A Wedding Remembered

My brother got married last Saturday.

Just in time for James and Sara's one-week anniversay, I am pleased to be able to recreate the happy event in jaround 10,000 words.*

First things first: That's me on the right. The City of Virginia Beach, in all its beneficiance and wisdom, granted me a 24-hour, limited justice of the peace license. I figured it was incumbent upon me to dress the part of an incumbent.


To the left are James and Sara. Cute couple, no? And can you tell there was no theme for the wedding?


To get God's attention and make sure He was completely down with a wedding being performed by me in the special-events room of a beach-front bar, James' sister, Clair, began the ceremony with a reading from the Letter of Paul to the Colossians (3:12-19).


James and Sara also requested a special blessing that has been adapted from the Apache commitment ceremony. Sara's sister, Kara, who also stood as Sara's maid of honor, delivered that blessing. Several people in the room were crying by this point. James was not one of them. If "permagrin" were a word, then I would use that word to describe James' expression throughout the entire evening.

Sara, however, was on the verge of tears the entire time. Tears of joy, mind you, but stil ....



The rings were exchanged to the tune of the traditional Catholic vows, the kiss was kissed, I read the second half of the Irish Blessing, and then it was time for the toast given by James' father and best man.

The wedding was strictly a family affair, so here are the family pictures.

That is James and his lot above. For the first time ever in my recollection we were outnumbered by another family, namely the Smiddles and Cales. There were Lambs and other kin to James who attended the wedding but who aren't pictured here. Maybe the warrants against those folks will expire before the next wedding, and then we'll be able to get them in the photos.

Just in case that's not enough family, James also married himself into being a father-type person because Sara has two daughters, Gina (right) and Kristan.

In keeping with Lamb family tradition, the ceremony and reception were seamles and joy-filled only to be followed by minor difficulties. James woke up Sunday morning with his back gone out again, and I was pulled over on my drive home Saturday night. Try as he did, the cop who stopped me was unable to make a case against me for drunk driving because I hadn't really been drinking and my breathalyzer test returned a reading of 0.0. I had inadvertently switched my headlights off, but I didn't even get ticketed for that. Sheesh.

All in all, then, a grand time was had last Saturday by and for two grand people. James and Sara, may you have so many weekly anniversaries that you get tired of counting them.

* Readers will please bear in mind that each pictures equals 1,000 words.

Many thanks to my brother-in-law Scott for these pictures.