10 years of wedded bliss

This is one of my very favorite pictures of Ross and I. It was taken by a fountain just inside the doors to the Billings temple and I've since heard that they don't allow that anymore. Lucky us. We got the beautiful shot.


Here it is almost 3 months later, but I've finally figured out how to scan in my wedding pictures in celebration of our 10th anniversary.
Our long story as short as I can make it? Ross and I met through my cousin Michelle. She had dated a guy at BYU named Brian who served in the same mission as Ross. Michelle and I flew to California when Brian came home and Ross was there at Brian's homecoming talk in church thanks to a chance running into Brian at Mormon Night at Angels Stadium. Ross and Brian were roommates that fall and because I was always with Michelle and Michelle was often with Brian, Ross and I got thrown together a lot. No love at first sight in Cali, but we got more and more curious about each other as time went on.
We dated for 5 months and then were engaged for 5 months. Wouldn't do a 5 month engagement again, but we got engaged in January and figured it was easiest to wait until school was out. My little brother was due to come home from his mission in early May so we thought it would be nice to wait to him. Then it just ended up that June worked out best for traveling and what not. And.....I'm a big dork and always liked the thought of being a June bride. Blame it on "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" and a bunch of super skinny girls dancing around an attic in their pantaloons and corsets. ha ha




The engagement picture we sent with our announcements. It didn't occur to me that people would think I was taller than Ross. I was just standing on a spot of ground that was higher than his.

This is another of my favorites. It's fun and I think I like the primary colors or something.

It rained and rained the day before our wedding. We drove into a gray-skied Billings and I wondered if it would stick around. I really only cared if we could get pictures and then the rain could come down all it wanted. We were blessed with blue skies by morning and a beautiful day to get married. Not that it was all perfect. Poor Ross got the door slammed in his face when he came to the hotel to pick me up. I'd been up since 5 AM, but he still caught me in curlers and pajamas and so my bridal stressed-out moment happened then. My dad opened the door, gave Ross the "Welcome to dealing with a woman." look, and I was ready soon after. He still gives me a hard time about that though!


June 10, 2000. Our mushy kissing picture. I know it seems a little strange that I had a long sleeve dress for June, but one, this is Montana weather we got married in, and two, it's what I wanted for the temple wedding. My mom made it for me and I love it.



Everyone at the wedding. Parents, siblings, my Grandpa Tuck, aunts, uncles, and a few cousins. Mostly mine, but Ross did have a great aunt and her daughter and son-in-law there that came up from Wyoming, but aren't in the pics. (And for those of you who don't know my mom, she looks SO different now! Hooray for her!)


My silly siblings decided to lift me up for a fun picture.

Not to be outdone, the crazy fun family I married into decided to lift Ross off the ground too. I especially like Stephen trying to "steal" Ross's wallet.

Love this pic of Ross and his guys. My brothers Russ and Ryan and Ross's brother and best man, Blaine. We didn't really have or want a wedding line, but wanted them in tuxes for pictures. Don't they look great?

And now, a few shots around the temple:



I've got him in the palm of my hand! (Our photographer had the idea for this one. Goofy, but fun.)

Here's the funny thing about me marrying Ross in Billings. We'd just barely started to date when I told him I was going to Montana for the Billings temple open house. Much to my surprise, he invited himself along! I did everything I could to get Michelle and Brian to come too so that it didn't feel so much like "bringing a guy home to meet the folks" because I wasn't exactly to that point yet! No such luck. He and I drove up to Helena and then we went with my brother Ryan over to Billings where my parents were helping with the tours of the temple.

