A Wedding

This past weekend we drove to Michigan for a wedding.

A wedding that just a scant 7 months ago, we thought might not happen.

My brother, who wandered for a few years, who dabbled, who threw out, who turned away, who scoffed and even argued at times, found his way, put aside, embraced, turned back, rejoiced and agreed once again. My brother found his feet again and when that happens it’s so much easier to walk where God leads.

God led him to Anna, and she had to do some turning of her own, but soon they were both going the right direction and found that they were holding hands along the way.

They decided to get married, and we decided to get excited about it.

So we packed up our little van and dressed up our little boys and we had a long drive through endless rain to get there. We stayed at my aunt Esther’s house and the boys loved it. Aron asked if we could just drop them off there, because he didn’t want to come back home.

We drove around on Friday, stopping first at the new house my brother closed on that morning for he and his bride. We picked up a few necessities at Walmart, grabbed a quick lunch and went to the tux shop to make sure everything fit. It didn’t fit and there was much frustration.

We found out that Men’s Warehouse, where Kris and Ivan were measured here in Tennessee, has a reputation for sending the wrong measurements to other tux places to make them look bad. This is when Kris recalled the woman at Men’s Warehouse saying his size and the manager of the store ordering her to write down the next size up. He assumed this was a “tux” thing and that she was a professional doing her job. Thankfully, they were able to overnight the correct size for us.

We visited with my sister who had flown from China to be there, funny, she flew from Scotland to be at my wedding. We have all tried to get married without her but she always finds a way to show up.

We had a rehearsal and I got a few pictures. They aren’t very good because it was pretty dark, but I’ll share them anyhow.

This is Anna and the back of Joel’s head.

The wedding party.

Aron, doing his job.

Our cousins, Tobey and Jesse.

Joel, Anna and Sadie.

I kind of like that Anna is laughing in every picture.

The wedding singers. Hope, Landis and Faith sang a song during the lighting of the unity candles. It was pretty special. Owen loves his cousins.

Just Sadie looking cute.

We ate together, laughed a little and slept well while the snow fell.

We finally tasted some winter weather but we didn’t have the energy to venture out into it much. Kris went to get his better fitting tux, but that is all. I wandered around outside some with the camera. It was a vicious biting wind that blew and the snow fell sideways for a while. It made a couple nice pictures though.

We drove, carefully, to the wedding and it was very nice. It was family only, with a few special exceptions, and the place was still pretty full, and not all the family even came.

Owen lit candles, Ivan was the ring “bear” and Kris was an usher. I joined my sisters to light the candle our mom would have lit if she had been there. Ivan did an excellent job and I was very proud of him. He actually had the real rings in his pockets and delivered them with a lot of class. He also fell quite hard for Sadie, the flower girl he was escorting. They both seemed quite smitten with each other and begged to sit together at the reception. They were together the rest of the evening. Playing and talking and having a great time. It was unarguably adorable.

Aron wondered what he was supposed to do. I had told him that looking cute was a good occupation for little boys and he announced to several people that that was his job. He ended up falling asleep in the pew just before the wedding started and stayed asleep through the whole thing. I finally woke him up as they were cleaning up the food at the reception. I wanted him to eat a little before we took him home and put him to bed.

My friend (and second cousin) Shannon came to the wedding too. I haven’t seen her in a good while and it’s ALWAYS good to catch up with her. She always makes me laugh, and laugh, and laugh. I do it to her too.

The happy couple drove away and our little van full of well dressed men and me, were headed back to our beds when a little boy in a tux spoke up from the back seat,
“I sure do like that Sadie Elizabeth Fish,” he said.

I thought it was so cute that he said her full name.

We stayed up late talking and visiting with my aunt and uncle and my cousin Emily. Like the boys, I sort of wished we could stay a little longer, but there was much to do at home and leaving early to avoid a small snow storm was on the agenda.

Aron and I were up in the middle of the night, him with a fever, and me with him. He finally asked to go back to bed and I obliged but sleep was brief. It was time to be up and go way too soon. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone and Kris got us taken care of nicely.

It was a good trip home with a stop in Indianapolis to see a cousin and his family that couldn’t make it to the wedding. We ate dinner at home, slept in our own beds and I literally slept for 9 hours without moving. I don’t think I even rolled over. That never happens and I felt so incredible the next day. If only I could do that every night.

It was a great weekend, family, friends, snow and wind but mostly a wedding.