A wedding in 36 hours

I was married young. I am thirty years old and just celebrated my tenth wedding anniversary. Really, really young. Sometimes I tell Jared that it is sheer luck that despite our age and the general dumbness that accompanies that part of one’s life, we married the right person. Lucky, lucky, that’s what I say.

Because of this, I strictly forbade any of my sisters to even think about getting married before the age of twenty five. They all signed the contract in blood and thanked me for hard earned wisdom. Or they walked out of the room before I finished my thought. One of those ways, for sure.

So when my little sister called me Wednesday of last week and told me she was going to get married on Friday, I couldn’t argue. She is past the 25 mark. They really love each other. We all love her Ryan. He really loves her son. We all love his family. Really, there was far too much love going on to be anything but happy. Her original plan was the classic courthouse move, but as evidenced by this blog, our family likes a party. So we planned a wedding in 36 hours.

It was beautiful. A family effort. We cleaned multiple stores out of candles, and filled the place with pumpkins and leaves. My sister got to catering, my sister in law got to flower arranging, and my brother got to anything and everything that was asked of him. The music was provided by my grandma, who played the piano like an angel. One of my sister’s best friends happens to be an official officiate. My cousin had his camera in his car, so poof, photographer. Her mother in law has a salon so the wedding party prepped there. My mom made the wedding cake and Christi and Thomas brought everyone’s favorite salad. Everything just worked.

I don’t have many pictures, not even one of the groom, because I was too busy enjoying the wedding and trying to help everyone make sure that our candle wonderland didn’t turn into a raging house fire with the assistance of five crazy boys under the age of five.

She was beautiful. There were tears during their sweet, impromptu vows. So perfect. Happy marriage little sis! I hope you enjoy many holidays, weekdays and even sick but not very sick days. I hope that when you wake up, even on those crummy days, you look at each other and realize you have someone on your side, always.