Kali and Les’ PonyPros Wedding!
September 28th, 2010 | Play | 1 Comment
Kali+Les Wedding Film from Kyle Stott on Vimeo.
Now that I’m back from my honeymoon I can finally tell you about our amazing wedding! We had a beautiful wedding Saturday, August 21, 2010. Hawkview Ranch, the facility we train out of, was generous enough to host our special day. All of our students and friends came together to make the event possible.
Instead of having a groom’s dinner, we had a groom’s breakfast. Les’ family treated all of our guests to the most perfect breakfast at McKay Cottage, my favorite breakfast place in Bend. We had a huge table with something like 25 of us all sitting together. It was at 9am and already a nice temperature out. There were delicious fresh scones and traditional breakfast dishes with the Cottage’s special coffee drinks. We had everyone introduce themselves and give us a one-line piece of advice. They were all great, especially Erica’s – “Uuh, umm, ya, I am, uh, sixteen, sooooo, I don’t really know anything!” I was thinking, “Ha, you probably know what we all have forgotten!” I also really liked a few other’s. The best man said, “Make pretty babies,” (good to know we have his blessing, eh?). My dad said, “Don’t forget that how to love can be learned.” The MOH said, “Never got to bed angry.” Les’ stepdad said, “Do one thing for yourself every day.” Les’ cousin-in-law, Brent, said, “Say ‘I love you’ every day,” and Brent’s wife, Katie, said “Just keep doing what you’re doing!” I can’t believe how many of the pieces of advice I can remember! Apparently I was really focused that day, lol.
After breakfast I went to have my hair done and Stephanie, the friend I have known the longest and joint MOH, drove me out to the ranch. It was wonderful to arrive and see all the girls dressed up – it made it real! I walked into the ranch owner’s house and 9 pony girls and Gina, one of our instructors, appeared on the stairs. I felt like Mr. Von Trap when he whistles and all the kids line up in the Sound of Music! We had decided ahead of time that the girls would all do their hair in rag curls. They looked outstanding and their positive energy really made everything exciting. The house was filled with giggling.
The weather was wild that day and made getting ready very complicated! The ponies were quite up because of the wind and inclement storm. We were supposed to have rehearsal at 11, then at 1:30, and finally had it at about 3. The girls were running in and out of the house grooming ponies, shining ponies, moving ponies around, and exercising ponies when the ponies got too overwhelmed by all the grooming, shining, and moving! I was very proud to see how knowledgeable they all were about what to do to get ready, especially having to get themselves ready as well. They were very cute running all around in dresses and cowboy boots. The ponies looked amazing. They were clean and sparkly. We got stick on crystals for them and Peanut looked especially grand. Katelynn, one of our 13 year old girls, had gone way out of her way to arrange meetings for the girls to decide on a walking order and to make sure everyone had supplies to make decorations for the ponies. She even downloaded the walking music so they could practice! Seriously – how cool are these kids?! The moms were amazing too. I don’t dare start listing all the things they did because I would be writing for days…
Right up until 4:45, we were very uncertain about whether or not we were going to be able to have the ceremony outdoors. Last minute, the groomsmen moved the reception tables into the coverall arena so we could have the ceremony outside and then send the guests inside after the reception so they would be at least somewhat warm. I walked around trying to answer questions, wearing a bandana because apparently the groom isn’t supposed to see the bride “in all her splendor” before the wedding. The bandana kept Les from seeing my hair, which, thankfully, became looser in the wind. My hair stylist, who is also named Kaylea (kay-lee), and who happened to be getting married one week after me, used a ton of hair spray to make sure the curls could handle the outdoors. I was relieved that between the bandana and the wind it loosened up some and didn’t take its job of being curly quite so seriously!
While everyone else was working hard outdoors, my mom and my 3 bridesmaids were working hard indoors. When they helped me into my dress, it felt like it took 30 minutes to do all the buttons! The buttons ran the length of my back and then some. I have no idea how they got them all buttoned. I had what, to me, was the best dress ever. You’ll see it in the photos 
The flowers were my one “bad luck thing” that got all the bad luck out of the way. The gal I had doing my flowers failed to tell me that her sister had had a baby and she went out of town. So, after calling and emailing to check on my flowers for days with no response, I finally sent a text. I received a message back that read: “This is Faith’s assistant. Didn’t you know? Faith’s sister had a baby and she’s out of town. She’s not going to be able to do your flowers.” Gah! 2 days before the wedding! So I called another flower shop saying, “Before you tell me you’re really busy and hang up, let me tell you my story!!!” Fortunately, the woman was able to make bouquets with stargazer lilies (which I love) and blue hydrangeas, which kind of worked with our colors (our colors were purple and gold). So, in the end, I had a bouquet, the 3 bridesmaids had bouquets, my grandma had a corsage, the pony girls each had a carnation, and we did Salvia in galvanized buckets on the tables, so we were good!
We ran a little late (of course, it’s “us”) and the wedding procession started at about 5:15 instead of 5. The ceremony was set up in one of the pastures with a view of the mountains. It began my brother, Cory Vanagas, playing acoustic guitar. Cory learned Pachabell’s Canon and Hear Comes the Bride specifically for our wedding so we had wonderful music for the whole ceremony. The PonyPros were radiant leading ponies down the aisle. The girls were wearing dresses of all different colors, cowgirl boots, and halos – head pieces with tulle, stars, and streamers. The pony geldings sported bowties the girls made themselves to match their dresses and the pony mares wore tiaras and tulle. All the ponies sparkled with glitter and stick-on rhinestones
Little Zoey, age 9, led the group. When Wallie balked at the site of the pergola decorations blowing in the wind, Maddie took the lead. Afterwards, a friend remarked that he was very impressed at how Zoey handled Wallie’s nerves, and how Maddie jumped right in to help. He said that he was surprised that kids could be so composed with an audience and not become nervous when the pony became nervous. I told him that I was so glad that he could see that because that is what PonyPros is all about – teaching kids to train ponies. Ponies take physical, mental, and emotional balance. To excel, you have to be a self-directed learner with a vision and the self-confidence and emotional fitness to pursue it. I think all of our kids have that, but of course I am biased!
