A Beautiful and Holy Wedding Ceremony (with Sleepy Flower Girls!)

Is there anything more beautiful and awe-inspiring than a Catholic wedding Mass?  Even when an early morning Sunday Mass is a bit of a bare-bones ceremony, short and sweet and without a choir, it is ineffably moving.  How can it not be, with all it signifies?   But when you add in all the special elements that make up a traditional wedding Mass, where two young souls are joined as one, forever and irrevocably, in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, it is that much more awe-inspiring.

Just a week ago yesterday, our middle son and his Preciosa (that's our new daughter's special blog name, remember?) were joined together in front of God and about 180 witnesses, and it was one of the most beautiful wedding Masses I have ever had the privilege to attend.  It was held at St. Thomas Aquinas on the grounds of the University of VA, and Preciosa's longtime friend, Fr. Tim Holeda, was the main celebrant.

Preciosa, getting ready in the back of the church (with the oldest of the three flower girls).

Preciosa had another special friend, Colleen Nixon (who is a Christian recording artist with the most heavenly voice) fly up from Florida to organize and perform the music for the wedding, and she was truly astounding.  As one of my Pearl sisters-in-law who was in attendance commented, listening to that angel sing made her want to become a "wedding crasher" so that she could follow Nixon around and listen to her perform at other weddings.  The music was divine: Nixon played piano while she sang; she was accompanied by a violinist, and by another male friend of the bride who provided vocals and guitar.  The bridal party processed in to "Holy God We Praise Thy Name" and the bride was escorted down the aisle on the arm of her beloved Papi to the tune of "Doxology" (tear-inducing, I tell you).  During the course of the Mass, Nixon sang a gloriously beautiful Litany of the Saints; and among other songs during the ceremony were "Celtic Alleluia," "How Beautiful" (a two-hanky ode to Our Lord), "Agnus Dei," and "Ave Maria" (for the presentation of flowers to Mary).  The new Mr. and Mrs. processed out of the church to the strains of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."  It was a glorious nuptial Mass--reverent, holy, and perfect.

You may remember that I made three matching flower girl dresses: one for the bride's cousin's 6-year-old daughter and two smaller versions for my 2-and-a-half-year-old twin granddaughters.  The plan was that as they walked down the aisle together, the twins would hold up a lovely burlap sign hanging from a wooden dowel, on which the bride's mother had painted the words, "Uncle M--- Here Comes Your Bride."  Adorable, right?  And the older flower girl would walk in behind the little ones.  In the days leading up to the wedding, both the bride and her mother asked several times how I thought it would go.  "Well...it could go either way.  I can see them following the script to the letter.  But I can also see them melting down and falling apart."  They wondered, too, if I thought the twins would allow us to put the lovely angel's breath wreaths they'd had made on their cute little heads.  That was a tough call, too.  Sometimes, the girls will wear not only hats, but flower pots, plastic sand buckets, and similar objects, if the spirit moves them.  Other times, they rip any sort of headgear off almost immediately.  At their age, anything could happen.

And anything did.

During the rehearsal on Friday, Bonny Babe refused to leave her mother's side at the back of the church--even though her dad was pulled out of the groomsmen lineup to stand near the altar and encourage his girls to come down the aisle.  But Cutie Pie grabbed the sign and ran at full speed, with a huge smile on her face, all the way down.

Is that the way it went on wedding day, you ask?

Well, no.  The little ring bearers (young sons of the bride's cousin) came down first, holding hands and sporting dapper bow ties and suspenders, and they were utterly adorable.  They did, however, become fascinated by the baptismal font in the center of the aisle, and they stopped to check it out for awhile.  It took their aunt coming down to meet them to get them moving the rest of the way.  Then it was time for the twin flower girls (who were bareheaded, by the bye) to do their thing...and Bonny Babe refused to leave her mommy's side again, and Cutie Pie ran straight up the aisle again--but without the sign--right over to her Papa's waiting arms.  The older flower girl ended up carrying the sign that had been meant for the twins.  Then shortly after the ceremony began, the poor little things both promptly fell sound asleep on their tummies, identically stretched across folding chairs, with their Mary Jane-clad little feet hanging over the ends of the chairs.  I sincerely hope the photographers were able to capture that scene for posterity, because it was very sweet.  What can you do?  When 2-year-olds need to nap, they nap!

I wish I had pictures from the ceremony to share with you, but so far most of the pictures I have available to me are from the reception.  When I get a chance, I'd love to post some here at the blog.

