Kiki's World: Katie & Caden's Wedding

As promised, the wedding blog!
WARNING!! LOTS OF PICTURES!!

Bachelorette Party
The wedding festivities started out with the bachelorette party the weekend before the wedding. We all got dressed up and went out to a nice dinner (taking an "adventure" to get there ;) ) at Buca de Beppo's. We ordered SO MUCH FOOD, but it was delicious and so much fun to hang out with everyone. After stuffing ourselves with amazing Italian food, we went into the mall area to walk around and in general, to be silly. Several people went to LUSH and others (myself included) went to Altar'd State. It's a pretty cool store, if you've never been there. I highly suggest it! After our little shopping trip, we all went and got phenomenal gelatto and hung out talking and laughing and taking pictures. When we decided it had gotten late enough and we were ready to head back, we all went to Katie's and swam/stuck our feet in the pool. It was a little on the freezing side, so my feet were all that were getting wet. Several people spent the night and we all rode to church together the next morning. Overall, it was epic! We had so so much fun and enjoyed being able to spend time together and celebrate the next phase of Kate's life with her.

Flash Mob
At the beginning of June, Tatum, Caden's sister, proposed the idea of doing a flash mob for Caden and Katie at the wedding. We all jumped on board and learned the dance from videos. We had several rehearsals while Katie was at work, getting bridal portraits, or out with Caden. It was a lot of fun to be sneaking around and to know that it was going to make them super excited once it all came about. The song was "Come Alive" from The Greatest Showman. It was pretty fantastic! There are so many stories I could tell, like Josiah showing up late and scaring us all, people learning to do flips, looking like high-fiving helicopters, etc. but I will refrain.

Rehearsal
The morning of the rehearsal (7am) several of us went for a hike at the top of the Sandia mountain. It was quite fun, except for the insane amount of car sickness Maggie and I were experiencing in the back of Sterling's car. Thankfully we were able to move around, and as Sterling put it, have a yoga class, in the back of his car. Haha. From there we went to the rehearsal location and got changed from our hike into more wedding acceptable clothing. We were all still way too early though, so after playing "the claw game" with oreos and a car (don't ask), we all went and ate french fries at McDonald's until it was time to go to the rehearsal. The rehearsal went pretty smoothly. Not too many hiccups or tears were to be had, so I think it was rather successful. After Kate and Caden left, we had a quick run through of the flash mob at the location before hurrying to the rehearsal lunch. The lunch was super nice and we all had little jars to take home with Caden and Katie's name and the date of the wedding. They're adorable! After the rehearsal lunch, all the bridal party stayed to clean up and run through the dance with music several times, working out the last of the quirks before the wedding the next day. That afternoon was chaotic to say the least, but we all made it through and ended up having a great day.

THE WEDDING
The morning of the wedding was pretty calm. Maggie spent the night with me in the RV the night before, which was a lot of fun! We let Kate sleep in and get ready slowly before all the bridesmaids showed up to start getting ready. Everyone showed up and we all spent about four hours getting ready. We also made our own bouquets, which was tons of fun. Katie gave us all our bridesmaids gifts, which were absolutely adorable! Mine is a white tea cup with yellow, purple, and pink flowers and some delicious hot chocolate, which I'm drinking while I type this. :D We left for the church and started taking all the pictures we could before Katie and Caden saw each other. The wedding was perfect. Literally perfect. I am so so glad I was able to stand up in their wedding and be there for that amazing day.

The Reception
After taking some more pictures, Emma (maid of honour) and Caleb (best man) gave speeches, the cake was cut, bouquet was thrown, Kate danced with her dad, Caden danced with is mom, they danced together, had a light saber duel, and the dancing began. Two songs later our dance began. It was spectacular! Honestly the best part was Katie's face the moment she realized what was happening. Everyone danced for hours and then we sent them off to their car (yes, we did indeed decorate it!) with sparklers and everyone singing "Can you feel the love tonight?" from Lion King. Hahaha.

After Party
After the wedding, all the Semester people initially planned on going out somewhere, but I was exhausted and just wanted to go back to Katie's. So we all went to the RV and hung out for the rest of the night there until I had to leave for the airport. Ashley, Jordan, Sterling, Grace, Kent, and I all stayed up and just hung out for a while. Grace and Kent left, then the remaining four of us attempted to sleep for a little while. I'm not real sure how successful anyone was, but it was at the very least one of the most amusing nights of my life. :D

PICTURES!!!!
(pc: Katie's dad, Caden's dad, Tatum, and various other people who were standing around for us to ask. :D)