For our journal's sake let me go a little into detail about our preparations and the actual days of the wedding.
Set the date
It was quite the process to decide on a good date. We intitally had October in mind. Both of us didn't like the idea of a long engagement. We hoped to give everyone enough time to make plans to be there though. After checking Jacob's and my schedules we noticed that we would not have any time after the wedding for a honeymoon and that it would be really hard to make it happen during that time with Jake's school etc. We had a lot of thinking to do about the different options. After praying and thinking and counseling with our parents we decided and felt that Sept. 3rd would be the right date. That meant we had a 6 week engagement. Looking back, we are so glad we did it this way. It was close to perfect. Although we wish more of our loved one's could have been there, we knew they were there in spirit and it turned out wonderful.
Engagement Pictures
We wanted to keep the wedding as inexpensive as possible. Therefor I was going to just have someone take a couple of pictures with my digital camera for the announcement . Well after telling everyone at work about our engagement one of my great co-workers at the UNC, Jill, offered to do them for us. I was so touched that she would be willing to take the time and effort to do that without any pay. We had such a full schedule until the wedding but knew we had to get the pictures taken asap. So we scheduled it the friday after. While planning the wedding I've also been trying to get a job in Logan and miraculously had an interview come up that Friday morning at an Architectural Firm. So my plan was to work in Provo until noon, drive to Logan for the interview at 3.00 then to pick up Jacob in Bear River City and drive back to Provo, get ready for pictures at 6.45pm. Well, Provo and Logan are 2 1/2 hours away from each other. Needless to say we were pretty late for our picture appointment. Nevertheless, Jill and her husband David were patiently awaiting our arrival and ended up doing an amazing Job. We had a ton of fun and look forward to them coming to visit us in Logan.
https://picasaweb.google.com/rikebee88/EngagementsAnnouncement#
Invitations
I was going to just print invitations at Wal-mart. Well, my amazing brother would have non of that. He and his sweet wife sacrificed a little 'get away' they had planned to design our invitations. They turned out to be just wonderful. My parents decided to get all the printing done in Germany and to mail those they wouldn't send within Europe, to us. An aquaintance from Jared even gave them a great deal. Another mercy! Although there were some mishaps that made it took a while to get them to us, looking back they worked out fantastically. I hope everyone who wanted one got one and enjoyed them. It is quite the process to send them out and not to forget someone or make a mistake. Both Jacob and I spent several nights and hours taking care of mailing them and Jacob's family personally delivered some to those that lived close.
http://www.dautelweb.de/jacobandrike/announcement.pdf
Cake
I always dreamed of designing my own wedding cake and to have a tiered, delicious cake. After hearing how much custom cakes cost, I had decided that I could just go without. Then I had a former coworker (from the Dentist office I used to work for) offer to make it for me at cost. I started to think about a design and got so excited. Unfortunately she had things come up and had to take back her offer. I started to stress a little and decided that I could just do with a sheet cake from Macey's or something like that. Then, again pretty miraculously, the girl that I replaced at my new job in Logan heard about my wedding plans and told me that her Mom makes cakes and would probably be willing to do it for me. (Keep in mind that I had just met this girl and only trained with her for less then a day). Well, I told her about my ideas and she told me it was similar to her own wedding cake and after talking to her mom I had another cake person. She ended up making an amazing wedding cake and I simply loved it. It looked pretty much exactly the way I wanted it to.
