A Wedding

This weekend, we went to a wedding.

The wedding was for one of my cousins who used to live in Washington (now they live two hours south of us). I actually lived with their family on Bainbridge for over a year. He was only about 13 then, so its a little unreal to think that now he is getting married.
The family has six boys, a few of whom I haven't seen since, oh, about 2003, when I had my wedding reception at their house. Here they are all together. Can you guess which one is getting married? I think its pretty obvious:




The wedding was outside at a beautiful Bed and Breakfast. There were maybe four bridesmaids, and four groomsmen. (Thats what they're called, right?) Obviously, the groom is in the Marines. Also obviously, I didn't have the best vantage point for great shots, but I wasn't their photographer, so thats okay!


After the ceremony, a bunch of the groom's fellow Marines held their swords up for the couple to walk under. It was pretty cool, but again I had a horrible vantage point and thus no picture.

Elora's cousin who is six months her junior, was one of the flower girls. She was so cute! They were afraid she might have trouble walking all the way by herself, so they had her hold hands with the ring bearer and the other flower girl (both from the bride's family.)



She didn't let that stop her from dropping her petals...she just waited to do it while she stood with the bridesmaids during the ceremony. It was so funny to watch her drop them, pick them back up, and ceremoniously drop them all again.



As I mentioned, a few of these cousins haven't seen me for at least five years. The grooms next older brother has had two kids that I've never met, and they were very sweet. This little boy is the same age as Elora, my sister's daughter Isabelle, and the flower girl:



This is his sister, who is about Joshua's age. She is being held by her uncle, the other cousin I haven't seen in ages. Isn't it nice to see the men off to the side holding the babies, rather than the women? What great guys. Hi Joseph and Joshua!


Elora was very excited to go to a wedding. When we told her where we were going, she said, " I can wear my sparkly blue dress! I don't wear a white dress, because that would make me married."
Where do they pick up these things? It was fun to see her watching the bride go down the isle. She was very good sitting still during the ceremony; it was just before and after that she had problems with wandering and climbing the scenery:



Oh yes, Joshua did his share of exploring too.



Afterward, the reception was inside the building. It was set up very nice in the couple's colors, blue and silver. I wandered in before the party started (following a running Elora of course) and happened upon these lovely glasses. They served crackers, cheese, croissant sandwiches filled with a delectable chicken salad (with grapes and cashews), and mini cream cheese cakes. Later on, they also served the wedding cake.


I have to say I was pretty impressed with how well the reception turned out. The majority of the wedding receptions I have attended consisted of the guests sitting at the tables, eating a few nuts and mints, giving their well-wishes to the bride and groom (who stand in a reception line the whole time), and then leaving. My own reception was a little more than that, but not too super exciting.
This reception had a DJ that was great at getting people involved. It also helped that the groom has been a show-off his whole life, and loves to be the center of attention. He had some unique dance moves, (very break-dance-esque) and was happy to show off for the crowd. His fellow Marines and their dates were all awesome dancers as well; they even made the Macarena look good! There was even conga line:



Joseph had a great time busting a move too:



But I think Elora was the most excited about the dancing. She refused to dance with Joseph or I (which broke Joseph's heart) but she had no qualms about asking complete strangers to dance with her! She danced with a bridesmaid, a girl with a short black dress, one of my male cousins in his twenties...at least she did let Grandma dance with her once:



In the end I think the happy couple had a good time, and it turned out well for their important day.