make extra stops for his sake but it was so worth it to have him with us. He was so young- maybe 3 months old so we couldn’t have left him home alone. We had his little pet carrier in the back seat and he would just hang out in there or come and sit on our laps and look out the window.

• I was extremely grateful that my lifelong friend Clarissa was willing to help me so much to prepare for the wedding. We made my flowers for the wedding and she did my hair and makeup for the extra ceremony and was able to be at the wedding. She also helped me quite a bit with the reception.
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• I’m extremely grateful that the Lord was watching over all of us on our trip. My mother, Tio John and Dale experienced some car trouble and ended up breaking down as soon as they got into Reno. They were lost, unsure of where the hotel was that we all stayed at and had no way of contacting us as none of our cell phones were working in Reno. The car broke down directly in front of the mall where Roger had gone to try to get his car cut. We were so thankful that Roger came across the car broken down. If he wouldn’t have run into them, they would have missed the wedding ceremony.

• I’ll never forget how happy and how emotional I was during the ceremony. We were able to write our own ceremony and with the help of my in-laws, we had personal, spiritual and the most meaningful vows I could ever imagine.
  

• Since our wedding (the 1^st ceremony) was outside, there were numerous strangers who stopped just to see the ceremony and comment. We had a few people who yelled out “Congrats!” to us from the street. Our 2^nd ceremony, was private and inside the small chapel. We have this ceremony on video and Kojak was able to attend this ceremony.

• We have over 600 photos of our wedding ceremonies.

• We are so grateful for all of the love and support that our families showed us during this special time.