Flowers
One of my good friends from Germany (that now lives in Utah) is Courtney Senter. She was my counselor in the Stake YSA Presidency and Student Counsel in Nuremberg and went to Denmark -EFY as a counselor with me. She is simply fabulous. She started a fleurist business with some friends and has for a long time offered to do my flowers when I get married . I knew she did an amazing job and I was so excited for her to do them. She followed through in every way, did what I wanted and gave me an amazing deal on everything. Another mercy! She is amazing and although she had such a stressful time during and before my wedding, I couldn't have wished for anything more than what she did. I would recommend her to anyone wanting to do flowers for their wedding. It was so worth it! For more info go to http://www.thefleurist.blogspot.com/
Coming from Germany I never expected to have an actual diamond engagment ring but Jacob picked out a wonderful engagement ring to propose with. It needed to be fitted and after 2 tries the jewelry store made it look and fit me perfectly. I love wearing it every day and it makes me feel mighty special to wear Jacob's ring. A lot of people asked me how long I've beem enaged but never commented on me being married when I was wearing it. Most people in the US wear 2 rings when they are married. So I guess my ring didn't look like a wedding ring but an engagement ring. My actual wedding band is very special because Dad Hendrickson made it himself and especially for me. It is a plain silver band that fits wonderfully to the shape and size of my engagement ring. I will always cherish it. Jacob and I picked out his wedding band at the same jewelry store he bought my ring and it came free with the engagement ring. It is so neat to see a ring on his finger too although I got a much better deal on getting him his ring than he did for mine :)
Dress/Suits
Another thing I wasn't sure of was if I could afford a dress I would like and that would be modest enough to work for my temple wedding. It was hard for me to picture myself going dress shopping without my Mom there. I decided to save for a reasonable budget and to stick to it even if it wasn't "the dress of my dreams". I shopped around with my cousin in Provo, looked online, got some input from Kristin and my Mom and then had Jacob's Mom (who seriously is an Angel in so many ways) go with me for my actual dress shopping adventure. She came all the way from Bear River City to Provo and was such a great shopping -buddy. We went to 2 stores in Logan. The first one was slightly dissapointing. I found some that I kind of liked and would have worked but they did not have a large selection in my budget at all. The second store "Veronica Michaels" in Spanish Fork was much better. I loved everything about it. The consultant there put me in dresses I liked a lot, that were in my budget and was alltogether very accomodating. I put on one of the dress she picked out and absolutely loved it. I had a "This is the dress" moment and got super excited. I wanted to show Jacob and hear his opinion but successfully resisted by sending him a picture of the ugliest dress we could find and telling him that it was the dress I've been always looking for. I also got a veil that I loved within the budget I decided on. Oh it was heavenly. Jake's Mom took pictures and I sent them to my family and showed them to everyone who cared to see it, except for Jacob. We told him all sorts of things about the dress and it was really fun to keep him in suspense. I just loved my dress and still think it was worth every cent. I felt super blessed and excited to find it. Jacob also got a new suit from Mr. Mac and they even gave him a missionary discount. Another mercy. If I may say so myself he looked extremely handsome in it. I felt honored and lucky to marry him (not just because of the suit of course). When Mom and I went shopping, she brought Adam (Jake's younger brother) to keep Jake company. They picked out ties together. That was pretty fun for them and they also got a pretty good deal on very nice looking ties for everyone in the bridal party.
My Parent's trip
During the whole planning of the wedding it was unsure who of my family would be able to come or if any would be able to come. I found out later that a lot of my friends and family in Germany pitched in and gave me and Jacob the tickets for my parents to come. They surprised me and were able to spend close to 3 weeks with us. It was incredible and meant so much to me to have them there. They were such a huge support and it was wonderful to have their counsel and love right there. They were a big source of strength and stability to me in all the hectic planning. I missed all of my brothers, my sister in law, nieces and nephew as well as my extended family and friends in Germany a lot. I also wish some of my extended family in the US would have been able to be there, but it was so special to have my parents there and to have those of the family that could make it come.
Reception/ Dinner
Another big decision in planning a wedding is to decide what types of celebrations to have.
Reception vs Open House and or Dinner/Breakfast, Venue, Programs, Decorations, Food, all are a matter of costs, time and effort. Growing up I always wanted to have a kind of party or something where all of those that are important to us could take part in the wedding. The older I got and the more I went to American Recepeptions, I resolved that I would be ok not having any of it. I didn't think we could have afforded it. Well, Jacob's parents, my parents and a lot of other people made it happen and it was more beautiful than I could have ever wanted. We decided to have the reception on Friday night so that we could focus on immediate family and the sealing on saturday without much stress. My Dad's had some help and made a beautiful backdrop, a lot of people brought refreshments, extended family and friends helped with all the things we had planned incl. decorations and set up. The program was wonderful and all in all it was simply great. Jacob and I look back and are just amazed at how special everything turned out.
