The Wedding

Weddings are happy occasions, no more so than when one of your own family is the one being married off. So it was the case yesterday as my younger sister Sarah married her boyfriend turned-fiance turned-husband Mike. It was a lovely day (though the weather did not feel like cooperating much), and it was fun to celebrate with family old and new. I had not seen many of my relatives since my own wedding (now 5+ years ago...not sure where that time has gone) and some of them had yet to meet Andres and Celia, so there were introductions and cheek-pinches all around.

Sarah enlisted Andres as the ring-bearer for the ceremony. We practiced walking down the aisle during the rehearsal, but Andres was more interested in shuffling his feet through the gravel of the walkway ("making it hot," as he said--his description of all the dust he was kicking up) to pay much attention to mundane things like when he was supposed to walk, or what he was supposed to hold, or where he was supposed to go. As we stood in the processional line yesterday, I made the decision just to carry him down the aisle to avoid any scene being made. So it was a bit of an interesting scene...my mother and I walking down the aisle together, in the rain, me holding my son, my son holding the rings. He did his job well and presented the rings to Mike's brother in a very matter-of-fact way.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet (and a bit damp). We took some family photos (my collection is here) around Elm Bank before heading inside for cocktail hour. Andres and Celia met family and friends there, but it was very loud in the cocktail room, so they both preferred to hang out in the still-relatively vacant ballroom. Andres was hungry, so he availed himself of the free rolls that seemed to be everywhere:



Soon it was time for them to head home (courtesy of my in-laws, who came to the wedding and then babysat the kids for the evening), which was both a bit sad and a huge relief--it would have been nice for them to stay, but it was much nicer to be able to enjoy the wedding without worrying about tantrums, spit-ups, and bed times.

Cocktail hour ended, dinner began, as did the normal ceremonial fare of any wedding--a toast, a dance, and various people embarrassing themselves on the dance floor. We ended up leaving when the music changed from Frank Sinatra to Miley Cyrus (granted, the impeccable Bo Winiker played no part in the latter); Natalia and I had danced our dances already (I think we did ok, given that we had not done any swing dancing in a long time) and it was time for the younger ones to take over the party.