The girls walked down the aisle past the 80 adults and 20 kids in attendance. The PonyPros were Maddie & Peanut, Zoey C. & Wallie, Zoe V. & Frank, Katelynn & Quick Draw, Kae & Sam, Morgan & Blue, Elizabeth & Caron, Eden & CuteZilla (Zilla, can you believe it?! She’s a much better now!), Gina & Penny, then, at the very end, Emma & Thistle, with my little sister, LuLu, riding. The older girls did a really good job keeping thing moving calmly forward. It was only LuLu’s second time ever on a pony and she is only 2 years and 1 month old. Her mom walked right next to her but LuLu did an amazing job balancing on her own on such a wild and crazy day! She was in a purple corduroy dress with horses on it and a little cowgirl hat. I suspect we have another pony-lover on the way up
After the PonyPros procession, the bridesmaids and groomsmen made their entrance. We have such amazing friends…5 were friends from high school and one bridesmaid was Les’ 1/2 sister, Erica, who is also a wonderful friend. While the bridesmaids and groomsmen were getting situated, Maddie and Zoey ran back and carried my train for me while my dad walked me down the aisle. Maddie and Zoey looked very fancy in dresses that their nanny helped them to pick out at a hispanic dress shop. The dresses were the perfect color to match the intensity of the sky, which was periwinkle, purple, and white, just like our decorations.
Wearing platform shoes to help keep my dress off the ground was quite a trick! Not only do I not normally wear heels, but, in fact, I normally wear negative heel shoes. I’m glad I didn’t try to practice ahead of time or I might have nixed the shoes all together! I made it down the aisle relying on my dad’s arm some and glad Maddie and Zoey had control of the dress! My veil was blowing in the wind behind me and I was so glad we went with finger tip length and not long. As it was, it felt like a long mane, with one always having ponies on the mind
Somewhere in there all the girls had found their seats on haybales. My mom had wrapped the haybales with white sheets and tied them with bows. It was such a nice touch. Really made the wedding feel home-y. I doubt many brides feel like everything is that perfect when they get to the altar, but I felt like so many of the people who are important to me had had a role in the ceremony and made it special. I really felt like the day brought together the best parts of my life for all to experience. It felt like 10 Christmases, New Years, Easters, Halloween’s and birthdays all rolled into one!
The ceremony it self made me laugh. Ryan, of course, brought his unique goofiness to his speaking parts. We had the 3 bridesmaids and 3 groomsmen alternate speaking. We had given them copies of the script to read over a head of time, but the script we set at the altar had a surprise – at the very end, we had written in a section for changing our last name. I have grown tired over the years of hardly being able to pronounce my own last name and Les’ last name isnt very exciting, so we decided to opt for taking a new last name. We picked “Kiger,” jokingly because Les’ horse, Koa (aka “The Big Bear”) is head of family, but more truthfully because we like how the word sounds and Kiger Mustangs are smart, kind, playful, and athletic, all things that we value. Our friends were surprised to find themselves reading the new lines but recovered well.
Instead of havin
g readings in our ceremony, we had 3 couples who we admire speak. We asked them to speak about something they saw in us that they thought would make us successful as a married couple. It was really great to be able to put these 6 busy people on the spot and hear their thoughts. Seeing as how it was my wedding day I figured I could ask for what I wanted, haha. The first to speak were Henry and Sandy, our college art history and painting teachers, respectively. Next were Neil and Teri. Neil was our college English lit teacher and we got him back into horses about two years ago. Neil’s wife, Teri, owns a used bookstore downtown and is just a really genuine, cool lady. Lastly were David and Kelly, our acupuncturists/herbalists. David treats us and Kelly treats my mom and brother. Kelly and David had written something where they alternated lines, which was very cute, and ended with a Thoreau quote, which I thought was awesome since Henry and Neil used to team teach some together and Thoreau came up often. We know what we like
After the ceremony, we did the receiving line and got to say hello to all the people we thought we would have time to talk to but didn’t (which was pretty much everyone!) I had to stand on a linen table cloth in the arena so as not to get my dress dirty (hurrumph) but at least had somewhere warmer for everyone to go. The weather made for amazing photos… It was our favorite kind of light, the light we based our theme around, in fact. So, it is only fair that the wedding itself would end up having crazy weather.
Our friends were amazing about making the photos special. It seemed to take forever, but the Giant (our 6’11 friend) added goofiness to the photos by pretending to propose and other charming stunts. We did a shoe photo with all the girls (something like 15 of us total with the PonyPros and bridesmaids). The colors in the photo are awesome – just about every color in the rainbow as we had hoped
We did the cake cutting and eating back in the arena. Few people there I think truly knew how important the cake was to us. We had been engaged for 3.5 years and people were always asking us when we were getting married. Our answer, for the last 3 years, had been “when we can eat cake.” Since we had gotten sick in Colorado, we couldn’t eat any sweeteners or any starches, so cake was fully out of the question. We have only just recovered enough to eat gluten-free carob cake, so that is what we had. It was amazing.
By the end of the day I was completely exhausted, as I think was everyone else! We left on our honeymoon 3 days later. It was the best wedding and honeymoon I could ever imagine. Ten million thank-you’s to everyone who was involved!!!!!
