Something Borrowed, Something Red, White & Blue

Now that we are in the full swing of summer, we can enjoy the multiple seasons that summer has to offer. Baseball season, beach season and wedding season.

July 4th marked the blessed day that Lady Di's mother's brother's granddaughter got married. So that makes her my second-grand-niece-in-law. Although, I may be mistaken. I, myself, was riding Lady Di's shirttails all the way to the church. But even if I am a shirttail relative, my decision to marry Lady Di all those years ago legally entitles me the right to a piece of wedding cake and to dance the funky chicken in public.

You may ask, why would someone schedule their wedding on the 4th of July? Apparently, one of the bride's fondest childhood memories was of her dad taking her and her sisters to watch fireworks at this country club every year. And since we had no real firework plans ourselves, her wedding fit very nicely into our schedule.

I mentioned wedding cake earlier. To me, wedding cake is the highlight of every wedding. The vows, the tears, the toast, the bouquet tossing all take a back seat. Three types of cake were served. Chocolate, marble and three layer white cake with raspberry filling. Butter cream frosting was used on all. Whipped frosting may be healthier, but I prefer butter cream. And don't get me started on fondant!

Obviously, the wedding had a patriotic theme. And it looks like the happy couple enjoys motorcycles. Sweet Pea was in charge of cake photography.

She did take a break from photography to plant herself front and center for the bouquet toss. Luckily for us, the toss went high and right.

I said that cake was the highlight of the wedding but actually the highlight for me was when the bride's older sister sang an original song that she had written accompanied on the guitar to the happy couple.

The bride comes from a very musical family. Her grandmother plays piano and organ for their church. She has one uncle that plays piano and one uncle that plays guitar. Her father is also an accomplished guitar player. The bride and her two sisters also formed a band that they still play in called Trinity. And the music all started with the bride's great-grandma Ollie who can still pluck a pretty good folk song at 96 years old.

When the family music ended, the dance music began. And Sweet Pea was on a mission to dance her booty off to every song played this night.

I had to loan SP a dollar for this dance. I think it was a dollar well spent for such a nice picture.

The flower girl in the wedding was about a year younger than Sweet Pea, but that didn't stop her from asking Number One Son to dance. You could tell he was a little embarrassed but he danced part of a song with her. I guess he has now reached the age when he doesn't want to put himself out there as much as he used to. There weren't any girls his age at the reception, but I'm not sure if that would have helped him dance more or just serve to increase his embarrassment. He only found the dance floor for a few group line dances. The rest of the time he watched or blew bubbles with the bubble party favors.

Before the dance, SP went through about three tubes of bubble soap before the salads were served. After the meal, SP's older cousins showed her a trick they could do with the bubble soap. They each showed her how they could blow bubbles filled with 'pretty white clouds'. Then when the bubbles popped, the clouds would wisp away like the 'smoke' from a candle. I told SP that only her cousins could blow bubbles like that.

The evening ended with the fireworks show, of course. We had a front row seat for a spectacular show. I can certainly see why the bride wanted to relive such fond memories from her youth. The show prompted N1S to exclaim, "This is the best wedding I've ever been to!"