Wedding weekend

We had the great privilege of taking part in the wedding of some close friends' oldest child this weekend, who also happens to be one of Austin's coworkers now. It seem so crazy because we babysat him in the church nursery when we first met many years ago. Even then, he was a pretty amazing boy, and now he has grown into an even more amazing young man. Austin and I were blessed to be he and his new bride's sponsor couple, helping to prepare them for a sacramental marriage in the Catholic Church. And though we didn't need to be at the rehearsal because we were only bringing up the gifts at the wedding mass, they generously included us in the rehearsal dinner. The whole weekend was just so beautiful!

Father and Mother of the Groom, followed by groom and bride in the Grand March

Our girls' first experience with the Grand March. Last time we went to a wedding that had one, they were teeny! (on a side note, you can see the flower girl there who is a good friend of the girls. She wore their first communion dress! She was supposed to wear hers, but it didn't fit anymore, so she asked to borrow Gloria's. It was so funny to see Gloria later in the evening, dancing with her own dress!)

 Of course, all the children had a grand time at the reception!

 Allia looked so beautiful and grown up (hard to see beyond the giant hand sanitizer bottle...I had to at least try and keep the germs under control!). She wore a dress of Austin's grandmother's, tucked by a pin in the back, that she found in my closet. It had grown a little too snug for me anyway! And she asked for lipgloss and a little blush, to which I slightly grudgingly obliged. ;) Growing up so fast!
And the little munchkin in the photo with her kept us busy. We kept having to retrieve him from the foyer area where he wanted to play, to which he would sprint as soon as we turned our backs!