There is one picture I simply can't get out of my mind's eye--it is indelibly imprinted on this mother's heart: it's the look on my son's face as his beautiful bride came down the aisle to meet him.  Through my own tears, I saw such a poignant expression of joy, pride, love, and excitement on the face of that boy who came into my life over 27 years ago and forever changed it for the better.  During the speeches given by his two best men at the reception, they joked about how he's a guy who spreads happiness wherever he goes--that "sparkles and rainbows" shoot out of his eyes.  Well, I'll tell you: as Preciosa walked down the aisle, resplendent in her ivory silk wedding gown and cathedral-length veil, she made those eyes of his sparkle as they never have before.

There's more to come.  I still have to cover the wedding reception, which was phenomenal.  Stay tuned!

My Notre Dame Santa

Once upon a time, my husband used to travel to Moscow quite often for his job, and he would bring home the most amazing hand-carved, brightly hand-painted, ornately decorated Russian Santas.

Inspired by these one-of-a-kind beauties, some years ago I decided to try to create a large Notre Dame-themed Santa of my own, painted in a similar manner.  The Russian Santas in our collection are 3-D, and mine is flat (I cut it out of pine, using my scroll saw, and painted it front and back with acrylics), but this homemade Notre Dame Santa is one of my favorite Christmas decorations nonetheless.  In fact, I keep it out all year long in our "new room/sports room"--the one with the 70" flat-screen TV (meaning the one where we usually hang out when we're watching football games, "Downton Abbey," or Netflix movies).

I was able to incorporate this oversized Notre Dame Santa into the Notre Dame/Florida State football fan décor of the rehearsal dinner we hosted for our middle son and his bride on December 6.  I printed an image I found on the Internet of a football with the FSU Seminole mascot in the center of it, laminated it, and used glue dots to attach it to my Santa, making it look as if he was holding it in his mittened hands.  He was now a Santa that both an Irish fan and a Seminole fan could love!  And he looked right at home in the center of the fireplace mantle, a fitting decoration for a party that was held on the Feast of St. Nicholas.

I'm thinking about making one of these 19"-tall handcrafted Santas for each of my married sons and their wives as Christmas gifts next year--all completely different and made to reflect each couple's unique personality and style.  What say you, kids?  Would this be something you'd like to have?

In the meantime, ho-ho-hope you're all having a blessed and happy Advent season!

Blog Names for My Girls

Today's blog post was going to be an epic 7 Quick Takes Friday extravaganza (linking up with other bloggers over at Conversion Diary), with lots of pictures from my middle son's wedding last Saturday.  But I had an uncharacteristic sleep-in this morning, so I'm getting a late start at my computer.  And although gifts have been wrapped and sent to son #1 and his family and son #3 and his new wife, I've got almost no Christmas shopping done for the three sons who are going to be home this Christmas (aside from some awesome gifts I picked up on Etsy and a few stocking stuffers).  We're supposed to get socked with a wicked Nor'easter this weekend, so I thought before the snow started to fall, I'd head out to the mall.  BUT--I'm trying to stay on top of this blog (you're welcome, husband, baby sister, and a handful of other readers), so here are a few quick thoughts I typed up last night, imagining I could fashion them into a future post.

I figured it was time to come up with some new blog names for my daughters-in-law (daughters!), now that I have more than one. For those of you who are new to "String of Pearls," I've already given my granddaughters blog monikers: the twins are called "Bonny Babe" and "Cutie Pie," and their baby sister's alias is "Little Gal."  When I started blogging almost three years ago, I just numbered my five sons: son #1 (sometimes called "my firstborn"), #2, #3 (sometimes called "my middle son"), #4, and #5 (sometimes called "my baby").  Not very original, but it worked.

Now, however, I can't  just number my daughters.  It works for son #1, because he was the first one to get married, so I could call his wife "daughter #1"--as in, the first girl to marry into the Pearl family.  But I can't very well call son #3's wife "daughter #2," even though she's the second girl to marry into the family, because that would just get too confusing.  #1 goes with #1...but #3 goes with #2?  No one would ever be able to keep them straight!

So, I've decided to give the girls blog names.  Son #1's wife, whom I've always just referred to simply as "my daughter-in-law" on this blog, will heretofore be known as "Regina."  And son #3's wife will be known as "Preciosa."

