Wedding 04.22.16

Our wedding day. The day that we had been waiting for. That BIG day I dreamed of since I was a little girl. And it was all done in the right place, at the right time, with the right guy.

There are so many little details of our wedding festivities; rather than writing down the story chronologically I think I’ll break it down by explaining it piece by piece. (Sorry if I leave something out!) Here goes:

INVITATIONS

I designed the invitations with some inspiration from pinterest, then we worked with both Costco and Alphagraphics to get them printed and mailed out. Then the hardest part… we had to actually assemble the announcements with a strand of lavender tied with hemp. If I remember right it was like 400 total. We even made it into the Caribou county newspaper!

CRAFTS/ DECORATIONS

It was a busy week. After school got out in early April I left Rexburg to stay at my grandma’s house in Utah for a little while. While there I was the crafting woman. I painted, sewed, glued and cut all kinds of things to be able to have the decorations that we needed for the receptions. These ranged from frames, to tea-light flowers, paper pom-poms, burlap banners, and photo-booth props. Grandma was a good sport about having me take over her house and make a mess with crafty things. We also did lots of shopping which was fun. Grandma even took me to get my nails done with acrylics, they have never looked so fancy!

THE DRESS

I posted about this earlier (see HERE) but didn’t post any pictures because I didn’t want HIM to see! haha. Here are a few pictures of trying the dress on, it was the perfect combination of lace and tule. I felt like a princess in it, so thats what matters, right?

FLOWERS

My mom did an amazing job with my flowers! She made all the boutonnieres, corsages, floral decorations and the sister bouquets! We bought bulk baby’s breath from Costco and a few other loose fresh flowers from other florists. My temple bouquet we bought from Flowers on Main in Lehi, Utah. They did a great job to get the colors and flowers to be just what I wanted, while still staying in my price range. My colors: blush pink, lavender, mint green, and white!

FAMILY

My family all came out to Utah a few days before the wedding. We had several other family events going on from preparing for a mission, going through the temple, to College graduation. There are no dull moments. Luckily we were able to squeeze in a big family dinner at the spaghetti factory.

I didn’t have bridesmaids- BUT I do have sisters. They looked great in their matching white lace top and pink flowy skirt combo. My dad also bought the perfect lavender colored suspenders just for the occasion. (I wish I had a picture!) It was awesome. Grandma and Mom had similar silver lace dresses that looked just stunning on them.

BRIDALS

We took our professional bridal photos the day before our wedding. (Thursday 21) We had them done by Lavon M. Click HERE to view the next post with all those pictures; there were too many great photos to combine them all together in this post!

THE TEMPLE

We were married in the Mt. Timpanogos, Utah LDS Temple. It was a truly special day. Sheldon and I signed official marriage paperwork. We spent some special time together there. It was beautiful, all of it. We had SO many people come to support us, and even some surprises I didn’t expect to see. I knew this day would come, but I was truly touched to be able to make promises with both God and Sheldon that day. We were sealed for time, and also for eternity. I love him THAT much!

Camilla S did some photography for us of family and friends on our actual wedding day (Friday 22). She was great at managing so many people and took some artsy pictures for us to enjoy. She really captured the emotion and happiness we all felt on such a perfect day. Here are a few of those shots:

OLIVE GARDEN LUNCH

After the temple ceremony and family photos we all ate at Olive Garden for a late lunch. They did a wonderful job, their service was quick and they had a great atmosphere for us to enjoy each other’s company, and of course the food was amazing!

GRACE, IDAHO RECEPTION

After our wedding night in a Paris themed hotel, we had to race back up to the Thatcher Ward Building to start decorating! Thankfully we had lots of help. It ended up looking nice, my favorite part was the rustic doors and lights above. We served cake and punch along the back wall. Someone…. even trashed our getaway car… haha.

If you haven’t yet noticed we decided on a bike theme- because  marriage is like changing from a personal bike to a tandem. We are now doing this life journey on a bicycle built for two.

Many people had a lot of fun at our photo-booth: we provided a backdrop and props for a little extra entertainment. We encouraged people to share their photos on social media with the hashtag #ForeverTheLloyds.

ST. CHARLES, ILLINOIS RECEPTION

The Illinois reception was done at a park district forrest preserve nature center. It was an old mansion house. It was an unconventional location but allowed for a fun atmosphere. There were different rooms; one for food, another for dancing, for the wedding line, etc. We were very well supported. Many of our family and friends came from far away, so thank you for those who made the long drive!

