July 2022 Recap: A Family Wedding!

Well, the month of July went right by, and I never wrote about the most memorable parts of it!  But better late than never, right?

Just before the Fourth of July, the oldest child of one of my husband's younger sisters got married.  Although both this son of hers and his lovely bride grew up in NC (they met in grade school and started dating in high school), he had spent many weeks of his childhood summers in Upstate NY, staying at his maternal grandparents' house on the lake (the same house where my husband and I now spend our summers, while we manage our Oyster Have rental property just down the road).   The bride had visited often over the years as well and fell in love with the area, so they decided to get married up here.  For the extended Pearl family, this was extremely convenient.  Aside from the large house where they grew up, three of my husband's sisters own a total of four houses within spitting distance of each other and the family homestead, so not too many on our side needed to find lodging.  Also, my husband's older sister owns Valcour Brewing Company, a craft brewery/restaurant located in an historic building known as the Old Stone Barracks, and it has a number of inn-style rooms to rent.  She blocked off all the rooms for family and that's where our youngest son and his wife (the only ones who as yet have no children) stayed during the wedding weekend.

Our gang didn't end up staying at our Oyster Haven house as you might expect, because we rented it to the bride's NC-based family for the week leading up to the wedding until the day after.  The rehearsal dinner, followed by a party for all the wedding guests--where we enjoyed dancing to live Irish music provided by a family band made up of relatives of the bride (I believe it was agreed that they'd out-Irished the very Irish Pearl clan!)--was at an event center literally next door to Oyster Haven, so our house was perfect for them.  And they enjoyed the lake in the time leading up to the big day--and also enjoyed getting pictures of the bridal party after the wedding, with our extremely picturesque view in the background.  (My husband and I, and three of our boys who have 13 kids between them, stayed in a local hotel.  Then we all moved into the house the Sunday after the wedding, for our annual Pearl family lake vacation; but more about that in a future post!)

Anyway, it was such a beautiful, joyful day!  The wedding ceremony took place in the church where my husband and I got married way, way back in 1980.  (The parents of the groom, and many other Pearl relatives in attendance, had gotten married there as well!)  I can't believe I didn't get one picture of the happy couple at the church, as they were joined in Holy Matrimony...or maybe I can, as everyone in the family had been included on the guest list.  That means 13 of our 19 grandchildren were in attendance that day (our oldest son and his family who moved to Iowa in January were not able to make the trip), and we sat with some of them during the wedding Mass.  So I was not in picture-taking mode.

After the wedding, there was some lag time before the reception started.  So we took the kids over to the Pearl family homestead, and we let them go down to the lake (while mothers' cries of "Don't get your clothes wet!" could be heard drifting down from above).

At "the wall" (the seawall near the water) at my husband's childhood home,
with a few of my boyfriends.  ;)

The setting for the reception--on the grounds in front of the Old Stone Barracks--was absolutely perfect for an event that included so many small children: outside, under a tent (and the weather totally cooperated!), with tons of room to run around and play.  

It wasn't that long ago that these two had their beautiful wedding
reception in a similar setting: out in a field, under a big white tent!

The kiddos really brought their A-game.  They all behaved so well.

And they danced!

Daddy-Daughter dance!

Mother-Son dance!

This is how Papa and Grammy dance, with a baby between them!

There were three sets of triplets at the wedding: our almost-5-year-old grandchildren (who belong to son #4), my husband's younger sister's college-aged trio, and the twenty-something BRIDE and her brother and sister.  

Triplets, in triplicate!

It was a truly wonderful day, enjoyed by all.  And I hope it will be a happy memory for all of these little people I love so much!