The Allred Love Story.....all two years of it!

How fun is this!


I met Penn at a Stake Valentine’s Day Dance up at Utah State. My roommate dragged me along because she didn’t want to go alone and she said I needed a break from homework. I met Penn and his brother Spencer in the hall. Penn was there because Spencer said they needed to get out of their house and socialize and meet girls. That night I actually didn’t talk to Penn all that much. I actually didn’t even find out his name. Not a whole lot transpired for a month after that. He worked on the USU Moving Crew so they did the set up for all the basketball games and I was a marketing intern for the athletics department so we saw each other a few times and chit-chatted. I decided one night to be brave and I looked Penn up on the ward directory and decided to text him. Turns out it was his brother Alex’s phone. He so kindly gave me Penn’s number so I texted his correct phone with a very carefully thought out message. Of course, the reply was “Who is this?” I totally felt like a dork. Anyways, we set up a movie night where I was supposed to bring my friends over to their house. After I couldn’t find any of my friends brave enough to venture out and socialize, I flaked. But I had a good excuse. I worked a 10-hour shift that day at the car dealership and then had to work the basketball game that night which was a 3.5 hour shift, so it was a good excuse…right? He then tried rescheduling, but called me while I was driving to California for Spring Break. Penn had given up on me.


Before I tell the story of the first date, I need to tell the story of the first pseudo-date. One Friday night I was on a date with Josh. We went to dinner at Golden Corral (blah!) and went to see some movie. Well, during the movie Penn texted me to see if I was going to the show his brother was playing in. I said we were and that I was on a really boring date so I invited him to meet us there. I know, I’m horrible. We got there and I wanted to be up at the front because that’s where the fun is. Josh complained it was too loud so he went to the back. I was annoyed with him anyway, so I stayed up front with Penn. One song into the show, Josh comes up to me and says it’s time for him to go to bed so he told me that if I wanted to stay I needed to find a ride home. I was stunned! Who does that? Well, Penn told me he would take me home. We actually went and got Slurpees and went to his house before he took me home. Our first official date was to see the Utah Symphony. I’ll have to admit, he asked me out in a text message. We got all dressed up and went. After the concert, he openly admitted he was broke so we would have to find something for dinner at their house. We ended up making pancakes with peanut butter, since they had no real butter or syrup. They were nasty, but it was fun anyways. That weekend also happened to be conference weekend, so we watched the Sunday session together and then ended up going to his parents’ house in between sessions for lunch. So, I met the parents after dating for two days!


We only dated 5 weeks before getting engaged. It runs in the family. My parents were 3 weeks and both my brothers were 4 or 5 weeks. My sister was 4 too…..just in years. We were engaged from May 7th to August 2, 2006.


A funny story about the proposal, Penn arranged to have my dad pick up the ring since it was in Ogden on their way up to Bear River to have dinner with his parents. Silly boy didn’t think about paying for it, however, so my dad had to pick up the tab! He paid him back.


We were married in the Logan LDS Temple on August 2, 2006. We picked to get married there because we met in Logan, a majority of both of our families were close by, and my grandma was sealed there. We were married at 4:00 pm that day and it was superb weather. We did not have a reception. We had a luncheon at Hamilton’s before the ceremony where we had family and close friends attend.


We had an unusual honeymoon. Before we even got engaged, my brother invited Penn & I to drive one of their cars to Virginia where he would be attending law school. When we picked the date to get married, we planned it before they left so they could come. We decided to stick with the plan to help them out, so two days after we were married we began our cross-country journey to Virginia, caravanning with my brother and his wife in one car, Penn and I in the other, and my parents towing the trailer in their truck. I know what you’re thinking. You took your honeymoon with your parents? Believe me we had plenty of alone time. Plus, how many people can say that they road-tripped across the country for their honeymoon? We had a blast! We went to Busch Gardens and a water park and toured Colonial Williamsburg. We flew home thankfully!

Our engagement picture.

Bridal pictures done at Red Butte Garden. If you need a photographer, go to DonPolo photography. The lady's name is Adelpha and she is the funniest photographer and she does an amazing job! She even made my bouquet from Costco flowers!

Our wedding cake. My parent's thought it would be funny to have bride and groom cows as our cake topper since we met each other at Utah State.

My 2 brothers.

If you look close you can see Penn's black eye. He tried catching a baseball with his head at a family reunion 2 days before our wedding.

The Thornock sisters.

I had to put this picture up to show how badly I stick out in Penn's family. All 6 of his siblings and his parents are over 6 feet tall.

And it all ended with a fish. When my brothers decorated our car (on temple grounds) they put this huge fish under our hubcaps. We got down the road about 3 miles and the car started shaking violently and I noticed a fin sticking out.