Amber's wedding

My cousin, Amber, got married yesterday! Jeremy had ran 12 miles (gulp...) that morning & he was afraid he would wither away to nothing before the reception - so he brought himself a snack...to eat...before the service...in the sanctuary... My cousin, Ann on the right is the brides mom.
And I don't know what it is about weddings, but I love 'em. I don't know why. I get all teary eyed & emotional which is NOT really like me.
Maybe it's the bride walking down the aisle with her (step)dad towards her new life?

Maybe it's my brother facebooking or texting during the service?!

Maybe it's the innocence of the bride & groom as they enter their new life?

And all they know is they love each other. And it's them against the world. Love conquers all right? blah, blah, blah...

Maybe it's because I know they have NO clue what's going to happen to them? Car payments, electric bills, house payments, cooking & cleaning...

Actually, I think it's the anticipation of eating cake that gets that tear in my eye...

My mom's side of the fam is not real close. So when we're all together it's like a mini-family reunion. Mom's in the middle with her 2 sisters & 2 of her 3 brothers. The 3rd brother wasn't there. They all had a falling out...sad, but necessary.

And this is me & Jer with most of our cousins. There were 6 missing. We used to go to Grandma's house every.single.Sunday when we were little. We all played together - outside. We played hide & seek, we buried each other under leaves that fell off Grandma's trees, we played all kinds of Easter egg games... I miss my Grandma...

There were bowls of chex mix & m & m's on each table. We devoured the chex mix right away. And you can see the other bowl is empty (that was the m&m's...), so Jer went & told the grooms mom he was starving so she gave him the bag of chex mix to re-fill our bowl... (An example of what a small world it is? The groom's parents used to be Jer's scout master when he was in Cub scouts... after seeing the groom, Jer remembered him from when he was a little boy hanging around.)

Check out my cousin photo bombing me. What in the world?!

So, of course I scolded her & we did a do-over... I like my smile better in the first one. Hmph...

I had to threaten Brad within an inch of his life to come to the wedding. It was at 1:00 in the middle of the day which just really throws a wrench into his farming thang. He said, "Ugh, why does it have to be in the middle of the day?!" I said, "Well, uhm, I'm sure they didn't really worry about YOUR schedule when they picked the day & time?!" Then I really laid it on thick, "What if it was YOUR family? You'd be there. Period." So he came to the wedding. He wasn't gonna stay for the reception - we even drove seperate cars. I tried the 'free food' angle, but he said, "I gotta get back home to finish the planter!" Well, see the guy on the right? Brad likes him WAY more than he does me - so he relented & went to the reception & ate chex mix & m&m's...

First dance...

Jer helped one of our cousins kids open the hershey kiss packages... uhm, that's a knife...an awfully big knife...
And Gabe was all about that! (Just because Jer probably CAN have kids...doesn't mean he SHOULD...)

It's hard to tell, but Gabe's mouth was PACKED with hershey kisses. His cheeks were poofed out!

Then it was time for the single men to go out. And Jer wanted NO part of it. So mom & Aunt Mary were pointing him out to the dj.

Then they tried to remove him with physical force. And he went limp. And it was hilarious!

So I yelled out to Amber & she came & drug him out there! He can't refuse the bride!

Me & the bee-u-ti-ful bride!