Mighty Wedding Weekend

This past weekend we traveled to Illinois to help celebrate Alissa's wedding. Alissa is one of Beth's nieces and she hitched-up with longtime bo Peter Wright. Yes ... she found Mr. Wright and she married him!


Preparations

When we arrived on Thursday, preparations were in full swing. We were greeted (sort of) by the new family pet, Cheyenne. Some say her name is really "Shy Ann" because she is very very afraid of strangers. She didn't actually let any of us touch her at any time over the weekend.

The front of the house looked like a real circus as a crew was there pitching the giant tent to be used for the reception. Once the tent was up we all helped out by setting up tables, chairs, napkins, and center pieces.

Lots was going on inside the house as well. Sweets for the reception were being gathered in the dining room, last minute arrangements were being made with the caterer, and Kaitlin was painting a sign to be used for the reception.


Rehearsal

The rehearsal was at the church on Friday at 4:30. Everything went very smoothly. The pastor and the wedding coordinator really knew what they were doing. Emma & Ryan seemed up to the task of being Flower Girl and Ring Bearer. And I didn't see any panic in the faces of the bride and groom to-be.


"Incident"?

At the end of the rehearsal Emma broke down. She started crying uncontrollably and went to her Mom's lap. At first we thought that maybe she was tired. But then she told us she thought she wouldn't get to see Alissa anymore after she got married. Emma had a teacher at pre-school who got married and didn't return to school. So Emma thought she would lose Alissa.


High-Speed Chase

After the rehearsal it was my job to drive both our family and Beth's mom, Beverly, to the Wright's house for the rehearsal dinner. But I didn't know where the Wright's house was. So the plan was for me to follow Terry & Pam.

But Terry & Pam were still in the church when we were ready to leave. So I spotted a car with a young driver and two of the grandparents in it. I figured I could follow them.

It seemed like a good plan.

As we got underway, however, it became clear that it is hard to follow someone if they don't know you are following them. It's even harder if they don't know where they are going either and are trying to follow the car in front of them. We came to a light that was almost red and the car I was following gunned it. I decided not to try to beat the oncoming traffic and stopped at the light. We could see our target up at the next stoplight. I was determined to catch them.

When our light turned green, I gunned it and started weraving between cars. The car we were trying to catch got in the left-turn lane and we got right behind it. Only it was the wrong car. We then realized we had passed the car we were trying to catch and it was going straight. No problem. I waited in the left-turn lane and then moved back into the straight lane right behind the real car.

We made it the rest of the way without incident.


Wedding Day

The wedding day turned out to be beautiful despite calls for rain. It was a gorgeous, hot, humid, and breezy day. Perfect for a wedding!

Beth took Emma over to the church at 9:00am to get dressed and be part of all the pictures. My job was to bring Braxton, Bayley, and Beverly at about 10:00am. Unfortunately there was a very bad accident at the corner of Orchard and Randall Road. Two fire engines, an ambulance, and a number of other emergency vehicles were at the scene and Randall was shut down. We had to take a lengthy detour to get to the church, but we made it on time.

The wedding was beautiful. The pastor spoke to the incredible value of the love between spouses. Even if you lose all your earthly possession you still have something great as long as you have each other. The ceremony closed with a slide show made up of pictures of Alissa and Peter as they were growing up. Beautiful!


Reception

The reception also turned out great. It was very windy, but everything in the tent held together. The wedding party entered the tent in a procession with each couple getting their own introduction. When it was time for the Bride & Groom to enter they played the theme music from Rocky. Cool!

The food was excellent. The caterer had provided a Swedish brunch. There was an egg bake with slices of beef, Finnish pancakes, chicken pot-pie, ham, cinnamon rolls, and lots of other food. They also had "hot-dog people" for the kids to eat.

Then there were the toasts. A toast from the best man, a toast from Alissa's sisters, and a toast from the Bride's father in which he got choked up. It was a very touching collection of things he had learned from Alissa as she grew up and it also touched on how poor this family was when Alissa was born.


Congratulations, Alissa & Peter!!!


+ posted by David