a bit dramatic

Martha Stewart Weddings has this gem of wisdom:

"A wedding without flowers is as sad

as a marriage without love."

most beautiful wedding venue

I was perusing wedding blogs, as I do far too often these days, and I came across one that selected the blogger’s favorite wedding venues. Her number one venue was this really pretty castle.

Then this weekend Mike and I went to Logan. When we drove into the valley and passed the temple, he commented on how lovely it all was. It got me thinking how thrilled I am to be getting married in the Logan Temple. It is as picturesque and charming as any place I could imagine. I believe if it were open to the public, people would pay thousands of dollars and be on waiting lists for years for the privilege of having their wedding ceremony there.

Plus, for me, it is much more special because it has so much symbolic, sentimental and spiritual meaning. It is quite literally the exact place I dreamed of getting married at since I was a child. It really does not get better than that.

the darndest things

Yesterday, as part of Mike's family's monthly FHE, his Mom threw us an engagement bbq. It was dedicated to trying to explain to all the little nieces and nephews what it means that Mike and I are getting married. This led to loads of funny little kid-isms.

For starters, Ellie Kate asked her Mom "When Mike marries Brittany, will he get to sleep in the bounce room?"

The bounce room is my empty bedroom that only has an air mattress in it. It is the only room in my house that makes any sense to kids.

Ellie Kate's brother quickly corrected her that Mike and Brittany would share a room. SHOCK!

Also Mike's brother Aaron's kids made us tiny miniature congratulations cards and a picture of the sand dunes where we got engaged (pictured above).

Then the best part was when Mike's Mom used us as an object lesson for a lesson about temple marriage. As part of that she asked the following questions:

• There is a very special lady here today, who is it? The kids proceeded to name everyone else there until their parents got them to say Brittany.
• When Brittany and Mike get married, what will that make Brittany? Teacher, mother, lady, grown-up.

I was thinking the right answer was wife, but it turns out the correct answer was aunt.

While a little embarrassing, it was also hilarious. And I learned some stuff since I had not even thought about how I would get the privilege of suddenly being an aunt to a bunch of goofy, darling kids.

And I got to talk over wedding ideas with his family and they are all being very supportive of all my ideas. It is making wedding planning way less stressful.

wedding horror

I have already made an unsettling discovery: the wedding industry is driven by fear.

I expect, and even understand that from other industries. Obviously, home security, life insurance, mace manufacturers, and politicians, could not survive without constantly reminding us of how much danger we are constantly in. But I really did not see this coming from the lacey, sparkly, elegant, and oh so romantic, wedding industry. However, now that I think about it, it all makes sense. Since getting married really only requires a marriage certificate and a judge (so maybe a couple hundred dollar investment), this industry, in order to exist, had to find a way of convincing us all to spend a fortune instead. And they do that by saying things like:

“This is the most important day of your life.”

and

“You’re the bride, you should have exactly what you want.”

Plus somebody along the way made up a bunch of incomprehensible rules and traditions designed to make it extremely difficult and expensive get to married. My current favorite is the sound financial advice they give that the ring should cost the guy three months of his salary. Or what? You will be dumped and ostercized?

The only really big example I have experienced so far was from a jeweler I talked to about getting a ring. She called me today to ask if I had decided and I told her we found someone who could make it cheaper. She proceeded to describe to me how the ring was going to be ugly from the jewels to the setting and I would have to wear it forever and ever and I would hate it and be miserable and accordingly my marriage would be a failure and my children would hate me. She gave me this speech in a really sweet voice, and for just a minute it worked and I was scared. But luckily I snapped out of it and realized that I was just talking to an aggressive woman who was willing to be totally obnoxious and mean to try and make money.

It was probably good preparation for ignoring people throughout this process.

popped

This weekend Mike asked me to marry him and I said yes!

I was totally surprised and we are both really happy. We have been talking about it for a few weeks or months or years but I did not see this coming because I had told him I wanted to pick my own ring. So on Friday, we went to the Bruneau sand dunes and had a picnic and flew kites and then hiked the dune. On the way up the dune we talked about whether we were going to jump down or slide or whatever. So when we got to the top and Mike got on the ground, I just thought he was getting in position for a somersault or something. Even when he held out a ring (a dark brown band... at the time), I still thought he might just be messing with me because Mike has a habit of finding jewelery on the ground and giving it me. Anyhow, then he asked me to marry him and I said both, "are you serious?" and "yes" but I am not sure in which order. It turns out the ring was a mood ring we had looked at a week earlier when we went camping. On top of everything else, it is really nice to know exactly what mood I was in when I got engaged---brown. But seriously, it was the perfect setting being at the top of a sand dune with the sunset and all that. It will always be a special memory.

And this is what I have to look forward to for the rest of my life...

As for the rest of the details, we only know that we are planning on August in Logan. I will keep everyone posted on the rest of the details as they come up.

pasarlo bien

Mexico was wonderful. It was warm, colorful, exciting, interesting, relaxing, new and yummy. Everything I could every ask for. The picture above was taken at Chichen Iza, a Mayan ruin. That lady wanted to sell me a bag, I just gave her money for the photo instead. I think she gets that a lot---she was all moody like professional models always are.

Since we had scuba diving gear we had so much luggage. That picture does not do it justice. I hated our luggage.

Chichen Itza

I am all attitude in this shot. I taught Dev how to use my camera and he did a great job (my camera is confusing).

This is easily the best hotel I have ever stayed in. It was charming and comfortable and so Mexico. Plus the bottom of the pool was natural with rock formations and tunnesl and stuff. I have never seen anything like it. I took pictures with my underwater camera of us swimming through the tunnels. I will post those later.

Across the street from the best hotel ever was a cenote (cave) with deep fresh water and fish. We had it to ourselves. RAD.

Beautiful, random town on the way to Chichen Itza.

Telum, very photogenic Mayan ruins on the coast.

Sometimes I just took pictures of stuff.

The white guy is my dad helping these guys push their boat onto the shore.

I made Dev model for me a lot. I wish I could take a picture of everyone I know on this pier.

Can you believe he is single?

This dude did paintings with spray paint.

This photo was way hard to get. We are presently getting rushed out of a restaurant next to this pier. But I really wanted a photo here. Stupid Americans!

Remember my favorite hotel? It also had a bunch of hammocks. Hammocks are the ultimate way to relax. That is how my feet look when they are happy.

Believe it or not, I have tons more photos from my underwater cameras. We did lots of underwater stuff. I will post later.

when in mexico

So I am off in Mexico on a family vacation. We have been going like crazy from ruins to beaches to scuba diving. I have some awesome pictures on my camera that I can´t post yet but I will. I am sunburned, just woke up from a long post-dive nap and am surprisingly homesick.

Hope all is well with all of you.