Kristen and Brady's Wedding

On Saturday, September 6th, Burke's baby sis, Kristen was married to Brady Lawson for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake Temple.

The night before, we all gathered in Kellie and Wes's hotel room at the Grand America to do a little wedding send off.  Kristen and Brady met at a Jimmy Eat World concert (the most random, but perfect meeting!), so I had this idea that Burke should combine or change the lyrics of some of Jimmy's songs and play it for them as a little wedding tribute the night before with the family.  He ended up just changing the words to "The Middle" to fit their scenario and it turned out so cute!  As it turned out, Kristen and Brady were busy taking pictures at the temple with their photographer until late Friday night, so by the time they joined us all at the hotel, things ended up being a little rushed and everyone went off to bed.  However, we were still able to give them the money wreath the siblings had chipped in on and Burke was able to play them the song he wrote.  Kris was pretty touched by the song and it was fun to have that surprise for them.

These next several pictures were taken by Krissy's photographer, Shannon Carr from St. George.  She is incredibly talented and you can find her work at sweetlyphotography.com - which is where I snagged all of these.

What a gorgeous couple!

At their sealing in the Salt Lake Temple the next day, I was blown away by how much I learned from the sealer.  He taught pure gospel principles and had such a great mixture of counsel, teaching and even a bit of humor to make it the best sealing I have been to.  It was also so neat to be with the whole family (minus Brett on the mission) in the temple and feeling what a wonderful marriage this will be.  Brady is a great addition to the family and it will be fun to get to know him better.

Once we stood up to leave the temple, I suddenly felt a massive twinge from my c-section scar that arched up all over my abdomen and I felt like I couldn't take a single step without pain shooting down my enormous belly.  It made for an extremely uncomfortable hour on temple square as pictures were taken before the brunch.  I was trying to stay cheerful and be a good sport, but I was so focused on not crying that I didn't take a single picture!  Here's a couple that Burke snapped below with his phone.

On our way back to the car, I had Alan snag a photo of our little family in front of the conference center when I suddenly realized we hadn't taken a photo all morning together.  They turned out way blurry, but it's all we have from the day!

After the brunch we all booked it back to Alan and Marie's home in Parowan to help set up for the reception there that night.  I was in so much pain by the time we got there that all I could do was go find an empty room and lay down for a couple of hours.  The reception was lovely, but truly I wasn't that involved as I tried to take it easy and not aggravate my preggo belly further.  Thankfully, everyone is just concentrated on the bride and groom at a wedding, so a sister-in-law does not have to be present for the show to go on! :) ha ha!  Burke on the other hand was busy the whole night making Italian cream sodas (yummy!) for the guests.

Burke hard at work as a soda jerker

Bottom line: we're thrilled Kris found her other half and that the wedding was such a beautiful affair.  I'm so glad we had the past year together with Kristen in Cedar City to spend time together and to have lots of conversations about love and marriage where I am sure she heard way more unsolicited advice than she ever wanted!  I will always feel lucky that we got to have that time with her before she got married and were able to watch the whole process with great happiness and satisfaction.  We sure love you Kris!  

Below are just a few more shots that Shannon took that I thought 

were lovely and jimmied from her blog.