Friday the 5th of May was a very busy day. It began by driving my girlfriend to the airport so she could go home. She had to take a very early flight in order to make it home because later flights were filling up fast. I then went from the airport directly to work where I worked a long and full day. From the office I had to drive home as quickly as possible because I had to throw my stuff into my bag to go with the family back to the airport to fly to Illinois so that we could drive up to Wisconsin on Saturday to attend my sister’s wedding.
The Wedding itself was nice. It was in a lovely little chapel next to a mansion on the coast of the lake in Kenosha, WI. It was a very touching ceremony and it was quite good to see Steph and Zachary and Laurel again.
There was a bit of empty time between the Wedding and the Reception so we met up with some friends of ours who had moved up to Wisconsin a year or so ago. It was nice to see the Cantleberrys again. We had a brief lunch with them at Applebees in Kenosha and took this picture of all of us. It was nice to catch up with them, though we were sad to hear that Jim Cantleberry has lost his job recently. Please pray for him that he would find another job soon (especially if you are one of those lucky people who has the privilege of knowing him and his family).
After our fun with the Cantleberry’s we found our way to the reception. I’ve been to a few wedding receptions now since I’ve come “of age,” but this is the first wedding reception I’ve been to since I’ve reached the magic 21 that actually had alcohol at the reception. The party itself was fun. It was very entertaining to see some of the dancing, particularly my parents swing dancing, Zach and Laurel dancing, Dad dancing with Steph, and more of Zach Dancing (see above). Z is quite the character and watching him enjoy himself on the dance floor was a real treat.
There were 3 things about the reception I want to write down here because I want to remember them as good ideas for a wedding reception.
The first was a photo backdrop area where pictures could be taken of people who attended the wedding. This particular picture was not taken by the Wedding Photographer, it was taken on our camera, but Dad and Mom did get a photo in front of the backdrop for Steph’s wedding album.
The second good idea was that there were a couple kids tables with hoola-hoops, crayons and play-dough for the kids to hang-out at. The kids didn’t get quite so bored of the party and they didn’t cause a distraction to the adults.
The third was related to the second. The kids had their own food-line. The reception was a buffet but the kids had their own buffet line with Chicken Tenders and French Fries. This served a dual purpose. First, it gave the kids something else to eat other then what the adults were eating (and thus reduced any complaints about the food from them), and second it again kept the kids from getting bored or tired of waiting as they had their own much shorter line to get food at.
Be sure to click any of the pictures in this article to get to the photo gallery because there are just far too many pictures to actually put in this blog entry.
Late, late Saturday night we drove back to Chicago, and then got less then 2 hours sleep before heading to the airport to catch a very early flight home. It was definitely a tiring but fun weekend.