Those of you reading this have probably heard, but we had a wedding this weekend. My sister-in-law, Katy, married her sweetheart, Austin and we had the privilege to be a part of their special day.
Here is Katy. The picture doesn't do her justice....she was absolutely gorgeous. It's hard to believe that this is the same little girl that I met about 16 years ago when she was 12. I feel like she is, in many ways, a little sister to me.
And here is the groom, Austin. I'm still trying to figure out my newish camera so sometimes the pictures aren't perfect, but the couple definitely was.
Katy and Austin make a lovely couple and Ethan has already invited Uncle Austin to play Lego Indiana Jones on the X-Box. Priorities, people!
Here is the full wedding party. Emily is standing next to Katy and Ethan is in front of Emily. The two little flower girls are my nieces, Bristol (next to Ethan) and Addie. The two little ring bearers on the other side were Malachi and Silas, Austin's nephews.
There were 6 kids under 10 years of age involved in the wedding. Katy and Austin were brave!!
It definitely made for some fun moments and some fantastic pictures at times.
But at the end of the day, they all performed their wedding duties beautifully and it was truly sweet of Katy and Austin to want to include all their nieces and nephews on their most important day.
Before I go on, I should let you know that I officially took about 313 pictures over the course of two days. Of course, some of that was trying to rapidly snap the same pose over and over because trying to get 6 little children to look in the same direction, much less smile and not fidget all at the same time was a massive undertaking. I promise, I won't share all 313 pictures, but I did think I'd share some of the process building up to the wedding.
For the ladies of the bridal party, Saturday began quite early. Katy's mom (hereforth referred to as "Grandma"), Emily and I left the house at 7:30 in the morning to get their hair done. Emily went first. She's never had any kind of formal hair styling, so this was a whole new experience for her. Miss Ginger curled her stick-straight hard all over. Here she is waiting for the curls to set while Grandma was getting her hair done. (I'll spare Grandma the picture of her in the process!)
After a while, Aunt Katy and the rest of the wedding party joined us and started the process of becoming even more beautiful.
And here is the finished product....Emily in her dress looking very lovely. She was a junior bridesmaid, just as her Aunt Katy was for our wedding lo, those many 14 years ago.
Grandma and Emily before the wedding.
Here are my two nieces, Bristol (in front) and Addie getting ready for their debut as flower girls.
And here is Ethan with Andrew. His preparation for the wedding was much faster....lucky duck. Men have no idea how easy they have it on a wedding day! Ethan was tickled to wear his tux. He was one handsome dude!
And here are Katy and Austin, surrounded by their nieces and nephews on our side of the family. They were so cute.
I will be adding lots more pictures, but here's just a quick sample for now!