Weddings

I love weddings. I love going to weddings. Weddings usually make me cry. I get all nostalgic and think about my own wedding, which I loved every minute of. Everybody told me that my reception was the most fun they ever had at a wedding. I was proud of that, because we hired the "one man band" guy we had seen at another wedding because he really knew how to work the crowd. We chose really cool songs for our first and last dances and because it was before Christmas, we chose poinsettia plants as the centerpieces. For the seating assignments, we attached the "Table #__" cards to a Christmas ornament with our names and our wedding date hand-written on them, that I made myself. It's been 14 years and people still tell me they hang their ornament up and think of us every Christmas. I love that!

I remember my brother telling me that he felt like a fish inside a fishbowl on his wedding day, where everyone was watching him and Di and their every move. All eyes on them. I loved that feeling! I know, I know, this doesn't shock those of you that know me well. (My brother also used to say I had a mouth the size of Peru, and my nickname from a close family friend was "Motor Mouth". I am NOT shy.) I still watch my wedding video once in a while. Hubby still has never watched the entire thing!! That was our agreement - he didn't want it video-taped, I did. So, the agreement was that I would never MAKE HIM watch it. Marital harmony!

This coming weekend, Hubby and I are traveling to a wedding in Pennsylvania. The groom was one of my former teens when I was doing the High School Youth Group at Church. He was a sulky, moody boy who showed up at the Mass because his new girlfriend dragged him there. At first I figured we'd see him this once and he'd never return, girlfriend or not. But he surprised all of us by coming back again and again. When we wanted to paint our youth center, he offered to paint a mural on one wall. At one point he was so upset about a youth group issue that he staged a boycott until we heard him and his peers out. His graduating "class" from the youth group are among some of my favorite teens to this day.

After he graduated, we didn't see him as much, but kept in touch with him. One day he called us and asked if we would consider him joining the adult team for the youth group. I was so happy and proud. He wrote a paper for a college class about his experiences with the youth group and how we all helped him change his life around. I have never, ever, been more humbled by someone else than I was that day.

Well, he joined our team and in the long run (and I do mean LONG run, many years and a few parish changes later) ended up running the youth group!! He has since "retired" (as have I) and met the love of his life who he will marry on Saturday. I don't have any younger siblings, and he is an only child, so we are always joking that he is my little brother and I am his sister. I really, really like his wife-to-be, too, and I tell him all the time that I might even like her better than I like him. Typical older sister thing to say, huh?!

I am truly blessed to be able to witness this marriage and I hope they have many, many years of happiness.

((tear))

- G