bouquet

One month and a little bit

4:50 AM

I am so anxious to re-live our wonderful celebration and creation of our little family through pictures and video of our most precious day yet. Looking back on that windy day in November, everything went as well as it possibly could have. Of course we had no way to plan for unkind, temperature-dropping wind but other than that the day couldn't have gone better!

Of course I didn't have the time nor the state of mind to snap pictures on my phone or anything. Luckily friends shared on social media so I can have those for now.

My lovely bridesmaids took bunches of pictures. Thanks heaven for them and their treasured friendship. These women are so special to me.


(Dominique Stay...soon to be Tecklenberg, Jo Wulffenstein, my sis, Steffannie Peña, Valerie Whitehead, and Kiley Kapp...soon to be Stewart!) not pictured, for some unknown reason, is my sister-in-law Natalie. 


My darling Jo-nana (ps she won't like it if you call her that. It's reserved for yours truly)
We have been friends since 2009 when we road tripped to a magical place: Disneyland. It was an epic trip that triggered all the years that followed. We were inseparable for a year. I tell this story because even my family had no idea of the extent of our friendship. Hence, bridesmaid status. Love her. 


This gal. What a doll. We went on missions to meet each other. I love her sense of humor. And she's just really, really pretty. It's inspiring. 


Steffannie Peña. This is the girl that brought Taylor and I together. Otherwise, he wouldn't have stood a chance. Steffannie's visit to Utah fall of 2012 is the reason we had a wedding fall of 2013. 

Kelli. What can I say? She's irresistible and I love her. A roommate that enriched my life in so many ways! Best pillow talk of my life. 

The high school friends who made it! Love these guys. Friends for eternity. The Brown's, Jolley's, Klemetson's and my cousins, Brigham and Jessica :)

Yummy, beautiful cake from One Sweet Slice. Chocolate raspberry cake was 
A-MAZ-ING. 

Groom's cake :) So appropriate for my husband.

Marvelous Catering a.k.a Molly's in Provo. I don't think you could go wrong with this catering service. I've loved everything I've had from them from our wedding to my parent's work parties, never a disappointment. 

There's Natalie! Complete bridesmaids. Freezing a little in the 50 mph wind. Sorry ladies. 

Our very unique send off. Flashing lights in those white and purple balloons. The extremely strong winds of the day whisked those puppies away. 
If you didn't catch on, purple is my most favorite color. I know tons of brides have used purple but I am most definitely partial to my shades and usage of iris, lilac and eggplant. 

More pictures of my beautiful bouquet to come. So amazing and spectacular, especially considering my florist debacle which gave dear Jerry Rose of Hillside Floral about 2 weeks to pull this off. I feel really badly about that but I will be eternally grateful for his fantastic work! 
I've already told the story of my ring in another post :) Also, don't judge how weird my hand looks. Can't explain that away. 

Life together is GREAT! Being with your best friend for time here on this earth and for all eternity is the best thing I could ever wish! 



animal kingdom

Larson's in Orlando 2013

12:29 AM


Orlando, Florida!  We escaped the freezing Wasatch Front for a little while and flew on down to Florida with the Larson family. It's my first time down this way and as a first time Disney World guest, there's no better crew than these roller coaster thrill experts. They know how to do parks. 


EPCOT! (Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow for those of you who were wondering like me) 

I loved this tree! Check out all this animals. Owl was my favorite. 

His special friend. 

These guys played a basketball game and two of three won a mini prize and couldn't help but rub it in a little. 

We waited in the rain to get into Disney's Animal Kingdom. Taylor clearly loves taking selfies. 



We're ready for a full week of this. Spattering of tee times in there somewhere too. It's a warm, humid change from the single digit temps of Utah. Even though tap water is gross here, Florida is great!

adventure

We Have Big News!

3:02 AM

We've been sitting on this information for a few days because it wasn't official but now it's time to share!

....I'm not pregnant. We've only been married for two seconds. Give us at least a minute....



TAYLOR GOT A JOB!

And guess where?



.....in their LONDON, ENGLAND office!

WHAAAA? No, really. London.

We're pretty stinking excited. After graduation we'll figure out where we'll be living and all that jazz and go to New York for training in July. London in the fall!
So many adventures and we are so happy to know where we'll be and what we have to look forward to in the next couple of years.
We have offered so many prayers and I know that our families have joined us in those prayers, so thank you! It's not quite what we were expecting but then again, we weren't too specific when we prayed for our Father in Heaven to bless us to be where we needed to be, for ourselves and for those that we could serve.

