My Brother’s Wedding

This weekend was quite an exhausting one, yet for a wonderful reason, I got to attend 3 weddings of people that I care about the most. The most dearest was my brother’s – 5 years my junior. He married a beautiful girl, inside and out.  This all took place 2.5 hrs from my house and Lizzie was the flower girl, David the ring bearer, and I was free to control them all.

I am going to jump to the photos in a minute. First a brief description of how my weekend went (and I was so excited by how wonderfully Lizzie enjoyed it all).

Friday was the rehearsal. Lizzie and David had no idea what to expect. Poor Lizzie was exhausted and overwhelmed when we arrived so the rehearsal was entirely lost on her. On the way home one of my tires went flat and moods went downhill pretty quick. I had hoped they would fall asleep fast once at home, and what ended up happening is we all fell asleep in a large heap on our king size bed.

The next day I attempted to make it a fantastic day for Lizzie and David to keep them in good moods for the wedding that night where we got bride and groom limoges cake topper. I also cleaned the house so I could come home to something orderly after the exhaustion of the wedding.  I didn’t mention the wedding at all, I knew if I kept building up to it Lizzie would get stressed out since she really had nothing to go by, not knowing what a wedding was.  Turns out that was a wonderful idea. The night before I allowed her to explore the chapel and upstairs ballroom. On the way to the wedding I began to speak and purposefully did not include Lizzie. Again, another fabulous idea! Here is how the conversation went:

Me: “Dude, do you remember what color Cinderella’s dress was at the end of the movie when she married the prince?”

Dude: “Wasn’t it blue?”

Lizzie: “No! It was white!”

Dude: “Oh, it was white.”

Me: “Yes, and did you know that we are going to the princess house dude? Do you think Cinderella will be there in her white dress?”

Dude: “Oh I bet you are right.”

Lizzie: “I want to wear it! I want to wear the princess dress.”

Me: “Okay Lizzie. Let’s go inside and see if the Fairy Godmother left you a white dress. Do you think you will see a princess marry her prince today?”

Lizzie: “Uh huh. Yeah! I want to see the fairy godmother!”

She was delighted to wear her princess dress and was enthralled with Brandy’s wedding dress. She was glued to her side, thinking she was in the presence of true royalty for the first time ever. They had prepared a rolling horse with a rope to pull it for David to sit on during the ceremony. Lizzie insisted on pulling it but once we started walking down the aisle she remembered what we practiced and started to lay petals and let me pull him.  One minor delay happened when she started to run out of petals before she got to the end. She saw her depleting stash and bent down to pick up more and put them back in her basket. This brought chuckles throughout the crowd.  Then Lizzie was crushed when she realized she could not sit on the horse at the end. 

During the ceremony both children played quietly with the candy I bought, my necklace, my bracelet and daddy’s color square from his tux.I was shocked at their good behavior, and thankful for a short ceremony.

It was a fun reception and Lizzie danced every single song. She made friends with another little boy her age and they played tag half the night. 

We arrived home around 1am and again, fell asleep in a large heap on the bed.

Now for the photos!

And a short video of Lizzie dancing to “Foot Loose.” It is so cute! She was seriously just letting loose and having a blast!