Jimmer's Wedding, Part I

My cousin Jimmer (James Taft Fredette) was married to Whitney Jean Wonnacott on Friday, June 1 in the Denver LDS temple.  This is a big deal for a couple of reasons:  although I have fourteen Fredette cousins and nine of them are LDS, only four of them have been married in the temple.  So adding another was pretty cool.  Plus, having the sealing be in Denver rather than in Salt Lake,  Jordan River, Frankfurt, or Washington, DC (where my other cousins were married) was pretty awesome. 

First of all, our entire family was able to make the trip to Denver together---not a small feat since Jared doesn't take summer vacations.  (He had to work the Saturday before the wedding in order to go.)  We stayed at our favorite Denver hotel, the Drury Inn.  On Friday we drove to the temple, stopping on the way to eat at IHOP (Taylor's request).  Once at the temple we found my parents, who had driven up from Tuba City, where they're serving a CES/humanitarian mission.  We waited with them, my cousins, Lindsay and TJ, my Uncle Den and Aunt Sue, and a bunch of people we don't know until Jimmer and Whitney came out of the temple. (Side note: originally we were invited to the ceremony, but then Whitney decided to fill the sealing room with her family members--there were only 5 Fredette slots and those went to Uncle Al, Lindsay and her husband, Brent, and my parents. But that was okay.)   It was great to greet Jimmer for just a moment before the photos began and even more fun to just look around and see everyone who was there.  Some of the guests included:

-Pres. Cecil Samuelson and Sis. Samuelson
Pres. Samuelson sealed Jimmer and Whitney.  Jimmer and his family got to know Pres. Samuelson fairly well during his senior year.  Pres. Samuelson worked with Coach Rose to introduce Jimmer and his family to influential people in the NBA and in the church and tried to help make the process of choosing an agent and entering the NBA less daunting for Jimmer & his family.  Pres. Samuelson was also involved with Jimmer's academic life; when he wasn't able to attend classes anymore (not because he didn't want to, but because having him there was too disrupting) Pres. Saumuelson advocated for Jimmer and encourged Jimmer's professors to make online school possible.

There were several members of the BYU basketball team in attendance, as well as an assistant coach and one of BYU's assistant AD's.  Caleb was in heaven:  Here were some of his idols, standing just a few feet in front of him, smiling and joking together...all within earshot.  True to form, he turned to me, smiled, nodded toward the ground, and said, "What size do you think his [Brandon Davies'] feet are?"   I loved the fact that my cousin had such a strong network of faithful friends from BYU.  There were  three basketball players in the wedding party (Brandon, Nick Martineau, and Charles Abouo), along with Jimmer's cousin, John Taft (son of my high school PE teacher), and several of Whitney's cheerleader friends. 

In the group photo below, our family is on the left.  Taylor & I are in the back row. My parents and Caleb are to our right.  On the very right in the back are Sis. and Pres. Samuelson and Uncle Dennis & Aunt Susan.  Jared, Ike, Corb and kenna ended up at left front.  Uncle Al is directly behind Jimmer & to his right, while TJ is to his left and Aunt Kay is on his immediate left.




Although the glory of BYU shined strong at the temple, I was most excited to see some of these people:

My Uncle Dennis & Aunt Susan
(Dennis is one of my mom's older brothers.  He and Aunt Susan picked me up at the  airport when I flew to Utah to begin my BYU career before I'd even officially graduated from high school.  They stored my textbooks for a summer, helped me move out of my dorm rooms, and gave me a home away from home.  Recently Aunt Susan was showing me the new photos of all of their neices and nephews and she said, "Heavenly Father only gave us one child, but he made up for it with all of our nieces and nephews.  I about said, "He only gave me one set of parents, but he made up for it with you."  [Except that I have phenomenal parents.  There's no "make up" for anything necessary there. They just didn't live in Utah.]

My mom...with her missionary tag on!  She sported some Navajo jewelry at the reception, too. 

Here are a couple photos of my kiddos.  (I'm not sure why I didn't snap any of Caleb & Taylor. I think they were probably off visiting and checking out the crowd.)