Just Married! (3 months ago)

Well, here we are... our first post as the Staal Family! As most of you know everything was chaos up until the wedding day, but thanks to wonderful friends and family putting hours of work planning and arranging everything both the weddings and receptions in Holland and in Portland were wonderful and c0mpletely unforgettable!

The wedding in Portland was also awesome! It was so great to see the family again and especially to see them in the Temple. That means so much to us and was certainly a day I have been looking forward to for a LONG time (most of my life) and I will never forget it. It was too bad that we didn't get too much hangout family time, but we look forward to that in our next visit (or when some of the fam comes to Holland!) If anything could have been done differently, we probably would have not had nearly an entire week inbetween the wedding and sealing in the temple... but even with that, it gave me time to get totally spoiled with parties and showers! It's fun to be the bride hehe! The weather was good and bad, but when we needed the sun we were blessed with big breaks in the clouds, and the weekend following the wedding was also nice.

We were sealed on April, 29 2009 in the Portland Oregon Temple, and had an absolutly GORGEOUS reception in the Stark St. Chapel. A huge thanks to all the people who helped and worked so hard on that too. It was really nice, and I was also really happy with how the bridesmaids looked :D

Just exiting the temple, We're MARRIED!!


Family of Richard's


Me and my cute little flower girls! I loved the dresses and bouquets!


Me with some of my best old friends from high school,
and with the coolest roommies plus Milly!

Brian did our family pictures. Here is one of them.

Oma Winnie, G-ma & G-pa Clark

Our first dance. (to "Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat)


Dancing with the dads. Siebe acting like he is too old to walk, but that old man still runs like a maniac!


Dancing with the moms. Mary loved learning a few steps from her new son-in-law.

Roomies and kids getting their groove on.


Elizabeth sang "To Make You Feel My Love" for us and it was AMAZING! (especially the little improve dance durring the intermezzo)

Cutting the cake.
Step 1: cut
Step 2: take a piece

Step 3: Smile and plot
Step 4: Feed... oh forget it! SMEAR IT ALL OVER THE PLACE!

Laugh, observe the damage, clean your nose out...

...And kiss with frosting all over your face.

Our pretty cake.


Cake table. Yummy brownies, delicious keylime cheescake bites, and the white wedding cake with strawberry filling :P


Our civil wedding was in Rotterdam on April, 23 2009. I got ready in the morning at Sylvia's (sis. in-law) house and Richard came to pick me up and see me for the first time around 11am. He waited at the bottom of the stairs as I finished getting my dress on, and had my flowers in hand. We were both so nervous, but when we finally got to see each other it was just perfect. He was so handsome standing there, and I felt like a princes. We then went off to do our photos in a location nearby (it was actually the trail where we had our first walk together when I came to meet him for the first time). Ofcourse we also went to a windmill in the area for a few pics too :). After that we had some lunch at Sylvia's with our wedding party just before we headed off the the Rotterdam stadhuis where we would be getting married

(city hall: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Rotterdam_stadhuis.jpg).