Sealing
We had hoped to have Grandpa Jensen seal us. He is like my real Grandpa. Unfortunately since he isn't blood related to me, we could not get permission. So I just scheduled the sealing with someone in the temple in Logan. A few days before the sealing Pres. Burton, who served as a mission president in Munich, is a good friend to my parents, was my music professor at USU, Jacob's stake patriarch from the YSA Stake and also taught Jacob's parents at USU, called after receiving our wedding invitations and asked who our sealer was. After explaining the situation to him, he offered to seal us. I didn't have a clue that he was a sealer in the Logan temple. We were so excited and touched about how all of this came about. My parents and Jacob's parents were really excited as well. He did a wonderful job and we felt it was really special to have him and his wife there. It was so wonderful to be sealed in the temple with the proper preparation and done with authority. It was great to have everyone that was able to come to be there.
Pictures
A few people told me that we should make sure to have good pictures taken because they regretted not having great pictures of their special day. I am picky about pictures of me anyway but I didn't want to include a photographer into the budget. Megan, the Hendrickson's bishop's daughter takes amazing pictures and offered to take them for us for free. Again, how amazing is it that all of these people are willing and offer to do things for us?!? She did a great, GREAT job-very professional. What I've seen so far I just love! It's true it is special to have your wedding day and all of the events and people there photographed for later. We really appreciated her help. We decided to take pictures early on Friday. That way we would not have to worry about extensive picture taking after the temple ceremony. We went to the temple grounds and Old Maine Hill on USU Campus. Lindsay and Amber, Jacob's cousins made themselves available on short notice to help me with my make-up and dress. It was so very fun to have them there. They were so cute and did a great job.
After the temple pictures we walked to the "A" where traditionally USU students kiss on True Aggie Night to become True Aggies. I really wanted a picture on it. Unfortunately they were trying to regrow the grass around it and it had been blocked off for a while. I still wanted to scope it out. When we walked to the Quad (USU's main campus area), there were a lot of classes out on it and people started cheering for us. It was fun! The "A" was indeed blocked and I at least wanted to get a 'pouting picture' in front of it. Someone who looked official, walked by and saw us. He told us that if we would put the barriers and the tape back up we could get on for pictures. I was so excited! If I hadn't already forgetten his name I maybe would name my first son after him. (well, maybe not...). Anyway.
All the picture taking was a lot of fun.
When we got back to Bear River the Reception place at the Church was amazingly decorated and everything looked stunning. It was so special to have so many people come to the reception. Family, ward members, friends, even some who were in my stake in Germany , missionary couples, former room mates, co-workers, companions... It was so fun. We had an advice wall, a picture slide show, a line, and some frames where Adam and Rachel took pictures of people coming to the reception.
On Saturday after a relaxed breakfast and opening our gifts, the incredible and unforgettable sealing, taking some more pictures, a great family dinner and program and saying good byes Jacob and I drove off in our very decorated car to SLC for a short but wonderful Honeymoon.
Just for posterities sake: The programm for our family dinner included:
- Jacob playing the Polonaise
- Me singing :I can't help falling in love with you
- Adam singing "kiss the girl" while playing the mandolin and John acting it out with a sock puppet.
- Uncle Thayne singing and playing the guitar
- My Dad reading a poem he wrote
- My Mom and Dad singing and playing the piano
- Us getting a German Wedding Cup and Jacob drinking from it while I just giggled.
- Me getting the gloves and hankerchief from Pres. Mckay's wife that my Grandmother gave me
- Dad H. saying some things
- Richy's amazing video with messages from both parents
- Me serving ice cream and desserts :)
- Jacob's brothers and Grandpa Grover, painting our car, putting signs and soda cans on it and filling it with balloons
- visiting with family members and loved ones
- Family Members helping with pulled pork sandwhiches and all sorts of other delicious food
I just can't believe that I am now Mrs. Friederike Hendrickson. To know that I will be Jacob's wife for all eternity if we both do our best to stay worthy is priceless! I surely am the luckiest girl alive. I'm married to the most amazing man and my best friend; have been raised in a terrific family with such great role models of siblings and parents and extended family members who love and support me; and now married into a family of amazing, loving and selfless people who I love very much. I am also so blessed with countless other people around me who are so loving and consistently demonstrate great examples of christlike living. I couldn't be happier! Heavenly Father truly blesses my life in fantastic ways. It motivates me to try and become more worthy of his blessings and to do better at doing my part.
( I will add more pictures when I get them)
