Jeff and Allison's Wedding

Well, it happened a week ago today, and I'm finally getting the pictures up. Jeff, Shawn's older brother, got married to Allison on the 31st of August in Youngstown, Ohio. I'm not sure who has been waiting for this wedding longer, Linda or Claire. I wonder if Linda had started to give up on Jeff ever deciding to get married (sorry Jeff!), and Claire has been in a state of constant anticipation, so excited to see Allison in her beautiful dress, dance at the reception, and, most importantly, eat wedding cake.

This picture of Allison walking in with her father is about the only view of the wedding that I had. Shawn was best man, and Claire sat with relatives, so, in order to keep Ben from yelling out during the ceremony, I tried to keep him occupied in the concert hall next door.

I took this picture of Ben and me while trying to keep him occupied during the ceremony.

The picture above and the one below were taken during the receiving line after the ceremony. Claire wanted to be as close to Allison as absolutely possible. The picture below is of Jeff, Shawn, Linda (mom) and Sam (dad).

The new Mr. and Mrs. Black
Dr. Conn and Darlia were there so that he could officiate the ceremony.

This picture makes me laugh. Mrs. Conn took it of Shawn while he was giving the best man speech. I, as during the ceremony, was out of the room keeping Ben occupied.

Sam, amused at his grandchildren running wild during the reception.

This picture was supposed to be only of Shawn and me, but Claire ran into the frame at the very last second.

The whole family, all dressed up!

Claire danced as many songs as she could. If we weren't on the floor with her, she would move over and dance with any of the people who were. Here she is cutting a rug with Aunt Becky.

Claire was waiting to dance with her daddy all night long, and she was NOT happy when he decided to dance with someone else. She actually started crying when he danced with me. I was starting to wonder if her name was Elektra.

This wedding and my dad's upcoming wedding next weekend have, of course, made weddings and getting married a VERY popular topic in our house. Yesterday, Claire wanted to watch our old wedding video. While we were laughing throughout the whole thing (mostly at Brad and Merica being dorks while mocking the videographer), Claire was carefully analyzing the whole production.

She has always told me that she wants to marry daddy, and she asked me yesterday if she could wear my wedding dress when she gets married. I told her she could, and then she asked me to show her on her back how far down the veil will hang. She's really serious about this. A bit much, but fine, she can dream, right?

Well, last night, she had an interesting conversation with Shawn. I wasn't present, but it went something like this:

Claire: Why do you have rings when you get married?

Shawn proceeds to explain. She then wants to know where I got my ring and where he got his ring.

Claire: Don't worry daddy, you can take mommy's ring with you when we move into the hotel.

Shawn: Move into the hotel? What do you mean?

Claire: Everybody moves into a hotel after they get married. You can take the ring mommy gave you, so that you can remember her when we get married. Don't worry, we'll call mommy sometimes and see how Ben's doing or when Ben's birthday is.

Um... yep, Elektra for sure.

Grandma dancing with Ben

The highlight of the evening was the bouquet toss. I know it's difficult to see in this picture, but the girl in front lunged for the bouquet, missed it and nearly did the splits. The bouquet? It fell on the floor right in front of Claire.
Allison and Claire along with the hard won bouquet.

Stop Mom! No more pictures!