Drew & Nikki's marriage blessing

This past weekend our family celebrated the blessing of my wife, Amy’s son, Drew and his wife, Nikki’s, marriage at Pax Christi Catholic Church in Rochester. The picture above is of Drew and Amy.

Drew and Nikki were married in February 2008 in a small, private, ceremony in Texas. Drew serves as a medic in the Army and in June of this year completed a year of service in Iraq. This past weekend was an opportunity for family and friends to kick up our heels and celebrate with Drew and Nikki.

The entire weekend went off with hardly a hitch—rare for weddings. The rehearsal was late Friday afternoon, the rehearsal dinner was Friday night, the blessing was early Saturday afternoon, and the reception Saturday night.

Some of my favorite moments were:

Watching my wife Amy’s power point presentation. She put together a presentation that shared through pictures and music some of Drew and Nikki’s life story and shared some significant moments in their relationship. I would guess that Amy spent almost 100 hours on the presentation. One of my favorite parts of the presentation was the very last slide. She put a video clip of Drew’s arrival on leave from Iraq last February. He was walking in the airport arm-in-arm with Nikki, and said, “thanks, momma. My name is Drew, and I’m home.”

Watching our daughter, Hannah, dance. She danced almost every song during the reception Saturday night. We practically had to drag her eight-year old body off the dance floor at 11:30 p.m.

Laughing as Bea Harrington, a close friend of ours from Plainview, tried to take a picture with my I-Phone. After the blessing on Saturday I was taking many pictures and asking others to take pictures. I asked Bea to take a picture of her husband, Kent, and me. Bea couldn’t figure out how to take a picture. I kept telling, Bea, “push the button on the bottom of the camera.” But even though she tried she couldn’t get a picture of Kent and I. The scene was hilarious. I was telling her, “push the button,” and she was giggling as only Bea can. Kent was rolling his eyes as only a husband can. The first picture she took was a headless shot of Kent and me.

Enjoying the conversations I had with Father T, as he is affectionately called. He was the priest at Pax Christi when I first met Amy and officiated at the marriage blessing. He has retired from parish ministry, though he is soon coming out of retirement to help out at a Catholic Church in Rochester. He is an absolute delightful brother in Christ. He’s written a book on marriage. He generously gave me a copy at the reception on Saturday night.

I posted about 40 pictures of the weekend on my Facebook page. If you aren’t a Facebook friend of mine, send me a request.

The entire weekend was a highlight of this year—which has been full of many.