Hilary's wedding

My cousin, Hilary, got married on August 1st in a beautiful vineyard in Michigan. My parents spent a few days with us at our home in Chicago before we all drove up together to see Hil and Mark get married. It was a great, busy week. One morning they even took the kids to the zoo without me so that I could stay home and pack. Yay for grandparents!

The vineyard was beautiful. There was a tent for the reception, and a beautiful old barn made over into a sitting area and bar for evening cocktails before the rehearsal. It was really charming.

This is my Aunt Marty with her two boys, Jesse and Calvin. They were ushers.

This is Kent, who Sammy loves because he is a snowboarder. Kent is Hilary's little brother.

Carl is on the right. He's Hilary's big brother and my closest-in-age cousin. We grew up visiting them a lot in the summers and Hilary and Carl and I had lots of fun together. Aunt Becky (there mom) was always great about letting us do messy stuff like playdoh or cooking or putting giant waterslides down the hill in there backyard and pouring laundry detergent down it to make it more slippery. Oh the memories.

My dad officiated the wedding. Isn't he a cute pastor guy? He did great.

Uncle Rich takes a practice walk down the aisle with Hil.

This guy is my Uncle Bruce (Marty's husband). He takes really long strides.

He also likes brewing beer and smoking cigars. Your typical Colorado mountain church pastor. Haha. He's great.

Mom and her daughters: Laura, me, and Katie.

The rehearsal dinner was beautiful and Sammy was happy the whole weekend hanging out with the ring bearer, AJ, who was also 4. They mainly roamed the vineyard throwing grapes at each other.

On the big day, the wedding party took a bus from the hotel to the venue. Jesse and Calvin are Marty's boys. I shouldn't say "boys" though because they are all grown up now and VERY tall. They are also worshiped by Sammy because Jesse is a pilot and Calvin is a firearm instructor, (aka: Rambo). They were ushers.

Julie is Jess and Calvin's little sister and we were bridesmaids. Hillary had about 9 bridesmaids though so it was a big party.

Hillary's wedding hair.

The dress.

The bubbly.

The lovely bride.

The walk down the aisle.

Mr and Mrs Mark and Hilary Baron.

The cake.

The reception tent.

Mom ("Grammy") and Claire.

Sammy and the ringbearer.

Claire took a few of the couple. She actually took about 50.

Matt and Claire on the dance floor.

Mom and Aunt Becky tearing it up.

Laura with my parents.

This is only a joke. The bottle it totally empty. I mean it was empty BEFORE I did this. But we did have a good time....