The Cuz Fest

It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and quickly melting the vestiges of snow from the ground. The Groom was nervous, the bridesmaids were glamourous, and the bride absolutely beautiful! The little two year olds, ring bearer and flower girl, were flawless in their entry! It was truly a beautiful wedding.
Beautiful rose and program handed to each of us as we entered.

I had not met the bride and groom before the wedding. The groom is one of my cousins sons. This wedding was an occasion for cousins of all generations to reconnect! Better a joyous occasion such as a beautiful wedding than when we are ready to put one of us in the ground!

Here are almost all of the cousins of this generation (Father of the groom's generation) who were in attendance, as we gather to celebrate, salute and chat! Don't we look well preserved for being of grandparent/great-grandparent age!

This is three generations of cousins, my cousin (fourth sibling of the father of the groom) is the grandma, her daughter and the handsome gentleman on the left are cousins, and the baby is yet a cousin--once removed, or is it second cousin? I never could figure that one out!

We were wined and dined at a wonderful wedding reception venue call Windows on Washington, in the near downtown area, which is a big warehouse now loft space that has 8 floors of party rooms. We got the top room, and the view was spectacular. It was awash with candle light, beautiful chandeliers (we think the one was a Dale Chahuly creation--pricey indeed!) The lobby has a huge pool with rain falling from the ceiling on some Dale Chahuly-like lily pad/flower glass creations. When you came in the door, an attendant poured you a glass of bubbly to get your evening started!

Then the delicious sit-down dinner, with ever attentive wait-staff (where is that glass I thought was here a minute ago? Oh, he scooped it up and took it away!) Lots of drinks, a big dance floor, and plenty of space to use for visiting. They had a live band, which was very good. Here's the skinny on that--live band plus concrete loft room equals hearing loss and vocal chord strain if you want to hold a conversation instead of dance. So we cousins, who aren't really the dancing fools we once were, did suffer from throat irritation by the end of the evening trying to recall old times!

But, it was a delightful night. We wish the best to the new bride and groom, we thank their wonderful parents for throwing such a nice party, and the best part was to see my cousins that I haven't seen in quite a while, AND we were not at a funeral!