Today I Marry My Best Friend. . .

Remember when that phrase was all the rage on wedding invitations? Ugh!! So trite and generic. The next time you see me, ask me to do my impression of that phrase. It makes me laugh and I almost can't get through the whole phrase because I'm trying to suppress the giggles.

Anyway, today was a hard day. Not because of work, but because of home selling stresses. Marcelo is FINALLY at the point that he is willing to let the price go low, but maybe we've lost all our buyers? It's REALLY stressing me out. I can't sleep most nights. And then I have to wake up and deal with work and hear Jean make racist comments about Marcelo and how he choose the wrong tile color because he's MEXICAN. No joke, she said that, and then quickly corrected herself to say "hispanic."

Do you know what the word hispanic is? It's the latino version of the word "negro." Like how old racist people know that they shouldn't say the "N" word (because that word is generally "frowned upon" in good society), and they replace it with the more PC term "Negro" but it's JUST as offensive and racist. Jean is that racist person. Anyway, I have to deal with that crap all the time, AND I have to do it on very little sleep. Today was one of those days.

So we are really REALLY ready to let our incredible house go for a GREAT deal. If anyone knows someone that wants to buy a home for $30,000 under market value, please let me know.

So like I promised, I am doing a post about my wedding day. Beth calls these "Meme's". How do you pronouce that? Like "Mee-mee?" or like "Meh-Meh"? Please enlighten me(me). But here it is with the FOUND pictures.

1. What date is your anniversary?
August 14th, 2004. That's a nice date because you hit your 6-month anniversary on Valentine's Day!! Not like we DO anything for Valentine's Day, but if we WANTED to, it would be our half anniversary.


2.Where did you get married?
San Diego Temple. People always ask if I'm from there, but I'm not. I wanted to get married there because it was the first temple I got to see the INSIDE of. When I was 13 the temple was complete and dedicated and we went to the open house. I remember putting on the white booties (to protect the carpet) and then walking inside. The room that most stuck in my mind at that young age was this one with a VERY large staircase in a very pretty room with a HUGE chandelier in the middle of the ceiling.

It won't surprise you to know that that's the Celestial Room. And so when I was married, I got to trip up that staircase with my huge dress on and sit just looking at that chandelier. Very pretty, very quiet. Perfect. Also I was currently living in Utah, my best friend and brother lived in AZ and my mom and the rest of my family were in Northern CA. It was about the same distance for everyone to come to San Deigo. So it just seemed fair to make everyone travel the same amount.

Anyway, it was fairly a horrible trip for everyone who came. They ALL had to come a long way. THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO TRAVELED SO FAR TO SEE ME MARRY THE LATINO GUY!!

3. Who proposed and how?
This is a ridiculously embarrassing story. So Marcelo and I had talked about this a few times. I was pretty sure that we would be engaged when I came back from Ecuador in May. I considered myself "engaged" for a long time. (I won't tell you how long I considered that. Let's just say it was LOOOONG before I had ever kissed Marcelo) But I considered myself asi even though we really didn't have a complete understanding about everything.

Well, I went back to Ecuador and walked off the plane and Marcelo was nowhere to be found!! I sat down on a bench outside the airport and waited. And waited. And waited. And then far FAR away I see a Marcelo shaped image a long way off walking into the "Departures" wing of the Quito Airport. I hike it over there and back into the airport, and sure enough, there he is, standing around, waiting for me to do all the work. HAR HAR

Anyway, I'm incredibly nervous because, BECAUSE he's decided to bring his PARENTS!! That's right!! It's been 1 year and 2 months since I've seen his face, and he brings his parents 8 hours on a bus to make me feel crazy anxious.

That's right, 8 hours. After having been on a plane for like 4 hours, I get to get on a bus at the Terminal Terrestre in Quito, then on another bus in Santo Domingo, and then a cab to their little suburb from the main part of Quevedo. I was VERY tired already, and then I had that huge trip to deal with. And I was flooded with all these Marcelo feelings. And I was nervous because I had never kissed a boy before. And I was trying to deal with all these things at once. I'm surprised my head didn't explode.

Anyway, we get on a bus, and settle in for a long LONG ride. Where we are making out the ENTIRE TIME. You are probably wondering how we did that with his parents nearby. Not easily, that's for dang sure! But I had been wanting to kiss him for well over a year, and we only had 3 weeks before I had to get on another plane!! We had lost time to make up for! Anyway, after nearly 4 hours of non-stop making out, Marcelo comes up for air and says, "oh I forgot. I have something to ask you." I thought that he forgot to tell me something about the upcoming stake conference, or about maybe traveling to Manabi to visit his family.

But no, he says, "I forgot to ask you: do you want to marry me?" UGGGH!!! I was TOTALLY pissed off!! I told him, "You know what? Forever after this everyone will ask me how you asked me to marry you, and I'll either have to LIE or tell them that you asked me while we were making out. You suck." (By the way, I said that all in Spanish. And I called him a few other choice words too). And I was officially engaged. Bastard.

4. How long were you engaged?
TOO LONG!! A year and a half. Waiting for his Visa to be accepted we just had to wait and wait and wait. I only got to see him once again after we got engaged. And then he arrived in the country and 2 weeks later we were married!!

5. What was the favorite part of your wedding day? (besides who you were marrying, hopefully)
Getting to see Judd, Lee and all my old roommates. And listening to the sealer say great things to us. What were those great things? I have NO idea. I'm sure they were nice and inspiring, but I didn't hear a thing. I was busy translating for Marcelo and feeling anxious that everyone was looking at me all the time.



