10 Weeks to Plan a Wedding - Week 1

I just got engaged to my best friend and I am way beyond excited!! We want to take you along for the ride as we plan our wedding at Temple Square in just 10 weeks!! My name is Jessica Hunt and I've worked as the administrative/marketing assistant for Temple Square Hospitality in Utah for just over 3 years. The president of our corporation set me up on a blind date a year and a half ago with this cute, funny boy named Mike Doxey, and now he is my fiance! We want to take you along for the ride as we plan our wedding at Temple Square in just 10 weeks!! The big day is January 10th and we have A LOT to do! We're going to record all of our fun, crazy, stressful, exciting preparations and post them to this blog each week as a reference for those planning their own weddings at Temple Square, and/or for those who just want to see what this whole story is about. Here at Temple Square Hospitality, we feel this story will be entertaining to follow and a nice insider into how Temple Square Hospitality can make your dream wedding come true. I've seen many couples get married and have their celebrations here in our venues, The Joseph Smith Memorial Building and the Lion House, but I've never experienced it myself. I don't fully know how the entire process works, but we're about to find out. So we invite you to join us on this adventure! Temple Square Hospitality provides the following services that Michael and I will be using: Joseph Smith Memorial Building Catering, Floral Department - Flowers Squared, Event Coordinators and of course, the actual venue: The Joseph Smith Memorial Building. The Proposal! Michael is kind of a big sweetheart. He probably won't like me professing that to the world, but... he's out of town right now so there is nothing he can do about it. And plus, it's true. About a month ago we decided we wanted to get married. Yay! Of course I immediately told my mom and sister because I was so excited I couldn't contain myself. Michael and I decided we'd wait to tell everyone else until we actually had a ring and made it official. We went to the ring shop where he used to work and we told the owner what kind of ring we were thinking of purchasing. It was a pretty unique concept, but he said he could make anything we wanted. So then we just waited. and waited. and waited. and waited. It was SOOOO hard to not tell anyone we were getting married during this time, but we knew we wanted to wait for the ring. Looking back now, I'm so glad we had a few weeks to just let things soak in. I decided I wasn't going to take time to plan the wedding too much until we got the ring. Of course we talked a lot about getting married and what we both wanted, but we didn't feel pressured to make decisions; it was just so nice to let it all soak in. I mean, this is probably the biggest decision in anyone's life so it's nice to just take time to think about things - what we want, what we'll do, how we'll handle certain situations, etc... After about 3 weeks I was getting a little antsy to get things started. Michael would tease me all the time about that, but he totally felt the same way. Though we were grateful for the "soak-it-all-in" stage, we both felt that stage was well spent, so let's get the show on the road! But we tried to be patient. We still had to wait for the ring. On Saturday, October 26th, it was a gorgeous fall day. My sister had asked if I could bring mom over to her house to tend the kids. Sure. Nothing out of the ordinary. Michael was coming over around that same time so I asked if he'd be cool coming with me to drop her off. He was game for that. We pulled up to my sisters house and 3 of her 4 kids came running out to greet us. I love those little munchkins! The oldest is 8, then the next is 6, the third 3 and the fourth just turned 1. They did their usual excited yells, "Grandma, Jessie, Michael!". Then they did their more recent usual greetings, "Did Michael propose yet?". ha ha...I was so used to this question that I didn't think anything of it. I just explained he couldn't propose yet because we didn't have the ring. Then the 8 year-old, Megan, said, "Well, I think he should propose today." I just laughed. We got in the house and Megan said the same thing, "I think he should propose today. Right now." The other kids were saying similar things. Michael asked the 3 year-old, Haley, "Well, what do you think, Haley?". My ears perked up. Why was he egging them on? Wait a minute...Haley says, "Yeah!". My heart leaped. Michael put Haley down and said, "OK". I couldn't believe it! He then pulled a box from his back pocket and knelt on one knee and said, "Jessie, will you marry me?". I was so shocked he had the ring! Oh my goodness! The first thing out of my mouth was, "Michael Doxey!!" I was so surprised. "Yes! Of course!", I exclaimed. I was so happy! We gave each other a huge hug and kiss. My family was all around taking pictures and making those happy "awe" noises in the background. Wow! What a surprise! He did good - real good. I couldn't have asked for anything better. I think he's a keeper. For additional pictures and a video, go to http://www.templesquarehospitality.com/blogs/weddings/?p=1634.