Stay tuned for updates on our adventures.
(Melissa, when you read this, I would love to talk to you about your life and how you do it!) :)

bonus info

I feel like a celebrity. A little bit.

11:51 PM

So remember how Taylor and I have been married for just a little over two weeks? (and that we LOVE it) And that I raved about my beautiful wedding dress? (because I wish I could still wear it all the time)

Well, to all those lovely friends, cousins, and cousins-in-law that are getting ready for their big day:

GO TO THE PERFECT DRESS! You won't regret it!

I promise!

www.theperfectdressutah.blogspot.com

They featured me on their BLOG today (check it out! Link goes directly to a post about my experience there) and I feel pretty great about it. Not in a prideful way but it's so happy that more people get to see my dress and the wonderful work that my seamstress, Lidiya, did and the talent of our fabulous photographer, Mrs. Mikki Platt!(for Mikki's blog, click here)

I had the greatest experience there and I know they'll take care of you. My sister Ruth can tell you that I LOATHED the idea of dress shopping. Much like Taylor can tell you that I hated ring shopping. That's why he just picked it for me. And did a great job with it, too!


That just inspired my -Bonus Info- for today:
I did NOT pick my own engagement/wedding ring. Too stressful. Too many options for an indecisive girl. How was I supposed to know what I wanted to wear for the rest of my life? I'd never thought about it before Taylor suggested that our stop at the mall turn into our first ring shopping experience!
Taylor has fantastically good fashion sense. (I've mentioned this before) So that combined with his immense love for me and how he knows me, Taylor picked my ring. Not only that, he kept it secret from me all the way up to the minute after we were pronounce husband and wife. My first time seeing this ring was probably the same time everyone else saw it!
I wore this lovely thing for the 4 1/2 months we were engaged. 
It was very hard to part with when Taylor took it to get it turned into the real thing.

Don't worry. I was speechless, too.
Taylor is really good at surprises.

And so it begins...

6:20 PM

Here we are. A week and a half into marriage and life is GREAT!

We were married in the Manti Utah temple. Sealed for time and all eternity on November 23, 2013 (click on the link if you would like to know more about what we believe about eternal marriage)
Thanks to amazing family and friends, it was a day to remember. Anything I could have conjured in my lackluster imagination could never have touched what the final production turned out to be. A dream I never knew I could have came true. I had my amazing Gonzalez family behind me
I'll write about it more when I actually have pictures back to post. There are two words that describe it perfectly though:

PURPLE and MAGICAL




 Too much of a tease? Sorry!

These aren't pictures of the day but I feel like more people need to see this gorgeous dress that I got to wear twice ;)


My INCREDIBLY good-looking husband Taylor. Always looks sharp. Makes me look like an eternal slob. Love that guy.


I know these are great pictures of us but can we please appreciate how AMAZING the fall colors were in Midway? Mid-October looks good on you.
I'm basically in love with every picture so they might crop up in future posts. Mikki Platt is a wonderfully talented photographer that made capturing these moments such a pleasure. 
(If you don't know me well, I LOATHE being in the spotlight. Attention makes my face turn beet red. Don't believe me? Ask my husband)

Hair by Whitney Phillips
Makeup by Yours Truly
Photo cred: MikkiPlatt Photography!

Spent our honeymoon in San Diego. We had a lot of fun getting around downtown in a go-cart, visiting Coronado Island and finding great food. We were away from family for the holiday but could feel their love from afar. (Pictures to come. I have to learn how to be a cool blogger. I don't remember stuff anymore.)
We are really blessed to have wonderful people in our lives. Our parents raised us well and put us on a path for success in our infant-sized marriage. Their wonderful examples and teachings helped us be the people we are today!

A little info for those who would like to know:


  • Taylor will be graduating from BYU in the spring. Hooray!
  • If all goes according to plan, I will also be graduating though I am RED through and through. Go UTES!
  • Taylor is currently on the job hunt that will hopefully be over soon! We don't know where that will take us but we are up for any adventures coming our way :)
  • We will be living in Sandy, UT for now. 
  • As much as Taylor might want one, no dogs are in our future for now. :(
  • P.S. we are CRAZY in love and love it

-BONUS INFO- (maybe one every other post so I can share our weird, quirky life that I love)

I'm really just adding this in for my sister-in-law but let it be known that while I truly do love cooking, for some reason I am not the one usually in the kitchen. Maybe it's just plain hunger that drives him (I often forget to eat) but Taylor is usually the one doing the cooking! It's one of the sweetest things he could do and I hope I thank him enough for it. He's really good at it, loves experimenting and always washes the dishes (which I really dislike doing). 
Taylor is my favorite. 




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