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Okay, let's start with the night before ;-) Our home was a flurry of activity.  There was so much happening between the newly-bought steamer and the iron--clothes were being tried on for one last time, making sure all was ready to go.  There were clothes hanging everywhere! I realized that we had quite the schedule we were going to be following in the morning, and I wasn't sure who should take what car to do what so I sat down with a legal pad and drew it all out: Hannah had the earliest appointment at the hair stylist, followed by Glo.  Glo wanted to be able to come back home before we drove to the temple. Somebody needed to pick up the doughnuts from Dom's as well as the flowers for the temple photos.  Thankfully both of these locations were in Ypsilanti.  Unfortunately, it meant that the entire back of one car would be full (with no back seats available). John's Tesla wouldn't make it all over southeast Michigan without a charge so his car was out.  We h...

When thinking about ALL the details for the wedding, I added "wedding favors" to the list.  Being the gift-givers that we Kennedys are, I wanted the wedding favors to reflect the interests of Glo and Gordon AND be something that people would actually want to take home with them.  Combining those two interests, I thought of books.  Glo and Gordon's favorite books, our family's favorite books, books that I thought people would like to read. There were so many great parts to the wedding, but this was a really FUN part of the planning.  Glo and Gordon came up with a list of books that they like, and we went from there.  Of course we initially thought we would only need 40 books, but as the guest list grew, so did the book list. I started in our own library.  Did we have extra copies of any books?  Sure enough we did ( The Help  being one of them).  Next, Glo and Gordon went to Pioneer Book in Provo, a most excellent used book store, and found abo...

Tuesday was a busy day of starting to wrap up last minute details.  In the morning, we went to Staples to print place cards (people kept thinking Gordon and Glo worked there because they happened to be wearing shirts that were the same color!), DSW to buy shoes for Hannah for the wedding, and Michael's for frames for the wedding posters. We had Noodles & Co for lunch after I called out Glo for acting like a mess. Pedicures that afternoon for Hannah and me while Glo took a nap. That evening, we had a temple sealing session scheduled, but it ended up being too much.  Ethan and Rebecca were cutting it close coming from Dayton, it would be tight for John coming from work, and Glo had the idea that she wanted to spend some time with her siblings before the wedding, and she wanted to do it in Ann Arbor.  So much to Hannah's and my chagrin, we canceled the sealing session and just let it be what it was going to be. Side note: I tried really hard during this whole experience ...

Things were getting real on Monday before the Thursday wedding when I drove Glo and Gordon to the Wayne County clerk to pick up their marriage license.  I was a bit nervous because it feels like with these kinds of appointments, you just never have the right form.  We had checked the list numerous times, and they both came well-armed with everything (and even living ordinance temple recommends ;-))  What was supposed to take only 15 minutes ended up taking almost an hour (who knows?), but they came out with the necessary forms to take to the temple. We then rushed Glo out to Dexter for a dentist appointment with Dr. Rodriguez. That afternoon, I had the chance to talk to Glo and Gordon about sex.  I've done this with each of my boys before they got married, and Glo wanted me to talk to her and Gordon as well.  I was pretty nervous for the month or so beforehand, wondering exactly how I could talk to a man who isn't my son AND to his to-be wife who happens to be m...

Having Mark home with us for a week was a gift.  I guess he had taken the time off for the reunion-that-wasn't, but when that didn't happen, he didn't change his schedule.  Again, what a gift.   After Glo arrived on Wednesday, and we had our reunion on Thursday, we waited for Gordon to arrive on Saturday.  Mark and Glo headed out in the morning for a run. Hannah and I had been itching to go see the Barbie movie, and while Mark had already seen it, the four of us decided to watch it before Gordon arrived that Saturday evening. Evidently, you can't go to a Barbie movie without wearing Barbie pink so while I just pulled something out of my schrank, the kids wanted to go to Hot Topic to find something appropriate.  Good on them, because they came out with the cutest things.  (To be honest, light pink is probably my second favorite color so I'm very biased.)  Even Mark found a darling pink Gorillaz t-shirt, and coupled with Glo's Barbie t-shirt and Hannah's...

Before Glo and Gordon decided to get engaged and married, we had a family reunion week  planned for August 7-11.  However, once Glo was engaged, she realized that she wanted to get school done more quickly which meant going to school for the summer term which meant she had classes the week of the family reunion and finals the following week.  That following week though was the beginning of school for Annie which really left us with just one day to do our family reunion: Thursday, August 17.  And since Tater's first birthday was the week before, we decided to celebrate his big day as well! I love having the kids home, and I've gotten better about just letting the chaos ensue so that everyone can really enjoy the time more (it's the Martha/Mary scenario).  But something that John and I have come to appreciate even more as the kids get married and have their own families is that our kids really are their own best friends--hey don't require John or me to get them to...

Per Kennedy tradition, there must be a log sawn within hours of any new marriage, and the man of the hour to make it happen? Brother Kendall.  I think I might have emailed him before anyone else as soon as Glo had a wedding date chosen, because if he couldn't make it, we might just have needed to change the wedding date ;-) He told me that he didn't have any of the equipment anymore--no sawbuck, no saw, and certainly no log--but he reassured me that he could get it all together. Well, three weeks before the wedding, and I hadn't received an RSVP card yet from the Kendalls which is very strange, knowing how organized and on top of things Sister Kendall is.  I reached out to them, and there was some weird reluctance there, so John called Tracy.  Turns out, he was worried because he couldn't find any logs, but after John told him that we would find our own log if he would take care of the rest, they were on for coming! I did offer to pick up anything in State College since...

 I don't know that it's a thing anywhere else in the world, but in Utah, brides get "bridals" before they get married.  I have mixed feelings about these photos because frequently the bride ends up posting her bridal photos before she even gets married which seems anti-climactic.  I mean, I think the high point of any wedding is seeing the bride and her dress for the first time.  However, I decided that we needed to get bridal photos done for two reasons: 1.  I wanted photos of Glo and Gordon for the reception, and, 2.  I wanted them to have a chance to have their photos taken without other people around.  I think there is a lot of busy-ness on the day of the wedding, and I wanted them to have moments recorded where it was just the two of them. I don't regret them one bit. It was a bit of a challenge, getting everything ready before the photo shoot.  Shannon had wanted us to use a friend of the Bridge family to take the photos.  When I looked...