2 years.

Happy anniversary to my best friend!

Thanks for taking me to the temple.

xoxo

that one time we ended up in a magazine.

Yesterday my mom texted me a photo of mine and Ben's engagement photos...

in the Utah Valley Bride 2013 magazine.

It's our {very, very small} claim to fame. ;)

Our new names are Alexis Joy Andersen and Christopher Albert Larsen III.

I am dying!

Happy Thursday!

a wedding to remember. {picture overload!}

The main reason I took off last weekend for a short-notice trip to Utah/Idaho/Oregon, was for my cousin's wedding.  Oh, how perfect was their day!  (Except maybe for the 2.5 hour long sealing delay due to a brother stuck on the freeway an hour away from the temple. ;) Although...it made the sealing just that much sweeter!)  The ceremony was beautiful and full of emotion, and KC couldn't stop staring at Cassie the whole day long. :)

The luncheon and reception were held in KC's backyard in the middle of nowhere Oregon.  The setting was rustic, natural, and literally picture perfect.  It was one of those receptions where you talk to the old ladies about raising chickens, and to the old guys about where they served their missions 50+ years ago.  Meanwhile, little kids ran around playing games and watched horseback riders mosey on down the trails.  The sparkler send-off was fun for all and made for a whimsical ending.

Congratulations, Cassie and KC!  :)

newlyweds (still?).

We've been married for 16 months, so I guess we still qualify as newlyweds...?  At what point are you not a newlywed??  Thoughts?

Missing this guy while I'm in Oregon for my cousin's wedding!  Portland is oh-so-wonderful.

it is sweet.

One of my favorite things about living in Missouri is being asked about Utah and Mormons when I tell people where I'm from.  A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of being the first Mormon my hairstylist had ever met. ;) We talked about the fundamental truths of the gospel, temples, and even more specifically, sealings.  As I was telling her about how we believe in being married for time and eternity, she got goosebumps all over and had tears in her eyes.

"That's so sweet!" she kept saying over and over.

And I couldn't help but emphatically agree with her.  It is sweet.  And such a blessing.

Click on a topic to learn more:  Mormonism, temples, sealings

camping, utah, and such.

I've had pictures from the last month that I've been meaning to post, but life gets busy.  :)  Now commencing, Operation Blog Catch-Up.

Our friends, Braden and Whitney, invited us to go camping about a month ago.  Of course we had to jump on that opportunity since we had never been camping together before, and I had been dying for some s'mores.  We drove about 2 hours south of St. Louis and ended up camping next to the prettiest little river.  We set up the tents, got our s'mores fix, and stayed up too late talking around the campfire.

We spent the next day playing in and climbing over all the pools and rocks (as you can see Ben and Braden doing so in the left picture), and swimming in the river.  Admittedly, it was the first time I stopped and realized that I actually think Missouri has some beautiful spots.   It felt like I was emotionally cheating on Utah...aaaand then we drove back to St. Louis and my heart was recommitted to Utah.

Birthdays are best when you get to request special cakes and summer night walks.  (Also, turning 21 doesn't mean much when you're Mormon. #youngwildandfree #butnotsowild.)

It was probably a good thing that my heart finally settled on Utah after our camping trip, seeing as we flew out to Utah the next week.  We went for my best friend's wedding, a family reunion in Idaho, and just to spend time with my family.  It was fabulous! (Minus having a dead camera battery and no charger for the whole trip.)

I stole this group picture off of Facebook from a stranger.  It's whatever.  Also, I'd like to point out that this is probably the first time I've ever looked semi-tan in a picture.  Can we all just soak it in for a minute?  Okay, thanks.

(Note:  This steakhouse is the coolest place ever.  They bring your meat out to you on a hot stone and you cook your meat as you cut off pieces!  Food and entertainment. :)

We look like babies in this picture, but what can you expect after spending all day at the pool in the hot sun? :)

Until next time, Utah!

the wedding video.

One year ago today! :)

If this video doesn't work, find it over here.

the wedding details: part 3.

To anyone out there who is currently engaged or going to be engaged one day, this is my biggest piece of advice to you... if you can, try to DO A WEDDING PRE-SHOOT!  Seriously, one of the best decisions we made.  We met our photographer at the Mt. Timpanogos temple a few weeks before the wedding to take some pictures, and then headed over to the gardens at Thanksgiving Point to take some more.  I cannot stress how relaxing this made our wedding day!  Instead of taking pictures for 2 hours after the sealing on our wedding day, we were able to focus on family and friends and have an early luncheon.  (Okay, my second big piece of advice is to HIRE A VIDEOGRAPHER.  I am in love with our wedding video and I don't care who knows it!  But we'll get to that later.)  I apologize in advance for all of the pictures that are about to follow.

