family wedding: mark and jenna

Remember this? Well, the day I’ve been alluding to for months on this blog has come and gone. My little brother Mark is married to an incredible woman and my family has grown by one. It has been a joyful month, with some bittersweet overtones as we celebrated their wedding and marriage and then sent them off on their move to Utah. Yep, Utah. That is 879 miles away from me. 13 hours and 33 minutes, according to the Goog. It’s a much farther distance than I am used to missing my family from, but they are loving it and it is such an exciting adventure for them, it’s hard to be sad about it.
You know the drill with the photos. When I’m in a wedding I don’t take an overwhelming amount of pictures, but what I have I share. 🙂 This one is my dad’s photo from the rehearsal. They’re pretty cute, huh? Looks like they’re in love? I agree.

My mother (whom you know, if you’ve ever met her, has magic powers and unusual spiritual gifts such as amazing decorating skills, nice handwriting and being a super nice person) put together a fabulous rehearsal dinner at a local opera house that was recently renovated and turned into a restaurant/event venue. It was so stinkin’ good. And not just the food. This night was my favorite part of the weekend. I mean, the wedding was amazing and everything, too, but this dinner was more personal and intimate and we all got to share what we love about Mark and Jenna. Also, mom had this super cute birch bark theme going on. That’s a curl of birch bark on my name card. Cute.

Apparently my youngest brother’s spiritual gift is avoiding family pictures. Sorry, Jeff (not pictured, ahem).

Um, yeah. I know. Stunning!

My other favorite part of this wedding weekend: both my brothers’ speeches at the reception. I am so proud of these two. They are such great guys and so grown up. They just make my heart happy, and Jeff did an awesome job of being the best man. Ladies, he’s totally available. If you’re cool, that is. 🙂

Congratulations, Mark. Your wedding was sweet. And I think you’re pretty neat.

And finally, I loved seeing special people who live far away. So many of my extended family members were in town for the wedding and I loved the conversations I got to have with them. That’s something that just really doesn’t happen often enough with my family, because everyone lives pretty far apart. A few of my best friends from high school were there too, and I selfishly hogged all the time I could with them at the reception. So glad I did! Miss you girls so much. (Photo from Laura’s iPhone)

That wraps up wedding season for me with a great ending. Now it’s on to another little exciting adventure. Stay tuned, friends. No, I’m not pregnant.