Weddings : more fun than my last post

If you read about my older brother Mike in the last post, then you know that I am next in the pecking order. Following me is a brother, Steve, who is 5 years younger and my baby bro', Bruce, who is (ye' gods!) 10 years younger. OK, that being said, Steve and wife Patti's son Greg and fiancee Jamie (nee Cox) got married Sept. 19, 2009 in Euclid, Ohio. Our son Grant was in Milan (yes, Italy) on a business trip, but Bill and son Dave and I drove the 9 hrs. to my parents' home in Mentor, Ohio. My parents are now 85 and 87 but plan on staying in their home forever (as well as living forever - my mom anyway, and she may). But that is another story as the saying goes.

It was a wonderful wedding. I'm not being cliched here; OK, maybe I did chose alliteration. But, you decide. Filet mignon at a sit down dinner and a dessert table to knock your eyeballs out. Too bad I had already had them knocked out by the free-flowing spirits and didn't think to take a picture of it. Actually that's not true. It wasn't until the end of the wedding that I found out they had a price per person, and here I had been trying to take it easy on my brother with the cosmo's and wine. David may have put the Pine Ridge Country Club out of business on that front however. Maybe together we broke even along with Bill who was our designated driver.

But, back to the 4-day weekend. We drove up on Thursday afternoon, arriving just after 10:30 p.m. My parents are night owls so that time is not a problem. They also don't ever get up till after 10 a.m. On Friday my mom and I got our hair and nails done and we all even snuck in a trip to Malley's (for ice cream sundaes) after the rehearsal dinner. The rehearsal was at a place called Cabanas, but I have no idea what 'burg we were in. Very fun. Always good to see the nieces and nephews. And hadn't seen Patti's 2 sisters in years. On Sunday, we drove home through at times torrential downpours and at other times just rain. Not so fun. They didn't let me drive, but they made me ride shotgun. I think that was because they wanted access to the car's DVD player in the back seat. I handled the torrential downpours and riding shotgun with a little clonazepan. If you don't know what that is, you are blessed not to have an overactive fight-or-flight response. Seriously, back in the tribe, I would have been put on sentry watch for the tiger.

As I said, weddings are so much more fun than funerals. They are additions rather than subtractions. I always cry at weddings of family and sometimes relative strangers as well. But printed inside the program of this wedding was the following:

The candle on the alter burns for the loved ones we have lost. They are forever in our hearts and always in our thoughts. We miss and love them all.

There were 3 families (or more?) that had suffered significant loss at this wedding. But, one father, who will be 90 in Nov. (and lost his son who was in his 20's or 30's at the time) got out on the dance floor and jitterbugged with his wife like he was 40. Now that looked like a blessing to me!

Pictures: Big Dave (my dad) and Little Dave (my son); Patti and Steve; Greg and Jamie; flowers our table (I love to look at flowers and I would love to have lots in my yard if I had a gardener!)