We got to the temple grounds and this weird thing happened to me. I couldn't bring myself to hold hands with him as we walked around. Growing up, I never thought I'd be able to get married in Montana because there was no temple here. Suddenly we had one and I had this image of myself on my wedding day dealing with memories of strolling around the grounds all googly- eyed and mushy with some other guy than the one I was marrying! It wasn't a rational thought necessarily, but as I said, we were at the very beginning of dating each other. My mom will still tease about seeing me looking at the double mirrors in a sealing room, but as soon as Ross walked into the view I JUMPED out of the reflection!!! Guess I didn't really need to worry because I was already with the man I was going to marry, but my silly romantic notions got the better of me that day... ;o)

We had a brunch at a hotel after the wedding and then our reception was at my parents' home that evening. I never really wanted to do a reception in the gym at church, so this was a great option. The house they lived in flowed well enough that it worked really well.

The Wedding Party. Ross's sister Melanie on the left, my cousin Michelle kneeling, and my sister Wendy on the right were my bridesmaids. I always felt bad that their dresses didn't turn out cuter, but I guess bridesmaid dresses are stereotypically not all that great! ;o)

Kissing my daddy

Our rings

My cake was an interesting thing. I waited too long to order it from anywhere very fancy. We ended up go to County Market. My mom and I asked very specifically if they had a whipped cream frosting rather than the buttercream frosting. We even taste tested the difference and then asked for the whipped cream like we'd originally wanted. We also asked about flower arrangements on the cake. The lady looked at us like we were nuts. She seemed to shrug her shoulders and say something about if we had something she supposed they could stick it on. We talked to the florist about a floral cake topper and again they looked at us like we were nuts and said that's something the bakery would handle, but maybe they could give us a few flowers for it. Lame.
I also thought I'd like the Billings temple on the top layer. Have you seen those beautiful, dainty little glass temples that they sell at kiosks in Utah malls? No problem, right? Uh, sure. There was a guy at our dinky little Helena mall selling blown glass items, so my mom asked him about doing one for us. She gave him a picture of the temple and paid him big bucks to make us a special order.
It all ended up that we got a buttercream frosted cake with no fresh flowers and topped with a HUGE disproportionate Billings temple that had gold globbed all over it. (When the topper busted, I so didn't cry!) The above picture is the only one that I felt like made the cake look sort of like I wanted it to. Good thing wedding cakes don't affect how happy your marriage will be.

I'm not a big fan of white wedding cake, so we totally had chocolate. Ross and I had made a pact, however, to NOT smash it in each others' faces. Not really our style. Not that it wasn't messy just the same as you can see in these snapshots!


Somehow it seems almost inappropriate to post this garter picture, but the looks on our faces are too funny not to share.

The bouquet "toss" to my cousin Michelle. My bouquet had irises in it which had become my favorite flower thanks to Ross bringing me one on the day I got laid off from my job while we were dating. I completely loved, loved, loved my bouquet.


I've seen car decorating be cute and I've seen it be a disaster. Best? My cousin Sam's vehicle was filled with balloons, and Oreos were pulled apart and stuck on the outside windows where "Just Married" was also written. I liked it. Worst ever? My poor former roommate Stacy and her husband had an entire phone book and probably other stuff ripped up and stuffed in their car and then a guy hid in it while they drove away from the reception. Those first few moments they thought they had alone were interrupted by this dumb yahoo popping out of the back seat at them. Terrible, but I couldn't seem to talk anyone out of that.
So, because I'd told Ross about Stacy's experience, he locked his car. That ended up being a bad thing just because his siblings had been planning on putting cinnamon rolls and orange juice in our car for us for breakfast the next morning. Whoops! ;o) Oh well. The car was kind of mess on the outside, but that's mostly because it rained off and on all day and the marshmallows and streamers melted and stuck. Messy stuff!

I don't even remember where we got the idea for these t-shirts. I probably saw it on an episode of "A Wedding Story" or something, knowing me. That's my kindergarten picture and Ross is about 4 in the pic of him.

