The Wedding and Reception – written 7/24/2010

Today was the wedding. It was held in the Harmony Grove Church which reminded me a lot of the church in Ansonia, PA where Mark and I were married. The exception is that Mark and I were married on February 11, 1967, in snowy Ansonia with very little heat and my great-niece Melody and Chris were married today July 24, 2010, in STEAMY Georgia with NO air conditioning.

I wish I could include all of my pictures from the wedding in this blog, but I took more than 60 and there just isn’t room for all of them.

The following picture is of my sister-in-law Esther, Melody’s parents (Bob and Donna Dunning) and their sister-in-law Pat standing outside the church before the ceremony began. My great-niece Sara’s boyfriend Eric is in the purple shirt on the right in back of them.

Here is the happy father escorting the beautiful bride up the aisle.

Below is the sand ceremony where the two colors of sand are poured together representing the joining of two lives to become one.

See the happy newlyweds walking down the aisle.

 

Here are the grandmother and grandfather of the bride, my dear sister-in-law Rose and brother-in-law Don whom I just recently visited in Johnson City, NY. They’re the ones who helped with my first “dump-the-black-water” experience. They cleaned up nice, didn’t they?

The wedding reception was held in the Grand Oak Strickland-Thacker House (built circa 1901), a picture of which is shown below with my sister-in-law Esther standing in front. The food was delicious and the wait-staff cordial and efficient. The house has a beautiful plate collection and a lot of antiques.

The groom’s mother and grandmother are shown below as they watch the cake cutting ceremony.

Chris and Melody are cutting the cake here while my niece Donna (standing to the left of Chris) and someone I don’t know look on.

I’m told the cake and cupcakes which my niece Donna made were delicious. I’m not much of a sweet eater so I can’t say, but Esther gobbled hers down. She had one flavored with lemon and lavender. Obviously, Chris and Melody think  it “took the cake” (heh! heh!) as you can see by the way they’re feeding each other samples.

Below is a picture of three of my beautiful great-nieces: Sara, Hannah, and Krysta. Sara and Krysta are Melody’s sisters. Aren’t they all delightful?

Hannah and Krysta are joined here by my great-nephew Tim (Hannah’s big brother). Hannah and Tim, my niece Judy’s children, live in California.

Esther and I really had a great time today. It’s always fun to see family and friends that live far away, people frozen in time--at least in our minds--the way we last saw them. It’s a surprise to see the kids all grown up and the adults with a little or a little more silver in their hair. While appearances can change, their essential self remains pretty much the same. I really have a great family. I wish I knew them all a lot better.

Until next time…