The First Wedding

Let me start by saying that this wedding was likely one of my most favorite weddings ever. I think I had more fun than I did at my own wedding! This feeling might be attributed to the fact that Auntie Dot took two children with her from Minneapolis to North Dakota, and I was left with just ONE child, the flower girl herself. 
But there were a lot of reasons that the wedding was so much fun other than sleeping and being able to think so clearly in the absence of my usual gaggle of preschoolers.  The first was simply that it was so fun to see really neat college friends we haven't seen for a long time, like the groom, Brian, (in the middle of the following picture) who is just an amazingly nice person, and Brudvig, (on the end of the picture) who is a truly unique and astounding person.  Both of them were some of the first people I met at college, and both of them were roommates of Greg for several years.   I haven't laughed as much as I laughed at the rehearsal supper for a LONG time.
 

The second reason is that Carissa, the bride, is one of the neatest, wittiest people I've ever met. She's just really great. I loved meeting her, and I loved how clean, simple, and friendly everything about her wedding was. There was honestly no one who seemed stressed out at this wedding. Everyone was relaxed, and enjoying visiting with everyone else.

 And there are lots of other reasons too: Brian and Carissa's parents were SO VERY NICE. They seriously dripped of hospitality and friendliness. They were such neat people. (And I got some neat pictures of them, too.) I loved seeing all of the grandmas at the wedding and watching how proud they were about the whole situation (I had a lot of fun stalking those grandma's with my camera from a distance, and can't resist sharing this one. Sadly, I think I missed taking pictures of one of Brian's grandmas, though. She was sneaky about never being in a good spot to photograph.)

I loved all the neat details about the wedding that perfectly showed Brian and Carissa's personality, like the Star Wars figurines on the wedding cake, and that they gave everyone participating in the wedding photo albums with old pictures they had taken at the rehearsal. As you can tell from the photograph below, it was a lot of fun to look at the books and remember.

We were so sad to have to leave the reception a little early to drive to the second wedding, especially because Greg was thoroughly enjoying Brian's carefully selected play list of music during dinner.