Weddings

There is nothing I love celebrating more than a marriage, especially one for someone I really care about. This summer I've attended four weddings: one in Idaho, one in Utah, one in Seattle for my closest cousin Maggie, and one in San Diego for one of my best friends Amanda and my good friend Mitch. And each of them was so fun! The food, the music, the dancing, the laughing...everything. If I were a professional photographer, I would LOVE to do weddings. Everything looks beautiful and everyone is so happy.

Some bridesmaids and friends with the beautiful bride Amanda Dunn

I had the honor of being a bridesmaid in Amanda's wedding and I was able to share that experience with several other girls that we have grown up with. We all enjoyed spending time with her and each other at the bridal showers in Provo and Corona, the bachelorette party/dinner/sleepover in Newport, the actual wedding in San Diego, and the reception in Corona. Each of these events was very well-planned, incredibly fun, and hopefully everything Amanda wanted and more. I am so happy for her and Mitch and wish them the best in their life together! 

Being involved in all this wedding madness got me thinking about my own. I don't know when it will be or who it will be with, but I have a pretty good idea of how I want it to look. That's probably the least important part, but it's definitely fun to pick out colors and decorations. (Girls do that, right?) Here are a few of the sites I've been looking at that I absolutely love to get inspiration from:

http://ciaotraveler.blogspot.com/2011/05/european-shabby-chic.html

http://www.stylemepretty.com/

http://thismodernromance.com/portfolio/index2.php#/home/

http://www.1313blog.com/category/weddings/

AND another one of my best friends (Jessica Lakin) just got engaged and I can't wait to go to her wedding!

Paris

I have recently become infatuated with the iconic and romantic Paris, France. Several items on my list of things to see and do before I die are in or associated with the city, such as seeing the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe, going to the Orsay Museum and the Disneyland Resort, and learning a little bit of French. This new found passion for all things Parisian has a lot to do with movies I've seen this summer and how they portray the City of Light.

Today I reluctantly attended an afternoon showing of the latest tween rom com Monte Carlo, half of which is set in Paris. This movie had a painfully cliche love-at-first-sight story line and was unrealistic, predictable and mediocre at best, but was also incredibly cute. It even made me laugh a couple times. And if you're interested in cute guys and/or romance at all, you'd enjoy living vicariously through Selena Gomez and Leighton Meester's characters just as much as I did. But the most important thing the movie did for me was remind me of my love of Paris and reignite my burning desire to go there someday.

Another movie I saw this summer, Midnight in Paris, was what really got me excited about the idea of actually going there. Thanks to its exquisite cinematography and charming story line, this movie did a much better job than Monte Carlo of romanticizing the city and its culture. I hope that when I do finally have the chance to travel to Paris, I will find the city just as enchanting as the movies make it out to be.

And this is the next one I want to see!

Sisters

I drove up to Washington this week with my older sisters Lindsay and Chelsea. This trip and other things have made me realize that my sisters are my best friends. Some people say that's weird, but I don't care. I am not truly myself around ANYONE but them. I have some really great friends, but I don't have a connection with any of them like I do with my sisters. We grew up together so we know all the same people, we've seen all the same movies, have a ton of inside jokes, and have endless stories to talk about. We are completely comfortable around each other. We can look at each other and know what the other is thinking. One minute we'll be fighting, and the next minute one of us will say something like, "Guess what happened today," or "Let's go see a movie." And they are pretty much the only people in the world (besides my mom) that think I'm funny. I love my sisters.

Lake Umatilla, Stateline, WA

But it wasn't always this way. When we were younger, we hated each other. We were always fighting and tearing each other down. Lindsay is six years older than me and Chelsea four and a half. So when they were in junior high and high school, I was just a little elementary school kid. They may not remember it this way, but they were terrible to me. They would always tease me about being stupid and annoying and ugly. So I would go into their rooms and steal things and empty their trash cans all over their floor. It wasn't the best relationship. And when I was in high school, they were away in college and I didn't know them at all. We never talked and I had no idea what was going on in their lives. When they came home for summer, they were strangers. But when I came up for my freshman year at BYU we hung out all the time. And now we live together and we know each other better than ever. We have had our fair share of arguments and problems in the past two years, but we always come out of them stronger than before and they have led us to the relationships we have with each other today.

Madison, on the other hand, is only a year and a half younger than me. We shared a room and/or a bathroom my entire life until I came up to college. When we were really little, I remember being on top of her punching her because she made me so mad. Throughout high school, we still fought, but not physically. We fought about stealing each other's clothes, not keeping the bathroom clean, etc. But after I came out to Provo and we had some time apart, I realized how much I love her! We text each other almost every day. The other day I talked to her on the phone for a few hours and we made each other laugh like no one else can. It's not because we're particularly funny (well at least I'm not); we just understand each other. No offense to Lindsay or Chelsea, but I would say that she is my number one best friend.