We went on our honeymoon (so. much. driving.) staying a few nights at Fairmont Hot Springs, then a night in Jackson, Wyoming, then a night in a cabin at Sundance. Sundance was fun and free because I'd won a gift certificate in a work drawing nearly a year before when Ross and I hadn't even met!
We went to a family reunion the following weekend, and the weekend after that we went to California for our Open House at Ross's parents' home. My parents and brothers Ryan and Russ and sister Wendy came and we joked that my parents had finally fulfilled their parental duty because we all went to Disneyland for the first time. We also went to the beach. I was so excited to be there with Ross, but before I'd even gotten in the water he got stung by a little stingray and couldn't go back in the ocean at all!

Ross, me, 3 of my siblings, and my dad's finger ;o) in front of the castle at Disneyland.

Huntington Beach. Note my new hubby dramatically grabbing his wounded foot.

I'm posting a couple of pictures from the open house of random people I don't know because the spectacular floral arrangements that my sister-in-law Jane did for us are in them. I especially loved the roses and mirrors as centerpieces on the tables.



Ross and his high school buddies celebrating his marriage

I'm a picture junkie when it comes to posting on my blog, so here's us through the years.

May 2001 with our brand new nephew Dillon. My friend Denise's husband said when he saw this picture that it looks like I'm asking Ross if I can have one.

February 2002 at a park in California. I'm pregnant and tired here, but I guess asking for a baby worked! ;o)

October 2002 at a a "How to Host a Murder" party at my brother Jeff's house. Ross was a Duke and I was a socialite.

June 2003 Governor's Cup 5k race. The one and ONLY time I have ever participated in this event even though I've lived in Helena my whole life.

May 2004 at Ross's friend Corey's wedding

June 2005 at the end of a fun day with the Frutos family (Ross's sister Brenda's) at Knott's Berry Farm

November 2006 on the day of Luke Blaine's blessing

December 2007 at my parent's house for Christmas. Apparently, Ross and I decided that year not to pose for any pictures with just us. (My nephews Caleb, Spencer, and Jacob, my sister-in-law Kathy, and her sister Daisy also make an appearance here.)

August 2008 at the Rockin' R Ranch in Antimony, Utah for the Wilkins Family Reunion and 50th anniversary celebration for my in-laws. This is us (minus 3 month old Rebecca) in the talent show performing to "The Shaggy Dog Cha-Cha-Cha" that comes off an old record the Wilkins kids loved while growing up.

November 2009 posing for our Christmas card shot

For our 5th anniversary we stayed overnight at a seaside resort in Morrow Bay, California. We wanted to do something more than just dinner and a movie for our 10th as well, but me being pregnant and our current attempt to be frugal didn't allow for anything too fancy. We decided to go back to the Billings Temple on our anniversary. My parents kindly offered to take our kids for the night, so on the 9th we arrived at their house to drop them off. We didn't leave right away while we got the kids' sleeping arrangements set up and what not, but knew we needed to get on the road for the 4 hour drive. I asked Ross to check online to see what time sessions started at the temple so we could figure out when to be there. He checked. Good thing! The temple ended up being closed for cleaning for 2 weeks. So suddenly we were canceling the hotel reservation in Billings and looking up a nice place to stay in Idaho Falls. I was actually excited for the opportunity to go to the Idaho Falls temple because it's the one our stake went to while I was growing up for youth temple trips, my parents and grandparents were sealed there, etc. It didn't disappoint and we had a nice time away with just the two of us. We drove back through Rexburg, Idaho and saw a couple on the grounds of the temple there who had just been married. It was fun to clap and holler from our car that they'd chosen a great day to get hitched!

I brought the camera, but forgot to take any pictures until we were driving home. The first one I'm throwing in because it's the only one showing Ross's bandaged fingers. He'd sliced the pads off with a circular saw a week before. He couldn't go swimming because of it and I couldn't go in a hot tub because of my pregnancy, so we just watched cable instead. (But since we choose not to have it at home it was kind of a treat!) And yes, he knew I was taking the picture, so the weird look is on purpose.

Our together shot with another weird look. Lovely man. Glad I married him.

June 10, 2010