The Sharp Wedding

My younger sister Melissa married her sweetheart Nathan Sharp, a.k.a. Natey Batey, in the Mt. Timpanogos temple on April 26,2008. Congratulations you two! Derrick and I are so excited that you'll be moving into an apartment about 2 minutes walking distance away!


In the morning we had a great wedding breakfast at The Hampton House in American Fork, UT. The food was great and lots of people from the Jones and Sharp sides of the family came. The dads both gave mini-speeches and Nate put in his few words (few being the key word here :) ). After stuffing ourselves with cinnamon french toast, seasoned potatoes, peppered bacon, scrambled eggs, cinnamon rolls of different flavors, and croissants dipped in chocolate (not your healthiest breakfast), we had three hours to do whatever before the wedding. Derrick and I went with Melissa and Nate to Nate's uncle's house in American Fork and after hanging out there awhile we went to Kohl's to do some baby shopping. We still had a few gift cards left from our wedding a year ago.

The temple ceremony at 2:00 pm was beautiful and was performed by Grandpa Jones who's set apart as a sealer at the Jordan River temple but got permission from the first presidency to seal Melissa and Nate at the Mt. Timpanogos temple. Melissa and Nate looked so happy and now get to be together for time and all eternity. The day they'd been counting down to finally came!

We ended up waiting a long time for Melissa and Nate to join us outside the temple for pictures. We saw Nate run past everyone twice without Melissa and later found out he was making trips to their car to try and find her tiara. After one unsuccessful attempt and lots of looking, Nate found the tiara.

Having pictures taken outside the temple turned out to be an interesting time because it was so windy. On our way into to temple we saw one bride's veil blown vertical. The wind hadn't died down much by the time Melissa and Nate came outside. This is what happened when they walked out.


Derrick helped control the blowing veil for a little while. Another, more efficient way was to have Nate keep his arm around Melissa and use that arm to hold it down.

Just for fun, here's a picture of Melissa, our mom, and me.

After pictures, Derrick and I rushed home so we could try and get some sleep before we needed to get to the church to help finish setting up for the reception. Melissa put me in charge of the flowers for her wedding so we was up until 5:30 am working on them. Three hours of sleep while being in the third trimester is not so fun. I made the boutonnières, corsages, and bouquet Friday night but decided to do the rest of the flowers right before the reception. Derrick was really nice and stayed up with me and even taped and wired the salal leaves for the bouquet after I showed him how. Three cheers for a supportive husband!

Our refrigerator at the end of the Friday night

We only had time to sleep an hour and then we headed to the church building here in Provo where they the reception was being held. I needed to hurry and finish the flowers for the cake, the table arrangements, and the tossing bouquet so I set up all my supplies in the Relief Society room. Derrick was sent on several errands with my brother Garrett and everything came together pretty well by the time guests were arriving. Nate's family also did a lot to help.

Here are a few pictures from the reception:

This is the first picture of the whole family we've had since before Jason went on his mission. We've had three (and 3/4 if you count the baby) new editions since then.

Daddy/Daughter dance to Josh Groban's "You Raise Me Up"

Just after cutting the cake Grandma Eddington (Melissa's maternal grandma) made and smashing it into each other's faces a bit.

Graduation

So with both high school and now college, I graduated in December and walked the following spring. My parents and brother Garrett got to Provo in time to make it to the commencement exercises Thurs, Apr 24th. Melissa, Nate, and Jason also came. Elder Bednar was there spoke about learning to love learning. Because this was the big ceremony, I decided to be untraditional and not dress up in the cap and gown and sat with my family instead. It was more fun enjoying the ceremony with them and we were able to leave quickly afterwards so we could get dinner and make it to the Mt. Timpanogos temple where my sister Melissa went through for the first time at 8:00 pm. This picture is with my mom.

After commencement exercises, most of us met up with Derrick's parents at his grandparents house and had a great dinner. We didn't want to try and mess with the crowds at any restaurants.

Convocation for the David O. McKay School of Education started Friday at 8:00 a.m. Derrick's parents, my parents and two of my brothers willingly woke up that early to come support me. It meant a lot to me to have so much family come support me even though I graduated several months ago. I graduated Cum Laude with a Bachelor's of Science degree in Communication Disorders. Elder Perry was there and I got to shake his hand after the dean handed me the folder to hold my real diploma. I think he came because he had a granddaughter graduating.

Derrick's and my parents were also very generous with the graduation gifts. Derrick's parents bought me a glider chair for the baby's room (I was determined to have one one way or another so this was very exciting) and my parents bought me a matching stroller and car seat. Here are some pictures with family after convocation.

With the Bowen parents

Derrick showing off my prego belly

Posing with my brothers Jason and Garrett

With the Jones parents

One wonderful year

On Monday, April 28th, Derrick and I celebrated our one year wedding anniversary. It's so wonderful being married to my best friend. It's hard for me to really put the why into words. I love that he's considerate, dependable, loving, patient, forgiving, hard working, tons of fun, creative, spontaneous, intelligent, good with money, great at communicating, has a great sense of humor, and honors his Priesthood. The list goes on. I love getting to spend time with him everyday. We have fun together whether we're doing the laundry or playing in Hawaii. One of our goals has been to read the scriptures together everyday and so far we have a perfect record. He is definitely the perfect match for me. I'm so grateful that we get to be together forever.

We didn't do anything fancy to celebrate our anniversary since we're currently on a college income. We did get to spend most of the day together and made a fancy dinner. We cooked filet mignon, baked potatoes, shrimp (for Derrick), zucchini, apples, juice. For dessert I made strawberry shortcake from scratch. It all tasted so good. We pulled out the candles and place mats for fun.

Year two of our marriage will definitely be a big adventure since two will become three. Derrick will make a great dad and it makes me so happy that he is looking forward to becoming one. I'm excited to work with him to raise our little boy. I love you Derrick!!!