An American Wedding

I think my sister got it right. Have the ceremony amongst a small group of close family on a remote island in the Caribbean, relax and enjoy the actual day. Then come back to your home town, invite everyone and part-ee, part-ee, part-ee.

One of the great things about hosting your wedding reception in your backyard is that you don't have to go home at 10pm when the time is up, you can make (almost) as much noise as you want, and you don't have to worry about staining the carpet. Okay that's three things. How does the song go.. Have you ever been to American Wedding... non of that applies here.

I spent most of last week setting up for my sister's wedding reception, which was held in the backyard of the house I grew up in. I would work on the reception by day, and visit friends at night. Every time I come home I worry that things won't be the same, or things won't be as fun as they were the last time, but then I see my friends and family and realize it just keeps getting better.

The party was a huge success, with almost 100 people in my mom's backyard, a tent, catering from a great Italian restaurant, a band, and cops showing up to tell us to keep it down. In my opinion if the cops don't show up, something went horribly wrong.



We danced all night to the band until the cops showed up. One of the neighbors had complained that we were too loud. But one of my best friends husbands, who is also a cop, went and talked to them to smooth things over and let the band play a few more songs.




I thought it was a good idea...



Now it's catching on...



By the way, the song they were dancing too, was "Grow Old with You" by Adam Sandler...



This picture looks harmless, but after the slow song, they sped it up and the less than sober people started dancing quickly with the candles in their hands and risked spraying hot wax all over everyone. I had to run around and pry them from their hands.

Congrats to the happy couple!



Thanks to Kate for all the great photos, even though we yelled at you for making us pose and blinding us with your unnaturally bright flash, we love you for documenting our lives for the past 25 years.