So, readers, when you see the name "Regina," imagine the serene and regal face of the beautiful bride of son #1, shown in this picture taken on Dec. 19, 2009:

And when you see the name "Preciosa," imagine this precious, beautiful girl with a mega-watt smile that would light up any room, who became my middle son's wife on Dec. 7 of this year:

You can look forward to hearing a lot about my girls in the years to come.  They (and those darling granddaughters of ours) have added a much-needed jolt of feminine influence to what was once a male-only household (aside from yours truly).  As our family grows and changes, our blessings multiply a hundredfold!

Rehearsal Dinner: Pizza, Christmas Crackers, Dinos, and School Spirit

Last night, we got back home from our week-long stay in VA, the highlight of which was our middle son's wedding on December 7.  (A Pearl wedding on Pearl Harbor Day...)  My husband and I spent  a week at a Residence Inn--from the Wednesday before the wedding to the Wednesday after--living in sort of studio apartment appointed with a kitchenette and a living area, with our oldest son and his family one door down from us in a two-bedroom, two-bathroom suite complete with a full kitchen and three flat-screen TV's.  If you ever find yourself having to stay out of town for more than a couple of days, or if you are traveling with babies and young children, I can't think of a better place to stay than at a Residence Inn by Marriott.  The beds are comfy and piled high with the kind of soft, squishy pillows I prefer, and the bedding is layer upon layer of snowy white sheets and comforters.  I love Marriott beds--that is, when I can't sleep in my own.  And just so you know, I am not being paid by Marriott to say all of this (although if they want to send me a check, I will accept it).

While we were Residence Inn residents, every single morning we anxiously awaited the "We're up!" text from my daughter-in-law, and then we'd walk next door, knock, and be greeted by happy cries of "Papa!" and "Grammy!" from the twins (2 and 1/2) and gummy smiles from Little Gal (10 months).  And every single morning, my husband and I each got to take the hand of one of our little buddies, and our whole gang trooped down to the dining room to enjoy a complimentary hot breakfast together.  We got to play with the girls constantly, to lie down with the twins at nap time, and to babysit a couple of times so their parents could have some brief getaways.  It was so much fun being next-door neighbors for a week. 

Of course, as comfortable as our digs were down there, and as much as we miss our three granddaughters now that they're back in CO and we're back here, it's always so wonderful to be home.  When my husband got into our bed last night, he let out a loud sigh of contentment. I was brushing my teeth and thought I heard a groan of pain, so I popped out of the bathroom to check on him.  "Everything okay?" I asked.  "This bed just feels so good," he explained.  Dorothy was right: there's no place like home.

Anyway, enough about our hotel accommodations!  I'm sure that's not what you're interested in hearing about--not when there's been a wedding in our family.  I'm still almost overwhelmed by the thought of trying to blog about it, because there's SO MUCH to say, and SO MANY good photos to share.  So I thought today I'd tell you about the rehearsal dinner, which--as the parents of the groom--was our most important wedding responsibility.

The dinner was held at Blue Mountain Brewery, which has a lovely event room that can be closed off from the main restaurant.  There is a long bar at one end of the room and a huge stone fireplace at the other.  Because our party was larger than the room proper could fit comfortably, they also let us use a small side porch with French doors that opened up to the event room.  This porch is open-air in the warmer months but is closed off and heated for the winter, and it made a perfect place for the 15 or so children 10-and-under to play with the toys we'd brought along to keep them amused.

Along with their specialty beers, Blue Mountain is known for their specialty brick oven pizzas.  Back when we were in the planning stages, we asked our son and his bride-to-be if it would be okay if we did a pizza buffet (which would include salad and dessert), and they were both enthusiastic about the idea.  "It'll be like our Christmas Eve pizza dinner," my son said.  And that got me so excited, because the rehearsal dinner was going to be on December 6 (the Feast of St. Nicholas!), which made it a perfect occasion to give our 70-plus guests a little taste of our family's special holiday tradition.

I've blogged about our Christmas Eve pizza-and-Christmas crackers tradition before, if you want to read about that here.  In our family, it really wouldn't seem like Christmas Eve if we didn't open those crackers, ooh and aah over the cheap trinkets inside them, and read each other the incredibly corny jokes.  It wouldn't seem like Christmas Eve if my guys didn't don those paper crowns.

1999

2001 (Ignore '98--I never could figure out how to
program the date on that camera!)



