Wedding Weekend

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to my brother Matt and his new bride Katie.  They got married last weekend in a beautiful ceremony on a gorgeous day and had a super fun party.  Ty, Leah and I flew down on Thursday night and came back home Monday morning, and we had an action-packed 3 days.  Everything was wonderful and we are so excited that Katie is now officially part of the family.  My sister also brought her boyfriend Ethan home for the wedding, which was the first time I had met him.  He is great and we had a lot of fun getting to know him this weekend.

Friday morning was actually pretty low-key, and then in the afternoon Leah surprised me by taking a 2-hour nap.  I had to check on her a couple times to make sure she was still breathing.  I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at the long nap since she didn’t fall asleep until 10pm the night before and then was up at 6:30.  But 2 hours!  She woke up just in time for the chaos to start.  The whole Cunningham clan came over to my parents’ house to attempt a family picture and then we headed to the rehearsal.  We had been talking about how to best get Leah down the aisle in her wheelchair and decided that we’d have her big cousin, Bailey, who was the Ring Boy (because he is not a bear), push her chair.  They practiced it a few times, and it seemed to go very well.  This gave him a very important job and ensured that Leah would make it.  It worked great the rehearsal, but would they do it on the big day in front of 350 people?

The wedding day was absolutely gorgeous, 75 and sunny, not a cloud in the sky.  Leah was cooperative with an early nap, and we were able to get several family pictures in our fancy outfits before heading to the church.  I brought her clothes to the church and got her dressed with all the girls.  The dress was a huge hit!  Katie’s wedding color was navy blue, and Leah’s little dress was navy with silver glittery sparkles, which I soon found out went everywhere.  (She still has silver glitter in her hair, 2 baths later).  She was so happy rolling around in her chair outside as everyone was getting to the church.  This was the same church where Ty and I got married almost 11 years ago and where my parents also got married 34 years ago, so it’s a special place for our family. 

At 2:00, the guests were seated, the bridal party started to line up, and I sat in the back with Leah in her chair.  Would she go through with it??  She was so cute, waving to everyone as they walked down the aisle.  The grandmothers, then the moms, the attendants, and then it was Leah and Bailey.  I got her chair to the center of the aisle, Bailey had his hands on the back, and then off they went.  Bailey’s mom and I ran up the side to meet them at the front, and I totally started tearing up as the whole church did a collective “AWWWW.”  I could hear the photographers frantically taking picture after picture, and then I heard it.  “WAHHHHHHHHHHH”  Yep, about half-way down the aisle, she screamed.  I got around to the front just in time for Bailey to park her chair and I got her out and quieted her down while Katie made her big entrance.  There were tears but they made it!  I watched the video later that night and had to laugh because it was hilarious!  Bailey was all business, totally straight-faced, he was on a mission.  Leah, even though she was freaked out, held onto the ring pillow until she chucked it at the very end.  They did much better than I expected, and I was so proud of them both.  I wish she was a little older so she could remember this.

After the ceremony we did a few pictures at the church and then headed to the reception hall.  We were early so I checked into our room (we planned to stay there overnight) and had about an hour to hang out there and have some quiet time.  I thought Leah might fall asleep but again, she was a trooper and powered through the reception.  Bailey and Leah were the only little ones at the wedding and then the other 3 cousins came to the reception for a little bit.  After dinner, all 5 of them got out on the dance floor, Leah in her wheelchair, and they went a little crazy!  It was so much fun watching them together, dancing around, Leah spinning in her chair.  I couldn’t believe her move, where did they come from??  Again, I wish she was older and could remember having so much fun with her cousins.  After about an hour on the dance floor, she was done.  Busy day, tired baby.  She actually pointed to the door and wanted to go home.  We took her back up to the room and she crashed.

On Sunday morning we went back to my parents’ house for brunch and to veg out.  We were all tired, it was rainy and chilly outside, and it was the perfect day to eat cinnamon rolls and take a long nap.  Here are a few pictures of the big day.  Enjoy!  And another big congratulations to Matt and Katie!