maddy and nick~

we had a family wedding on the 14th of june.

my cousin's daughter maddy, married this handsome guy nick.

here's nick escorting maddy's darling mom down the aisle.

this is my cousin randy. i love this guy. we got to spend a whole bunch of time

together growing up and he feels more like a brother to me.

when i turned around to see if he was ready to walk his only daughter 

down the aisle, he looked like he was all choked up. i guess that

these two said to each other," let's just walk real fast and not look at anyone and

maybe we can keep it together till we get up front".

the priest commented that he'd never seen a bride and her dad make it down the

aisle as fast. ( wait until our daughter's wedding though- she's a speedy gonzales- 

we've always teased her that she'll probably skip down the aisle). : )

meeting at the alter

fast forward~ they're married now! don't their smiles just

make you happy? nick had this ear to ear grin all day.

the fam asked me to make the centerpieces for their reception- there were lots and lots

of these and then some much bigger ones for the two fireplace mantles.

*my seester pretty much saved the day for me by driving 1200 miles to be

at the wedding and she helped me set up the reception site.

(thanks sis~ couldn't have done it without you!)

i just have to tell you a little bit about these two newlyweds. 

they are soft spoken and kind. maddy is a high school teacher and

nick is almost done with chiropractic school.

they met in college, when she needed a ride to the twin cities from iowa state and

found out this guy (they'd never met) was going her way. i guess after that first ride maddy decided she'd 

never buy her own car, because then she'd have no excuse to be with him.

 (o.k.i made that up- but seriously, i guess she had a MAJOR crush from the second ride home, on.

------------------->

but...

they became good friends before nick ever made any move to be more than just that, but when

he finally did, he was ready and they seem so perfectly suited for each other and so in love that

it was a real joy to share in their day.

oh yeah, and then there's the skiing part.

miss maddy is a competitive water skier who's competed and won awards all over the USA.

 and nick ski's too. really well i've heard. 

i believe they both skied on the collage water ski team and they have the

coolest group of friends. these kids know how to party like the

rock stars they are! these people are athletes. they have "game".

maddy is not overly girly girlish. she will get down with the best of them and 

that dirty dance floor? it did not stop her from doing all the dance moves that

the rest of these funsters were doing.

* the green light on brides face is from a spotlight*

this dance went on and on and ON..... maddy rolled around on the floor and jumped back up...over and over and the floor was just so sticky and i kept thinking, "now she'll probably never be able

to wear that beautiful dress again".

hahahahaha

************

so around midnight, being the girl scouts we are, some of us started helping clean up.

all the things the family brought to decorate the banquet room had to be out of there

at the end of the evening.

we decided that guests should take the centerpieces home so we pulled them out of the

vases and then one thing led to another and before you knew it, we had

declared ourselves "the real bridesmaids" and decided to have a group picture taken.

the seven of us in this picture (minus one-who cashed it in early and missed what we think was the

best part of the evening- sorry kim) do a girl's weekend in redwood falls every october and

i've dubbed us the great 8. well without kim we were merely the sassy 7.

pretty sure sweet caroline was the song the DJ was playing and we danced our little hearts out

out there in the hall.

these two are cousins and i just love them both to the moon.
(look mom, no hands!) 

and here are the dads. 

the moms probably did 99.9 % of the planning and organizing for this

fun event, but were would we be without the dads? 

they needed some time in the spotlight too~

handsome devils aren't they?

this was one of the last photos i took and i just like it.

maddy in the middle, her new husband on the right and her dad on the left.
~wrapped in love.

it was just a very special day for the baldwins and the wegleitners and

lars and i were so happy to be a part of it.

nick and maddy~

i hope you're always as happy together as you looked that night!

xo, beth