I ordered the rehearsal dinner crackers from a company called Olde English Crackers.  They make completely empty ones you can fill yourself, completely filled ones, or semi-filled ones.  I decided to order them semi-filled, with the jokes and paper crowns inside; then I could add my own components so they'd have a more personal touch.  (The usual trinkets inside are sort of lame; when we open our Christmas Eve crackers, our kids will joke, "Oh great! Another plastic shoe horn!  I only have five already!" or "Another yo-yo that doesn't work!")  My middle son, along with his four brothers, is and always has been a huge dinosaur fanatic, and the bride loves monograms.  So our rehearsal dinner crackers were finished off with plastic dinos for the groom-to-be and Hershey's miniatures with monogrammed wrappers (it's amazing what you can find on-line!) for the bride-to-be.  I have to say, putting together these crackers, and hoping the rehearsal dinner guests would enjoy them, was the most fun part of preparing for this event.

Along with assembling these special rehearsal dinner crackers, I also had fun planning a decorating scheme that I knew would be a hit with both of the guests of honor.  These two kids are a pair of dyed-in-the-wool college football fans.  As crazy as my son (and the entire Pearl family) is about Notre Dame football, my new daughter-in-law is the very same way about her alma mater's team.  I already had plenty of Notre Dame-themed fabric lying around, but I asked my sister-in-law who lives in Florida if she could pick me up four yards or so of Florida State fabric, if she happened to run across any.  The décor came together very easily after I got my hands on that FSU material; I used it to make a bunting to hang on the fireplace mantle and also to make some of the components of the table centerpieces.  I used gold charger plates that I already had on hand, and I cut out a circle of  Notre Dame fabric to put in the centers, then topped them off with battery-operated pillar candles.  I made placemats to put under the chargers out of the FSU fabric.  Along with the gold crackers, this was just enough to make the square tables of eight look fun and festive.  For the two longer tables, I put the chargers on draped fabric instead of small placemats, to give them a more dramatic effect.

When it came time to open the crackers, my husband explained the tradition to our guests, and he said that although we usually wear our crowns throughout our meal on Christmas Eve, he didn't expect them to do that--but if they could just let me go around and snap some photos before they removed them, that would be appreciated.  Well, I'll tell you, that was such a fun crowd!  Most of them kept those crowns on all night!  I love this shot of the handsome prince and his beautiful princess, along with her parents.  (Notice that the bride and groom-to-be are even dressed in their team colors!)

My husband also said that he wouldn't make our guests stand up and share their jokes with everyone, the way we do at home, but perhaps they could share them at their tables--which apparently they did!

The plastic dinosaurs inside were a hit.  (I was going to say especially with the under-10 crowd, but the over-10 crowd might have enjoyed them even more!)

Even though I knew Blue Mountain was providing a gourmet brownie assortment for dessert, I felt I just had to bring a homemade cake.  For every birthday and important occasion in my sons' lives, I have always made a cake.  I made a cake for my oldest son's rehearsal dinner four years ago; I decided I'd make one for this son, too.  And what better theme for this "groom's cake" than a T-Rex?

This cake really didn't come out the way I'd intended it to, and I almost didn't bring it because I was a little embarrassed about how amateurish it was.  It did taste a whole lot better than it looked, though, which is good.  That weird shape on the bottom is supposed to be a tail, but one guest commented that he thought it was a tank tread.  (My son is an Army captain in the Reserves, so that works, too!)  The little separate heart-shaped cake, complete with monogram, was added for the bride's benefit.  I'm so glad now that I brought this silly dinosaur cake, because when someone told my son how delicious it was, he proudly said, "That's the cake I got to have for every birthday growing up, and I've had that cake hundreds of times in my life."  It made me so happy to give my boy something, on the eve of his wedding, that brought back positive memories of growing up in our house. 

It's hard for me to describe the energy and joy that filled that event room during this party.  I think I can safely say that a good time was had by all.  The bride-to-be's family couldn't say enough nice things about it.  But most importantly, I know that we made our son and his best gal very, very happy that night, and that all the little touches--the pizza, the Christmas crackers, the dinosaur toys and dinosaur cake, and the décor celebrating FSU and ND school spirit--were very much appreciated by both of them.

Sometimes, pictures really do speak a thousand words, so I  think I'll just post a few here.  And I'll be back again...because if you think the rehearsal dinner was awesome, you should have seen the wedding.

The "Shoe Game"--have you heard of this?  It's sort of like the old "Newlywed Game" TV show.



