I have so many thoughts from our wedding day. Right now I am in the mindset that, "I will never forget these details." However, I know that as time goes on I will start to forget some of the details so I wanted to write it all down while it's still fresh in my mind!
To me, our wedding week actually started a week before we actually got married. We started moving Simone into the townhouse on Thursday August 9th. I had been trying to prepare for this moment for months! It is crazy how much stuff I had, and still have! I will try to write a post about me dejunking my life later, but for this post just know that I had spent months sorting through clothes, and making room for Simone to move in. It was really important to me that Simone didn't feel like he was just staying at 'my place.' I wanted there to be room for him to put all his stuff so that he felt like it was also his home. We brought over the rest of his stuff that next day, but unfortunately just didn't have enough time to unpack really anything.
Simone and I had both taken the week before the wedding off so we could help prepare as well as spend time with his family who was flying in from Italy. On Friday we both left work a little early, loaded up both our cars and headed up to Riverton. Simone's mom and brother had been scheduled to land in Salt Lake late on Monday. However, their flight from Italy to Chicago was delayed and they missed their connecting flight. So Tuesday morning we were able to finally pick them up. It was really emotional and happy for all of us! I don't think I ever realized how hard it would actually be to have our families in two different parts of the world.
When we went to gather their luggage we found his mom's luggage ripped to shreds. It literally looked like a dog had attacked the baggage! Lucky for us, American Airlines provided her with a new suitcase. Also, lucky for her...she hadn't lost anything out of the bag which was really a miracle considering how bad it was ripped up.
From the airport we decided to stop and grab some food. For their first meal in America we had...Taco Bell! Ha Ha It was a success! After that, Simone left with his mom and brother to Layton, and I drove back to my parents house to help clean up the yard for the wedding.
We met back up later that evening for dinner with my parents. My dad took us to Longhorn Steakhouse. It was nice to spend time with them and get to know them both a little bit better. On our way home we stopped by the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. We then went back to my parent's house where we gave them a tour of the yard, and showed them our wedding lights. It really was all so beautiful.
The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn to attend a temple session in the Salt Lake City Temple. I love that the church is the same everywhere! When we go to the temple there are certain ceremonial, sacred, promises we make with God. We promise to be more Christlike and love others. These sacred promises are usually spoken in the same language that is being spoken in the temple. Even though his mom speaks no English, when it came time for her to make her promises with God she was able to say it in Italian. You could tell that she loved the temple so much, and had attended the temple often back home so she knew exactly what was happening. Because temples are the same everywhere in the world she was still able to follow along and had a sense of what was happening. I love that it is the same everywhere. I love that God doesn't change and that He loves His children all around the world. It was a really cool experience to have with the family.
After the temple we all ate together in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. We spent some time shopping at Deseret Book, and then I ran home to help with more wedding prep. While his family was here I felt really torn between wanting to be with them all the time and also wanting to go help my family. My sweet family had put countless hours into making our backyard beautiful for the wedding and I felt that it would be wrong to not spend at least half of my time contributing. So, after an hour or two I left Simone and his family to continue their Salt Lake adventures.
Eventually Simone, his brother and his mom arrived back at the house. That night my dad and brothers took Simone out to celebrate his bachelor party. They rented out a few lanes at the bowling ally, played pool, darts and ate pizza. I took his mom, my mom, sisters and grandma to the nail salon. We all got pedicures and manicures. It was the first time I had ever been alone with his mom without a translator near by. We all tried to communicate with her the best we could, but it made me realize just how much Italian I do not know! It really makes my heart sad that I can't communicate with her as much as I would like to. But as we were waiting for the others to finish up I sat next to her and tried to ask her a few questions about Simone as a child. She took off at full speed in Italian telling me stories about him as a kid. Although I didn't know how to respond, I felt like I could understand a lot of what she was saying. As we walked to the car she started crying and told me how thankful she was for me and how sad she was that Simone's dad couldn't be there. It was really touching and I feel like in that moment we got a lot closer. I really love her so much! I feel lucky to have such a great mother-in-law.
On our way home we decided to pick up some Asian food from Thai Basil. Patrizia had never in her life had Thai food, but she ended up liking it a lot. Then we went downstairs and watched home videos till the boys got back.
On Thursday Simone and I spend most of the morning working out in the yard. In the afternoon Simone, my mom and I all went to Payson to pick up some wedding rental stuff. It was kind of fun because it was just this big storage room and we had a shopping cart and just walked up and down the isles choosing the things we wanted to use. Grandpa Olsen and Kristen also came to help us which was super sweet of them! In the evening I went to the airport to pick up one of my best friends, Lilly Ruiz, from the airport. I still can't believe that she flew out for the wedding! It really was so good to have her here. Her awesome boyfriend Cruz came as well. So I took them to their airbnb, dropped Cruz off and Lilly and I left for a bachelorette party up in Bountiful. We decided to eat at this cute pizzeria called Ti Amo Pizza. It is owned by the Bonfanti Family, a family that Simone knew back in Italy. Emily, Katie, Samantha, Lisa, and Lilly were all there. We just talked and shared stories. It was really fun to be all together.
After dinner Lilly and I drove up to Layton to pick up Simone from the house his family was staying at. Then we all drove back to Riverton and called it a night.
Friday was a really busy day! It was non-stop prepping all day. Half the family spent their time outside putting together the yard. I stayed inside with Simone's mom and brother. We were all on food duty. We spent most of our day making taco meat and cutting up about a hundred veggies. Then we headed over to the little church in our neighborhood to set up for our wedding dinner. We kept the decorations simple, but everything ended up looking so cute! We had all Mexican food, so things like tacos, nachos, beans and rice. I couldn't have asked for anything better. For dessert we picked up the yummiest cookies from a store called Twisted Sugar. They were all so yummy. We had toasts and watched a slideshow of our childhoods.
After the dinner was over, we cleaned up and had recruited some help from friends and family to come to the house and set up chairs. As we started driving over the lightning started getting way out of control! It felt like it was right over our heads. As soon as we got home we all sprinted to the backyard to put away as much stuff as we possibly could. The rain was unreal. It was like a full blown Tsunami! I was drenched, but luckily most of our stuff was able to be saved or covered with plastic. I just kept thinking....what are we going to do if the weather is like this tomorrow?! A little rain never killed anyone, but this was too much. I knew if it continued we would never be able to have our reception in the backyard. We definitely had a back up location, but I refused to print it in the announcements because I didn't want "the universe" to know it was even an option! Ha Ha I was so sad thinking that all this work we had put into the yard could possibly go to waste. I just kept trying to put positive thoughts into the world, and told myself everything would be fine the next day!
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