Fun weddings are the BEST kind!

Yesterday, Paul, the kids, and I traveled to Chicago to watch Britni and Sebastion get married. The ceremony was different than any wedding I'd attended before. Ushers didn't seat anyone. You seated yourself. Kevin (Dad of the bride) escorted his wife to her seat. I didn't even see that. Julie (the mother of the bride) is a good friend of mine. We have done some really fun things together. (Beth Moore conference, Holiday World, birthday parties, graduation parties, decorate the additions on our church building, decorate and paint the parsonage for our new pastor and his family, etc) She has loved me through some really hard times in my life (I hope I've been as good of a friend to her in her hard times!). We have cried together and laughed together a lot over the years. It was an honor to be part of her oldest daughter's big day. Julie looked beautiful and so did her daughter, Britni.

Brookelyn reading the program and waiting for the ceremony to start.

My handsome Naters who wore his "Big-Man suit" (His words, not mine) and beautiful Lauren at the wedding.

Nathan and I at the reception. How in the world this kid kept his eyes open, I have no idea. He had about 8 hours of sleep the night before and no nap the day of the wedding and swam for a couple of hours between the wedding and reception! He loved dancing, having his picture taken (in the booth below), eating, and just being a kid. He also managed to dip his finger in the un-cut wedding cake before most of the guests even entered the reception ballroom! (Shhhh! Don't tell!)



Above is the photobooth. This was one of the highlights of the reception. You could put on hats or boas and get in the photobooth and do whatever you wanted. The pictures dropped into the trough and then you took them to the guy at the table. He cut them and gave you one copy, then put the other copy on scrapbook paper so you could write beside it and the bride and groom got to keep it. It was seriously SO. MUCH. FUN!!! We even got Paul to do it a couple of times! *gasp* When I figure out the scan feature on my printer, I'll try to scan at least some of the pictures and blog them so you can see how fun it was. Julie's youngest daughter, Malori, (a college freshman) was a good sport and took pictures with my girls too. Even Chuck and Hila got in on the fun!

Because Sebastion is Polish (came to America as a tween), most everything was translated and lots of Polish music was played at the reception. There was also Polish food served. I tried most of it, but not quite all of it. I couldn't bring myself to try the beet salad. I wish I hadn't tried the cucumber in sour cream salad. ick! However, most of it was super delicious! The cake had different flavors in it. The one I had had raspberry icing in it. The one Julie had (she sat down and ate her cake with me) had toffee bits in it.

The thing that Lauren and I liked the most about the dessert bar was the creativity of how it was displayed with different shaped plates, bowls, jars, platters, etc. This wedding oooooozed creativity.

At about 10:30, they opened the dessert bar. It was unbelieveable. It had tiny pastries of all sorts, different candies, a small fountain, and a huge tray of fresh fruit. We left around 11:30 but they were going to serve a deli tray and some other foods at midnight. I don't think we could have partaken in that anyway. We were STUFFED!

Lauren was so excited that she got the bouquet. She actually didn't catch it. It landed on the floor. She picked it up. LOL! She wanted me to take a picture of her with it for Nana.

(Sorry it's sideways, I'm not sure what happened. When I get the chance, I'll come back and fix it.)