dripping with passion

our sealing was absolutely the best thirty minutes of my life. and the rest of our wedding day was just incredible to me - everything felt so perfect and magical and full of love. i knew i would be happy on that day, but i could have never anticipated how full of joy i was - i've truly never experienced anything like it. am i oversharing here? i just want to capture things (in multiple places!) while they are fresh in my mind, so i can remember them forever, ever. and this much joy?! i just have to share. so, to pick up where i left off... -the experience of taking pictures outside the temple was pretty chaotic, to be honest. lots of people, lots of kids, lots of cameras, lots of instructions, and i wanted to talk to and hug and celebrate with each one of these people so very dear to my heart! our photographer was an absolute champ dealing with everyone and everything, but just the nature of huge families and not tons of time equaled some frenzy. it was happy frenzy, though. t

hey, i just want to say that i know my writing about my wedding (well, and in general) is pretty over-the-top - i get that; i'm aware. but the passionate language is just kind of the point...if the title of this blog and my little blurb doesn't warn you sufficiently...lots of adjectives and dramatic descriptions are my schtick. i genuinely feel that language is so inadequate in expressing the experiences of mortality, but i'm pretty determined to make it work...and with my schtick as a starting off point, certainly the best and biggest 56 hours of my life will yield some dramatic writing. i certainly want to remember those hours as vividly as possible, and i really did feel them deeply . i also want to say how tremendously grateful i am for my family and friends and all the sacrifices they made to be present at my wedding and to be so amazingly helpful in making it such a dreamy, magical weekend. the boy and i wanted our wedding to be a celebration of not just us, but of

all our wedding festivities have culminated. we had a really wonderful time celebrating in texas in the boy's hometown on the 18th and last saturday was our palo alto reception. we are just blown away at how beautiful, lovely, and fun all of the events have been. we are so incredibly grateful for all of our loved ones who helped to make this happen. i've spent some energy in the last seventeen days or so trying to figure out if my feeling that our wedding was just so so so tremendously magical and perfect and lovely and the best is just because it was our  wedding, or if it really was that  good...! i mean, i really can't get over it. i think i was worried that, knowing myself, i would be let down by how things turned out in some way or another. but the complete opposite was true - it was so much better than i could have ever imagined. it was so amazing and happy and fun and special and wonderful. all the work planning really paid off, an hundred fold (and i think our

  two weeks ago today -- and i still cannot even start to get over what an incredibly beautiful and joyful day it was. i am dying to see the pictures our photographer took, but in the meantime am just pouring over every iphone shot passed on by family and friends that i can get my hands on!    i think these few give a little idea of how insanely happy i felt coming out of the temple to greet family and friends: and i love this shot my sister shawni snapped of my dad's happiness, too:                                                           clearly we were a little oblivious to the chaos of all those people we love so dearly arranging for photographs!:                                                                   gosh it was such a happy day.

for just a few days after our wedding celebrations, we relaxed and reveled at the montage resort in deer valley (just up the road from my parent's home/our reception venue). it was such a perfect spot for our quick little honeymoon (we are also going to kauai in november!). since it was the off-season, there was hardly anyone there so we got the benefits of lots of amenities and  the feeling of seclusion. we got hooked up with a pretty sweet suite and it was super fun to have a bit of luxury and lots of uninterrupted time together. we took a grand total on one picture together and just a couple other pictures of our view... but we had a truly fantastic time. we woke up our first morning and opened the drapes and were blown away by the majesty of the view. we had amazing breakfast via room service every morning (came with our room). we chattered on and on and on about how perfect everything was at the wedding and how grateful we felt to all our family and friends. we went

i just really feel like all my dreams came true. it was the best wedding in the history of ever. this amazing highlight reel, created by the incredibly talented and outrageously sweet jordan melendez, just scratches the surface of all the magic. it was 100x better than i could have ever dreamed up or schemed up. the boy and i are overwhelmed with gratitude for all those who helped make our wedding day and wedding reception remarkably beautiful and special. we were both just drowning in delirious happiness throughout all the festivities (sorry readers but you'll just have to deal with the superlatives and over-the-topness - it was all too good for words but i give it whatever i've got!). more details to come! Charity and Ian // Wedding Highlights from Jordan Melendez // West End CG on Vimeo .

this is so surreal! the boy and i arrived in salt lake city on friday night and enjoyed spending general conference weekend with family and in the middle of it all! i am feeling tremendously blessed for my faith and for the boy's faith. we are both working remotely the next couple of days and finishing some last things and then, holy cow, we are getting married. i somehow thought that this countdown app i put on my phone would never get us this close! i am amazed that even through all the craziness of wedding planning on top of really busy lives, i love the boy more and more every single day. i can't believe that i get to be his wife. i won't be blogging for the next week or so, but am looking forward to sharing the joy of our celebrations here soon. true love is the best and i am so thankful that i've found it and for all the miracles that have brought me here.

on wednesday night, i met my favourite palo altans at pizzeria delfina for a casual, quick last single girls' night out. i really love these friends, even more than i love that margharita pizza, and that's a real huge lot. it was just fun to talk and eat and laugh like you do with people you super like and enjoy. i've had a crazy couple of years in palo alto, and these pretty women have been such true friends. tonight the boy and i leave to utah and when we come back, we'll be married. that just feels so incredibly surreal. i wouldn't have, and couldn't have, ever dreamed up our story, but i really love it. 

i have eight days left of being single...ever. i remember that beyonce song (you know which one i'm talking about) was the first song i truly  danced  to after i got home from my mission. i really enjoyed my twenty eight single years, i really did. but after eight more days, i won't be able to, in good conscious, put my hands up during that song! it's wild to think how close i am to my life changing forever. here's some tidbits from my final single days...it will never be the same again... -i'm loving my (soon to be our!) new neighborhood in palo alto. i turn the corner driving home and see tree-canopied streets with stanford's hoover tower pointing at the perpetually blue sky. there's these two beautiful victorian homes on the corner near our street, and there's a park two houses down where we had a lovely picnic date the other day. runs at night under the moon and the trees are totally safe and totally lovely. -a couple days ago, the boy a