Also HUGE thank you to the kitchen help! We had many people who came to help with both food and decorations before the event. We didn’t have much time to do it, but it was ready on time. So thank you!

We had a beautiful birch tree cake made by CocoaBean in Geneva. Notice the little tandem bicycle cake topper! and the flower sprigs my mom made. The details were perfect! Plus it was a chocolate cake with some lemon and white chocolate embellishments. Yum! When we cut the cake we both made sure to be very careful to feed it to each other without any mess. 🙂

One of the fun parts about our wedding is that we got to celebrate with so many people we love. It’s hard that Sheldon and I are from opposite sides of the country but it made for double the party, and twice the love. Thank you to anyone and everyone who helped make these celebrations so special for us! Each event was made memorable thanks to your support. Most importantly thanks to my special forever man who has been with me through it all! I can’t wait to spend forever with you Shel!

Wedding slideshow link: HERE

A Koch Family Christmas

First off the travel home was enough of an adventure on its own. A completion of the whole “planes, trains, automobiles” thing was necessary to make it home for Christmas. I even met a funny harmonica musician at one train station.  Nice thing is that my sister and I were on the same flight back. So I left cold and snowy Idaho for a “spring time” Chicago. I couldn’t complain.

The next day after all the travel was Sunday, So a before church family selfie was a must!

Family Home Evening done right as a chocolate fondue party (this was later repeated in the week because #chocolate.) You would never think you could feel so sick of chocolate but its a thing. But so good! This is one thing I really wanted to make sure happened while I was home.

 

We also have this favorite family tradition of going to help organize/ weigh/ stock food at the bishops storehouse for a few hours then after we go to eat at cracker-barrel. Yumm. This time I was on the bag tying duty while these other little kids bagged and counted tomatoes and pears.

Another day our family decided to try out a new place on 3rd st. in Geneva- its called Doughocracy. Think of the line up in Chipoltle or Subway… but in a pizza place. You get to make your own personal pizza down the assembly line then it is cooked at like 520 degrees for 3 minutes.

Bam. delicious.

 

On Christmas Eve we all took the train downtown Chicago to go to the Christkindlmarket at Daley Plaza. It has many venders that sell things from around the world. Mostly out of our price range, some ornaments were more than 50 bucks a piece. But its one of those things where you soak in the experiance; the sounds, smells, and pretty colors. We also walked around the annual Macey’s display windows and up to see the tree in the walnut room. I don’t know what it is, but the city/ train experience always tires you out.

Later on that Christmas eve we did our little family devotional. This helps us to remember the spiritual side of christmas. We watch the “Joy to the World” video from the church and read the nativity story in Luke 2. Then we went on a little drive around the neighborhoods to admire the Christmas lights and decorations. Upon returning home from the drive us girls opened one gift- PJs of course!

Christmas Day was beautiful. My mom always does a great job at decorating the house, it has a warm and festive feel about it. So when we woke up there is always a magic feeling about the place. It was our last christmas that we would have just as the Koch family for a little while, so I knew it would be a special one.

Funny story, when I was 5ish years old alllll I wanted for christmas was a remote controlled T- rex dinosaur that growled and walked around. I thought it was the coolest thing. Well I got it for christmas that year. I always played with it around my sisters dolls, it kind of became the family joke. Well it somehow resurfaced this year in a new box. That was my joke gift. It caused some good laughs….

That was followed by my real gift of a sewing machine! Yay! I’m so happy.

The day after christmas we all got dressed up and went to a chicago musical production of “White Christmas” at Drury Lane. There was a pre- show dinner dinner too. We all felt so fancy.

 

We also did lots of baking. Mostly Rebecca, because of her famous cupcakes! She made mint oreo, candycane redvelvet, and gingerbread cupcakes for a Sunday gathering.

New Years Eve we have another fun tradition; it includes a movie marathon, random junkfood dinner, and to end it all…….. the Balloon Drop! Our movie selection this year was: The Cokeville Miracle, Ant Man, and the new Cinderella. Follow this post to get the recipe for my chocolate peanut butter balls we had as part of our spread.

 

Our home style balloon drop (116 balloons) falls with the new years count down.

Happy 2016! This will be a great year!