My Sister's Wedding

Two weeks ago, my little sister got married.  I have only one sibling – just Sharon and me.  Sure, we fought when we were little, but now we’re super close.  She’s one of my best friends and I call her (almost) daily.  Whether she picks up is another story . . . but to be fair, she lives in New York, and I usually call her to pass the time while I’m stuck in traffic on my horrendous commute home.  I can’t expect anyone to answer the phone on a regular basis at 8 or 9 pm on a weeknight.

On the wedding day morning, the plan was that the female contingent of the bridal party would meet for breakfast at the hotel super early at 7am.  Then the groom’s side would meet an hour later after we had vacated and started to get prettified.  (My family is not super traditional, but one of the few traditions we cling to is that the Bride and Groom must not see each other the day of the wedding before the ceremony.)

Guinevere hung out with the girls while we got pretty.  She was really well behaved!  She seemed perfectly happy to just sit on the bed in the hotel room and play with her toys while we prepared.  At one point, she got tired, so I sang her a naptime song and laid her down.  She fussed a little and then fell asleep.

Once we were all ready, the girls headed over to the venue.  I needed a little extra time to get Guinevere in her flower girl dress, so I went on a later shuttle.  There’s a great story to the flower girl dress Guinevere wore: a couple years ago, when my dad, uncle and I were cleaning out my grandmother’s house to get it ready to rent out after we moved her into assisted living for Alzheimer’s, I came across a Nordstrom’s box with my grandmother’s writing on it.  It said, “For my great-granddaughter.”  She didn’t have any great grandchildren at the time, so I kept the box for whichever of the cousins had a little girl first.  As I was getting the nursery ready before Guinevere was born, I came across this box again.  I had stashed it in the closet and completely forgotten about it.  It was then that I realized I would be the one having the first great granddaughter!  I opened the box and pulled out this adorable little white dress with pink florets.  It was perfect for a flower girl dress!  I sent a picture to my sister to see if she thought it would work for her wedding.  She loved it!  My grandmother has since slipped even further into her Alzheimer’s – to the point where we weren’t able to have her at the wedding, so it was really nice to be able to have a piece of her there .

Guinevere in her flower girl dress.

The wedding was at a place called Twin Oaks in San Marcos, just North of San Diego.  The venue is a historic schoolhouse and its surrounding grounds.  The girls relaxed with some Prosecco cocktails in the schoolhouse before the ceremony while the boys had the run of the outside grounds. 

The girls with Prosecco!

The ceremony was beautiful.  My sister looked gorgeous!  Aaron carried Guinevere down the aisle and then handed her off to my aunt (he was standing up on Will’s side).  She fussed a little, but then took a nap while my aunt held her through most of the ceremony.

Aaron & Guinevere right before heading down the aisle.

After the ceremony, we took the standard bridal party pictures.  Once Guinevere and I were dismissed, I found a quiet room to nurse in.  I brought pumped bottles for her, but this helped with things not being quite so, er, painful.  G took another nap in her stroller during the cocktail hour.  We made our grand entrance (G still napping in the stroller) and then speeches happened right away!  I knew I was going to have to give a speech – I just didn’t realize it was going to be one of the first events of the reception.  I think my speech went well – I got several laughs, so that’s good.  Here’s the speech (in case you’re interested).

Flower girl has a crush on the ring bearer.

Guinevere did really well throughout the entire wedding.  The one downside is that there were so many new people that G got a little overwhelmed.  She all of a sudden decided that only mommy could hold her – not even Aaron or my parents could keep her happy!  So I missed almost half the reception feeding her a bottle.  I’m kind of sad because I really wanted to dance a lot more than I did.  Though, the songs I danced to, were a lot of fun!  I even brought Guinevere out on the dance floor with me!

At the end of the night, G fell asleep in my arms and Aaron wrapped his coat around the both of us.  I didn’t get nearly as many pictures as I wanted (kind of hard to do when you’re running around being MOH), but I have priceless memories that I will cherish forever.

Good luck to the new Mr. & Mrs. DeBeauchamp . . . now I’m gonna go get me a glass of wiiiiine!*

*read the MOH speech if you don’t get that reference.