1. Persona non grata
2. How little do you know me after all these years?
3. A question of perspective
4. The people who weren't allowed to attend the ceremony in the temple
5. You can't choose your family

• (character chart)

1. Young Women's
2. Youth Conference
3. Saturday's Warrior
4. Brigham Young University
• Gratuitous Love Scene
5. Polygamist
6. Temple Wedding
7. Orem High
8. Bordeaux Mission
9. Exmo Conference

Friday morning

Friday morning April dropped off Rex to visit his family and dropped me off at Matt's parents' house to see if I could help with any of the preparations for the reception. April and Susan and little Judy set off to do some picnicking and nature-walks in the canyons.

My dad and his new wife Sharon were staying with Matt's family, as were my grandparents on my dad's side and Annette herself. None of Matt's relatives were staying there since almost his entire clan lived in the area, so those visiting from out of town had plenty of choices of other relatives to put them up. Matt himself was already living in the apartment that he and Annette would be sharing after their marriage.

On our side, we had a few relatives from my dad's family come to Utah for the wedding. They were mostly staying with my aunt and uncle who lived in Lehi. Dad came from a family of seven kids, each of whom proceeded to produce a family on that order of magnitude, so of course no one expected the whole extended family to gather every time somebody got married, which seemed like it was practically every other year with so many people. But we could always count on a few to show up.

Aside from our Uncle Adam who never married, our immediate family with only three kids was the smallest family of any that my grandparents had produced. Mom claimed that it was for health reasons that she had never tried for a fourth, and when we were kids she occasionally would make reference to her doctor's advice on the matter when she was speaking in Sacrament Meeting or in Fast and Testimony Meeting so that the other families in the ward wouldn't think that she was selfishly breaking the commandment that every family should have as many kids as their health and finances would permit. It may have been true that her doctor had given her such advice, but I also got the impression that she and Dad hadn't really wanted any more kids than that.

<- previous page

In Matt's immediate family, none of his siblings could attend the wedding and only one could even attend the reception. Essentially everyone's availability matched up badly because of the fact that boys set off on missions at nineteen and girls at twenty-one. Matt himself was twenty-one years old and just recently back from his mission to somewhere in Africa. He had two older sisters, twins, who were twenty-three and on missions to Chile and Australia respectively. They would be back in about six months -- not soon enough to attend the wedding. He also had a younger brother who was nineteen and had set off a month or so earlier on a mission to France. Matt and his brother Spencer had just barely had a few months to see each other in the space between their two missions. That left one last sibling, Matt's youngest brother Sam. Sam was sixteen and hence too young to attend the ceremony in the temple, but at least he would be there for the reception.

At Matt's parents' house, Matt's little brother Sam let me in, and I found my dad and my grandparents still at the table finishing their breakfast.

"Lynn, it's great to see you again!" Dad said, getting up to give me a hug. Grandma and Grandpa both greeted me and hugged me as well. "Annette's waiting for you," said Dad. "She's upstairs in the bedroom. She wants to show you her dress."

In the bedroom Annette was standing on a stool modeling her wedding dress. A lady I assumed was Matt's mom was busy pinning the hem, and Dad's wife Sharon was sitting on a chair nearby watching.

"Oh Lynn, I'm so glad you could make it!" Annette said as soon as she saw me.

"Thanks, I'm glad to be here," I said. "Hello, Sharon. And I presume that this must be Matt's mom, Sister Hobbs."

next page ->