The Wedding

Emily's wedding was fantabulous. It was very elegant and yet still comfortable. Emily was gorgeous! It is a great memory!

The week started on Sunday, 6 days before the wedding. Skip and I started moving loads of stuff to his family's farm in Cuero, Texas. We moved sooooooo much stuff for the wedding and reception.

The farm belongs to Uncle Bob and Aunt Dotty. It's become a place of refuge and familial connection for our family. And, Uncle Bob and Aunt Dotty have become very important to our family. I'm so glad to be family with them. They have always been generous with the house letting us use it as our own little private get-away.

The last time our extended family was together at the farm was for Skip's father's funeral.What a strange weirdity that our next big family get together would be for Emily's wedding.Ya know, in this situation, you have to look at the life of the house and wonder just what memories it holds of the family. It was built around 1900. Skip's dad was born in the house (1912) and his parent's lived there with his grandparents in the early 1930's.

So anyways, back to 2009, we built a dance floor in the front yard of the house under a massive oak tree. We love that tree. Our kids have played in it many times and now it holds a new memory for us - the tree Emily and Ryan were married under, the tree where Emily and Ryan had their first dance, the tree where Skip and Emily had their father-daughter dance, and the tree where Debby Snow and I disco danced in the reception dance-off!

Family and friends were so amazing when it came to lending a hand helping with whatever needed to be done (and there was a lot that needed to be done). I actually gained a new relationship with my sister-in-law and renewed an old relationship with my neice-in-law. I'm so grateful for their friendship. There is no way that we can ever thank them enough!

Before the wedding, I had a really hard time visualizing just how it was all going to happen. But Emily did a fabulous job (well, Emily along with a lot of help from family and friends!!!) - it was perfect!