And I know Beth and Amy were probably too "cultured" to say this, but I'm going to come right out and say it. It was awesome being able to make out with my husband and KEEP GOING without guilt. I know chastity is great and all, but it's REALLY DIFFICULT to stop when you are seriously in love and going to be married in 2 weeks. So I would have to say waiting till your married and then being able to "go all the way" (to use a cheesy 7th grade phrase) without guilt is the best part of ANYONE'S wedding day. Am I right? You know I am!

6. What would you change if you could?
Just a few things, and they were some of the same things that Amy said she would've changed. I would've rented my dress instead of buying. I have this huge wedding dress hanging in my closet that I keep having to move from one place to another. I want to give it to someone else who really wants it and loves it, but I don't know when that will happen. So I just keep it around to use as my weight barometer. I'll be REALLY happy when I can once again fit into that dress.

Second:My engagement pictures. I always SWORE that I wouldn't have my ring visible and I wouldn't have that "one" pose where one person's hands are wrapped around the other. AND IT HAS BOTH!!! Now that I look in my book of engagement photos, there are so many others that I would've chosen. There is this one where Marcelo looks SOO cute, but it's too fuzzy, so that's why we didn't use it. Now I wish that we had. He looks freaking adorable, and I look pretty cute myself.

Third, I would've hung out with Judd and my friends more. That was the last time I got to see Lee, and it was the last time I got to see Judd for a REALLY long time. I feel like I neglected everyone that was there to see me. I feel badly when I look back on it.

Oh, and I would've made sure that my bouquet didn't have a fake gold handle. That was tacky.
But I didn't have a say in the matter. We ordered
the bouquet from some random place, but when we got there to pick it up, it was like a little hut on the side of the road. NO JOKE. I didn't know that I had to say, "no fake gold" to the florist. I was wrong.

7.Wedding colors?
Red and Green baby. Northern California girl all the way. I actually wanted it to be more green than red in the pictures, but I found these great shirts at Banana Republic for crazy cheap. They were the right color and so I bought them for all my bridesmaids. With the black skirts, they just make everything look so CLASSY. I really REALLY lucked out on these shirts.

8.Do you remember anything special from your ceremony? Any good advice? A comical moment?
Like I said previously, I hardly remember anything the sealer said at my wedding. I do remember several things from Judd's wedding. And I will share them here. The Sealer told her and Parmenter to look around the room, and look at all the love and support they had around them. He gave them about 3o seconds to do this. And when he spoke again he said, "Someone over my shoulder got a wink from the bride." And Judd, without missing a beat, says, "Old boyfriend." IN HER SEALING!! LOVE LOVE LOVE HER!

I immediately started crying because I knew that I would not get anymore lessons on quickness and wit from my Judd. Her husband would get all those great comments. She was no longer my best friend, she was now Frank's wife. Bastard Frank, taking away my Judd.

Also the sealer told her and Parmenter that they had all of eternity to look at each other, but he needed them to look at him right now. I bet he said this so that he knew that they were listening to him as he talked. So when I was being sealed, I didn't want to be embarrassed and told the same thing, so I didn't even try to look at Marcelo. Like didn't even try. Later my sister in law Tina told me that was weird, and that he was trying to look at me the whole time. I think that also goes under "what I would change" category. I would definitely look at my husband more on our wedding day while we were being sealed.

And finally, when we were ready to walk out, they didn't send us out the main door where all our family and friends were waiting. They pushed us out this little side door. (This is the first picture the photographer took of us after she found us.) However, our photographer was crazy professional and somehow knew that this would happen. She walked right up to me and was like "Are you Alicia?". Yep, she found us first and had taken a half a roll of film before we were joined by other members of our family. What's up with that? Why did we get the shove out the side door? Was someone more important coming through the front door? Very strange indeed.

9.Were you clean or messy when you cut your wedding cake?
Clean. My mom's good friend said to Marcelo at our reception, "Now, don't you even think about shoving cake in her face." And my dear sweet South American husband said, "why would I do that?" HA! I'm telling you, I love having a husband that doesn't know what's expected of him sometimes. It really makes him easier to "mold" sometimes.

No cake pictures here to show you. I don't have a SINGLE picture from my reception. The "photographer" (AKA, local girl from ward) didn't put a battery in the camera. Every picture came out gray. MENOS EFFICAZ!

10.Where did you go on your honeymoon?
We spent our wedding night in a hotel right across the street from Sea World. The next day (Sunday) we went to Anaheim and then Monday we went to Disneyland. Then ALL DAY TUESDAY we traveled up to my family's cabin. We only had that one night to ourselves because on Wed everyone started arriving for the family reunion. We got kicked out of the cabin and moved a mile down the road to a campsite. I was quite bitter about that. No one else has a family reunion planned right in the middle of their honeymoon. Does one day in Disneyland count as a honeymoon? LAME!!

Anyway, Marcelo did NOT like Disneyland as much as I thought he would. When we saw where our hotel was right by Sea World, I thought we should've gone there. I was right. However, it was too late, so nothing could be done about that. Marcelo didn't like Disneyland because he didn't like the scary rides. I had to trick him to go on a few of them. I am evil.

11.How long have you been married now?
Three years and 9 months. It really goes by fast. I bet it will go by even faster with a baby. But I guess everything is fast when you are with your best friend. . . .BLECH!!!

Well, I hope you all enjoyed this. I'm going to bed now. It's 2 in the morning. But I had to finish this blog. I start to get death threats when people expect a blog from me and they don't get it. SO DEMANDING!!!

Only 8 more days to go till the job is over!! WHOO HOO!!!