Side Effects from Attending a Cousin's Wedding

Poor Kenneth somehow ended up off to the side.

Chris and Ashley walk down the aisle; first steps as Mr. & Mrs.

Whew! Going to my cousin Ashley's wedding this weekend, which was beautiful, btw, made me a little anxious about our wedding. For one thing, her wedding was exactly 6 months from our wedding day.  That means it's time to get serious about planning! For another, it was intimidating to think that many of the people at her wedding would be coming to ours-- all the love that surrounded Chris and Ashley is a lot to live up to!

I'm sure it's no shock to learn that Kenneth and I talked most of the drive home from Salem to Seattle about what we liked, and what we would do differently at our wedding. We talked through who to have in our wedding party. We're still sorting that out, but we're much closer! We mulled over music options, discussed our registry, talked through rehearsal dinner ideas, and talked more about first dance and parents dance songs. We also realized that some things just can't be helped-- our ceremony is going to be an hour long, and we'll do our best to keep it lively for those with short-ish attention spans. But some things we can control, like making it a meaningful day. Ashley wrapped her bouquet in one of Granny's scarves, used Granny's cake topper, and had Ave Maria play before the ceremony. (Ave Maria was sung by Granny's dad at her wedding and the wedding of all her siblings. It's also been played at all the family weddings since.) Those little touches made the wedding truly special.

Last picture with Granny while at my cousin Jack's wedding, May 2008.

She was really a sweet, jolly old lady, even if the picture doesn't show it.

While we're being sentimental: Losing Granny last November was hard. (I'm absolutely giving an understatement here.) Since then, at each of the 4 weddings I've been to, at some point I have found myself tearing up thinking about how I won't get to see Granny's face or get squeezed in a great big hug from Granny on my wedding day.  Since starting to plan the wedding, it's been hard walking the line between my desire to make Granny as present physically as she will be in spirit at our wedding-- while also remembering that life is for the living. How do we honor our family members in heaven while also holding tight to the joy of the day? To make things more difficult, I'm stumped on how to honor my Granddad. I never met him since he died before I was born, but his marriage to my Granny is one of the best models for lifelong love that I've ever seen. A love that lasted nearly 30 years after one partner died. That's the kind of love I ask God to give Kenneth and I.

One last thing about the weekend: We finalized our guest list and addressed our save-the-dates! I stuck the little polar bear stamps on each one and sent them today. Being a bad blogger, I've got no pictures since my camera is still MIA, but rest assured it was momentous dropping those suckers in the mail box. One more major wedding task DONE! I'll post on the save-the-dates soon.

B.