Aloha From Mrs. Pontow

Hello - everyone I am now a married women to the man of my dreams. What a wonderful few weeks I've had. We made it up to the lodge on the 29th in the middle of the storm and with a 3 car caravan up the mountain. I was leading in the Mazda and needed to stop at Government Camp to put chains on. We unfortunately found out later that our car was front wheel drive and not rear wheel drive - that was after we made 3 attempts to get unstuck in the Timberline Lodge parking lot. Oh well, live and learn. Thank God for Chandra who got all of our stuff up to the lodge in a huge truck. My mom rented a 15 passenger van to get a ton of people and decorations and tuxes all the way to the lodge.

Once inside and warm again we quickly got dressed and cleaned up for the rehearsal. At the dinner we exchanged gifts and I gave the girls a Coach make-up bag with jewelry, pink socks, nail polish, and Bridesmaid tee shirts. The guys got Felt Fedora hats for them to wear at the wedding. I gave Jon the 2007 uncirculated presidential coins to keep in memory of the year of our wedding. Jon beat all the gifts by giving me a huge jewelry box and then a small box with diamond studded safire earrings to wear for the wedding. I literally cried they were so beautiful.

That morning I woke up early and took my time getting around. We had some breakfast, started decorating, and then slowly everyone got together to get dressed. The flowers arrived at 1:30 and they were soo amazing they took my breath away. Then the photographer came, and I knew it was time to get started. I began to get dressed and was so excited. Everyone began to ask me if I was nervous, and I really wasn't. I had planned this day down to the minute and just knew that everything was going fine. Of course I had some speed bumps, but they aren't unexpected. We took forever to get pictures taken because so many people kept walking off and that was super annoying, but what are ya gonna do? I had my few cape and muff for outside with my leather and few white boots. It was so beautiful! Everyone was watching from the window as we took the pictures.

Soon the time came, and I was down the hall watching everyone walking away towards the aisle. Mom and I walked down the aisle slowly, and I had a beaming smile on my face. During the vows I almost started crying, but in order to stop I kept looking over at Devin (the best man) and the other guys. They kept making me smile with their goofy faces. The decorations in the room were so breathtaking. It began to snow during the ceremony, just as I had wanted. It was like God himself was watching over us that evening.

We had cocktail hour and served bride & groom drinks. Mine was a holly water (alcoholic version of the Shirley temple) and Jon's was the Jack & Coke. We also had Princess Bride playing on the screen. It was so beautiful! During the reception we had prime rib, but unfortunately we had several guests who weren't able to make it to the wedding. We had about a table and half that weren't able to make it. So, in order to not waist money all the attendants and us had seconds for dinner.

We had a wonderful dancing time! Everyone was hotting and hollering for us, it was great! The band was so amazing and just blasted all of us onto the dance floor. We danced the night away and all the guys got incredibly hammered.

Here's some pictures of the wedding - I will hopefully have my professional ones by January. All pictures of the wedding taken by my dear friend Robin.