Congratulations to Matt and Danielle!

It is currently February 2011. This story was written over the intervening time between early December and now. Sorry for the long delay. At this point in time, the official photos are available at Snapfish.

The wedding was this past weekend and things went quite well. Before anything else, we would like to congratulate Matt and Danielle on their marriage and wish them all the best and many years of happiness!

For ourselves, we got off to a later start than hoped, but not necessarily expected, on Friday and didn’t end up needing the early check-in we’d requested. We arrived and unpacked. We got ready for the rehearsal and headed off to the church.

During the rehearsal Jason and Meredith were pretty personable and and did their parts. Meredith was talkative and checking out the other girls’ jewelry. Jason stood quietly by Uncle Mike. Daniel didn’t feel much like participating and instead sat by us in the first row. This is not entirely unexpected as Daniel tends to take a bit to warm up to people he doesn’t know and often avoids being the center of attention. We knew we could be in for trouble the next day. We reminded him why we were there and why he had his special suit. That was all we could really do as we didn’t want him being too nervous or making noise if he decided to sit it out.

The next day, we spent the morning in the pool at the hotel. This was much loved by the kids. It was fun to watch them warm up to the water. Daniel at first didn’t want to do anything. Before we left, he was jumping in and seeing how deep he could go! Same went for Jason.

We left the pool in time to get Meredith to the room to have her hair done. The kids had some lunch and then I got dressed as Em and Meredith went off to get ready with Aunt Cindy. I got the boys dressed in their special suits, woke up Malcolm and we headed down the meet the girls. Off to the church we went.

Seeing the church in daylight was very different to seeing it the night before. Notably, it sits on the Rock River and the previous night that couldn’t be seen at all. It was a beautiful sight with all the fresh snow (it had snowed overnight). The boys, Daniel in particular, liked watching the ice flow down the river.

We went inside and waited for things to start. There were photos taken and the kids seemed to be keeping their nerve well. When the moment came all three walked down the aisle very nicely. At the front, Daniel came and sat next to me while Jason and Meredith took their places by the other attendants. It wasn’t much longer into the ceremony when Daniel asked if he could stand with the attendants as well. While not next to Jason at the front of the line, Daniel took a spot at the back behind his cousins and did very well!

The ceremony was short and sweet and ended as the sun was setting behind the front of the church. It was quite nice! When it came time to leave, there was a slight misunderstanding and Daniel went on down the aisle before Jason and Meredith. Still, they did very well!

Next it was time for more photos! Much to our surprise, here again the kids did quite well! I didn’t expect them to have the patience to repeatedly head up for photos and then stand still and smile. They did better than I would have in their place.

Once photos were done, it was time to head back to the hotel for the reception. For us, these sort of things are an ordeal. With the food allergies that must be dealt with, there are always hoops for us to jump through. In this case, Emily and the kids headed into the hall to sit down while I went back to our room to get our food. By the time I got down the wedding party was entering the dining hall so I waited outside for them to finish.

Once inside it didn’t take long to find everyone. We settled in and prepared for the food to arrive. I found the server to make sure they knew we were the table with the food allergies. Before too long, to was time for the toast.

Dinner was nice, though it was a bit of a challenge to convince two of our family that eating was a good idea at the time. Daniel was ravenous as ever, but Meredith and Jason seemed to want to do other things. Dinner took longer than we would have expected. As it ended up, Daniel got tired before the music started playing. He asked to go to bed, so off I went to get him to sleep, leaving Em, Jason, Meredith and Malcolm to continue enjoying the festivities. Malcolm and Jason didn’t last too long, so Em came up leaving Meredith with Aunt Cindy. Once the boys were in bed and Em was all set, I headed down to get Meredith. We danced a little and then headed up. Meredith had said she was tired and wanted to go to bed, but in the end it was only a potty break. She asked to go back down and back down we went. She fell asleep on my shoulder and I headed up.

The next morning the plan was to get a little more time in at the pool. The kids were eager to get down and start swimming. As for Em and I, we had much packing to do. It is truly amazing what we brought with and had to pack back up. The kids got ready to go and cousin Evan came to get Daniel and Jason and bring them down to the pool. We could only find one room key at the time, so when Meredith and I were ready we headed down without a key. When we got to the pool, we realized this was a mistake. The pool door is locked and can be opened by a room key. Oops.

We walked around to the windows and saw that the others hadn’t made it in to the pool either. We soon found everyone in the hotel restaurant. After a few minutes, we were back in the pool and splashing around.

After a while, it was time to get out of the pool. It was my job to pack up the van while Em and the kids headed down to watch Matt and Danielle open wedding gifts. Packing up the van took a fair amount of time but I managed to get everything in the van, save the train banks that Matt and Danielle had given the kids which we later realized we had left in the room. By the time I was done, I joined the others and the gift opening was pretty much done. We bade our farewells and got everyone into the van.

Em and I needed to get something to eat, so we headed to one of her local favorites, Beefaroo. With food at the ready, we were off for home and a bright, sunny and cold December Sunday. After we were home and unpacked, that’s when we realized the banks were missing. We called the hotel and left a message. In the end, Matt and Danielle were able to get them from the hotel for us.

We would like to send our sincere congratulations to Matt and Danielle! We wish you the best of luck in your lives together!

The weekend ended up being pretty good and went much smoother than I for one had anticipated. I was very proud of the kids who were part of the wedding and Daniel in particular for overcoming his fear and doing his part admirably. I think Meredith will have a long lasting happy memory of dancing at the wedding and the boys really want to go back to the pool. Now, time to prep for Christmas!