Bridesmaid dresses.  That is a curse word in our family, haha.  Light pink or champagne bridesmaid dresses are nearly impossible to find in February and March since stores don't start putting out spring clothing until April.  We actually ended up buying three different sets of dresses before settling on one (sorry about that, mom!).  We ordered the pink dresses off of a website that we stumbled upon, and bought the cream ruffle slips from a boutique in Draper, the heels at Payless (of all places!), the belts from Bags That Fit in American Fork, and the earrings from Francesca's in University Mall.  I loved how their outfits turned out!

the wedding details: part 2

I knew that I wanted our invitations to be a tad bit on the formal side, and was telling our photographer during our engagement shoot that I hadn't seen anything out there that I loved.  She mentioned that she designs wedding invitations too, so we ended up having her do them for us, which was awesome!  They were printed on ivory paper that had a little bit of a shimmer to it with a light champagne/gold design around the edges, and a bellyband that held the picture, invitation, and temple/luncheon cards together.  I thought they turned out great, but...I'm biased.  :)

(Awful lighting, but you get the idea.)

From the beginning, we had planned on Ben buying a suit to wear instead of renting a tux.  We hit up the President's Day sale at Men's Warehouse and after spending hours (and hours and hours) there, we ended up with Ben's wedding attire, groomsmen attire, and suits for our dads.  The poor salesmen at Men's Warehouse had to deal with my mom and me running in every couple days to see if the suits would match other clothes and whatnot while the suits were being altered.  Let's just say I'm just grateful I don't have to go back anytime soon. :)

Even though it's been done over and over again, thanks to Pinterest, we decided to do a candy table as our wedding "thank you."  We had our photographer print stickers with the center design thing that was on our invitation, and we stuck them on clear bags.  My mom ran all over Utah County and Salt Lake County collecting candy in our colors.  You'd be surprised how hard it is to find different shades of pink and light yellow candy.  :)  We borrowed the frame from our photographer (you'll see it again in another post) and painted a piece of thin wood with chalkboard spray paint so we could write on it.  The ribbons came from Hobby Lobby and the Dear Lizzie boutique in Highland.

Wedding cake was never something that I had dreamed about, so when it came time to choose what we wanted, I had no clue.  I knew that I like round cakes better than square, and I wanted it to be fairly simple.  My mom heard from one of our neighbors about a lady in Pleasant Grove who makes cakes, so we set up an appointment to go meet with her and discuss everything.  Not going to lie, it was pretty overwhelming.  Too many flavors, colors, frosting types, etc. to choose from.  We ended up going with an ivory/cream color, simple designs, a ribbon around the middle cake, and real flowers in the middle.  Simple and not overly exciting, but perfect for us.  When we met with the lady at the reception center to plan everything out, we chose the dessert buffet option for the reception.  Guests could choose from 12 different kinds of cakes as well as wedding cake.  The best part is that we didn't have to spend the few days leading up to the wedding in the kitchen baking all of those desserts.  :)

the wedding details: part 1.

Continuing on with wedding posts this week...

The first thing I did was buy my wedding dress, naturally.  ;)  My mom, sister, and I went dress shopping while Ben was in St. Louis for his interview and spent an hour at Bridal Expressions in Sandy, UT before I found my dress.  And it was on sale.  Score.  (Please note that this freaked Ben out.  He couldn't believe that I had already found a dress 3 days later, haha.)

When Ben got back, we sat down to try and find a wedding date, and just could not find a time that we both wanted.  One of us wanted spring.  One of us wanted late summer (cough, me, cough.  I thought I'd need longer to plan the wedding). After figuring out things like our housing contracts and family members' schedules, we decided to go with April 20--the day after Winter semester ended at BYU.

The next item on our list was booking a sealing room at the LDS Mt. Timpanogos temple for the actual wedding ceremony, and then finding a place to have our reception.  We went with White Willow Reception Center in Provo, UT, which was just amazing.  My mom and I met with the owner for an hour to give her all of our requests, and she did everything for us!  Flowers, luncheon, dessert, etc.  Everything.  It was the best decision we could have made.  The venue was just lovely and we loved the old antique house look!

My friend's mom recommended the photographer they had recently used for their family pictures.  We checked out Maria's site, and loved her photography!  Since we only had 10 weeks to plan our wedding, we scheduled our engagement pictures for the next week.  It was such a fun shoot!  Maria made us laugh and laugh, and acted more like a friend/older sibling than a photographer.