Stephie and Nick's Wedding

My lovely and wonderful sister Stephie Steward married the charming and hilarious Nick Stewart on Saturday, July 19th. It was a fabulous day. Let's run through it.
It started with dropping Stellan off at his grandmas' house, where we bumped into Steph, who was just getting back from her early a.m. hair styling. (It was 7:15 AM.) Then we all hopped into our cars and drove to Santa Monica. Stephie and Nick were sealed in the LDS Los Angeles Temple by David Payne. It was a very nice ceremony with a small crowd. Then we headed out for some photos (oh yeah, a lot of those all day long). After photos, Stephie changed out of her gorgeous wedding dress for the drive back to Santa Barbara.
Back in SB, those who were not at the sealing madly set up the ring ceremony and reception. Apparently many of the assigned members of the brute force (AKA young men who could easily heft many tables and chairs) were not there, leaving my 7-months-along sister Jenny to try to get everything in place. Don't worry, she didn't lift anything.
In the afternoon, Stephie and Nick arrived for the reception. There were lots of people at the reception (probably between 150 and 200, but you'd have to ask them for a more accurate head count). They had a lovely ring ceremony, officiated by Art Burke. I actually recorded the whole thing, which I hope to be able to upload tomorrow. There was also amazing cake - chocolate as well as lemon with passion fruit filling.
OK, so here's the thing I don't like about weddings of immediate family members - there are so many people you want to talk to that there's no way you can possibly spend nearly enough time with any of them! It was really fun to see so many family members and old friends, and I know it meant a lot to Steph and Nick that they all came. It was a big ol' lovefest.
Eventually Stephie and Nick snuck out (and I mean snuck out - I accidentally found them hopping into their car), and we got everything cleaned up with minimal damage. There was the requisite sacrifice to the wedding gods - a lovely crystal punch bowl took a dive off the table when one too many chairs were stacked against it. Also lots of yummy leftovers. In the meantime, Stellan spent some quality time with his cousin Riley. They found a way to make three chairs folded on the ground into the best play equipment ever. They followed each other back and forth across the chairs, giggling and squawking the whole way.
Once we had cleaned everything up, we went to the moms' for a couple more hours with the out-of-town siblings (and Riley of course), some pizza and a chance to decompress.
The happy couple just got back from their honeymoon cruise to Mexico today, and they are very happy indeed. They are just too cute, and we're all so happy for them. Here are a few photos, though I'm sure the real ones that Missy took will be way better. Until we get those, I hope these will suffice.