This rehearsal dinner party was a pretty huge success for my husband and me--so I thought I'd share this post over at CatholicMom.com., where it's Small Success Thursday.

Young Adults, and Adults Who Are Young at Heart

An article--written by Cheryl Dickow and titled "Young Adult Books Aren't Just for Young Adults"--appeared yesterday on the Bezalel Books blog, and in it Finding Grace was mentioned.   I thought I'd share it today...because I'm trying to organize all my pictures (and my thoughts!) to write up some posts about the absolutely amazing weekend we just had, celebrating the marriage of our third (and middle) son--and I'm not up to doing the task justice just yet.  On Wednesday, bright and early, my husband and I are leaving VA and heading back up to New England, and when I get settled back into my usual routine at home, more posts about the rehearsal dinner, the wedding, and the reception will be forthcoming.  Promise.

Meanwhile, Christmas is fast approaching, and my publisher is encouraging me to redouble my efforts to "sell" my book.  She has even dropped the Kindle price from $7.99 to $4.99, and with that attractive new price tag, she believes it would make an excellent Christmas gift for the young (or not so young) special reader on your shopping list.

If you have the time, click on the article here.

Speaking of young adults, here's a photo of son #3, the groom, carrying his younger brother (son #4), the best man.  They are 27 and just shy of 26 now, but still very young at heart, as you can see.

In some ways, they will always be the silly, rambunctious, sweet little boys I remember from days long gone.

And while we're on the subject: has there ever been a dad who gazed at the face of his beloved daughter on her wedding day, as he prepared to walk her down the aisle and give her away to another man, who didn't look at her and see the little girl who used to climb into his lap and wrap her arms around his neck?  I suspect that's what my new daughter-in-law's "Papi" was thinking when he looked at his baby girl here, just moments before he gave her away and she became my son's wife.

If you have a teenaged daughter who dreams of finding her Prince Charming one day, too, and walking down the aisle toward him on her father's arm, wearing a beautiful white gown and veil, perhaps you should gift her a copy of Finding Grace.  Perhaps it would inspire her to wait patiently and chastely for the man of her dreams to come along and sweep her off her feet.  Perhaps if more young women received the messages that are hidden in the pages of my story, they would be as happy on their wedding day as was this beautiful new Pearl who's been added to our family string.

An Article and a Picture...or Two

An article titled "A Penny Pincher's Christmas" was posted this morning on the Association of Catholic Women Bloggers website. I was so happy to see Finding Grace mentioned.  The Kindle price has been reduced from $7.99 to $4.99, just in time for Christmas.  If you'd like to read that article, click here.

And because I know that anyone who visits here often is interested in seeing pictures from my son's December 7 wedding, here's a shot of me with the four brothers who were in the wedding party: on the far left is the best man, and the rest were groomsmen.  (I had my husband sneak it when the bride and groom and all the bridesmaids were being photographed by the professionals.)

And before I sign off, here's a shot of the entire epic-sized wedding party.  (You'll really need to click on the image to enlarge this one, so that you can see all those wonderful smiling faces.)

More to come soon, I promise!

The First of Many Wedding Photos

I'm back after a pretty long hiatus...but as you know, we had a BIG EVENT in our family this weekend.  Our middle son got married!  It's late, and I really need to get to sleep--but before I do, I thought I'd share one of the photos I took at the reception, which was held in the most bucolic and magnificent setting imaginable (King Family Vineyard in Northern VA).  As my oldest son's wife noted, the surroundings were reminiscent of the English countryside--gently rolling hills, stables, horses and cows grazing on the hillside.  What a lovely backdrop it made for the photos of the wedding party!

I was going to leave my camera in my car and fight the urge to snap away as usual.  As the mother of the groom, I thought I ought to be off the clock for once and just relax; after all, there were professionals on site to take care of that sort of thing.   But I just couldn't help myself, and my husband encouraged me to do it.  So I joined the pros, who were incredibly nice people.  They were very  patient with me and assured me that I wasn't bothering them.  (Thanks!  You guys are the best.)

The photo I'm going to share here is quite special, because my new daughter-in-law is holding a picture of her parents on their wedding day, and my son is holding a picture of my husband and me on ours.  The idea is that when their own children get married, they can be photographed holding THIS picture, and that way it will include their parents and both sets of grandparents.  As my son, a proud new husband, commented about his lovely bride, "She has lots of good ideas."  Indeed she does!

There is nothing better than seeing the look of love and joy on the faces of these newlyweds.  Life is good.  So very good.