our wedding: the fiesta!

when i went with my aunt to the wholesale florist warehouse the day before our wedding to pick up our flower orders, i was brought to tears by how exquisitely beautiful they were. the combination of colors and scents and textures was so lovely; i felt like it couldn't be real, like they couldn't be mine. 

and looking back on my wedding photographs fourteen months later, i feel that exact same way about our wedding. so many emotions. 

our wedding was so beautiful. i know i've already talked about how i just bawled through the whole day because i was so, so happy, and you better bet that i cried my way through my reception (happy tears, guys! happy tears). although i'm not usually one for attention, i distinctly remember looking out the temple windows, ready for our exit, and seeing so many of the faces that i love so dearly. 

i just wanted to get out and party with them! 

i think that is overall my feeling when i remember our wedding reception. so much love and joy and just this feeling of warmth. getting to celebrate with so many of the people that i love most made our day perfect. it was so humbling to see such support from our loved ones.

we had our reception a few hours after our sealing at the joseph smith memorial building, formerly hotel utah, in downtown salt lake city. i loved how pretty the building is on the outside and the beautiful lobby, and it was really convenient for all of our out-of-town guests. plus, the view of the temple is unmatched. for both of us, but especially mateo, who never thought he'd see the salt lake temple in his life (much less marry in it!), it was this beautiful reminder of the importance of what we'd just done. 

i wanted our wedding to have this relaxed romance, a comfortable, subtle sophistication. i loved the idea of an intimate, evening, winter wedding reception with a lot of candles glowing and beautiful views of the city at night. and when i walked into my reception that night, my heart might as well have skipped a beat. it was absolutely perfect. as always, i couldn't have done it without the support and incredible talents of my fairygodmother aunt + lovely cousins, who dressed the tables so beautifully and bridesmaids who helped with the place cards and last-minute errand running. and my parents who put up with me during the planning of it all! 

i really wanted it to be a special occasion, and so i planned a few special touches. because we had such a small wedding, we were very close with everyone there. i'm a sentimental mushball at heart, so i wanted everyone there to know how much we cared about them. so on each person's place setting, there was a little (read: lengthy) love note for each person. i also have this insanely talented family (wait, did i already mention that?) who offered up their musical talents. so my incredible cousin, spenser, played his violin as guests entered. and my cousins emily + rylee sang songs with their uke and with my uncle jeff accompanying on his guitar. jeff + spenser played and sang "edelweiss" during the father-daughter dance because it's one of my favorite songs and reminds me of my time in the alps with my padre, and it was just the best thing. my dad and i share this really special bond and blubbered our way through the dance, and now i get to think of that moment every time i hear the song.

i am extremely close to my grandparents, who couldn't make the trip from arizona, but i wanted to include them in some way. so in talking to them about their wedding as i was planning mine, i learned that the nat king cole serenaded them at their wedding dinner in vegas. can you believe it?! so my sweet and talented cousins franny + emma played and sang "l-o-v-e" as a tribute to them. i felt really close to them right then, and always, i cried my eyes out.

another family that we missed dearly was my sweet mateo's. it just wasn't feasible for them to make the trip from peru, but we wanted to include them as much as we could. so my awesome family members and mateo's mission friends passed the ipad around during the reception (with barb translating to spanish during the toasts), so that they could be a part of it too. we're heading back to peru in a few months to have a little belated wedding celebration with all of them! mateo's amazing mission president and his wife took over as mateo's padres for the day, and we are so grateful to have had their presence there.

we were overwhelmed by the kindness of the toasts and the love that was present at our reception. we loved saying quick hellos to everyone, and danced to one of our songs, "volver a nacer" by carlos vives, as our first dance. and ate the greatest gluten-free coconut cake, then had the best time dancing the night away with all our people!

looking back on these images brings back all of this happiness and goodness and mushy feelings. so i'll stop writing while i'm ahead. 

i wish that i had a photo of every person who was there so i could share it everywhere and say thank you for coming! but alas, i do not. so...

again, 

thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou to everyone who made our february 28th the greatest. i i love this mateo guy more than ever and love you all.

XO,

anna + mateo