On 9/10/11 my younger brother Asa and his fiancée Jade tied the knot in an intimate ceremony surrounded by immediate family and a sprinkling of friends. The ceremony was short and sweet, beginning with their 3 year-old daughter’s shy entrance into the room; normally she has so much to say and likes to be on display but this time she froze in the doorway and had to be coaxed to drop the pink rose petals to create a pathway for Mommy to Daddy. Once she finally caught on to her job as flower girl, she dropped two petals and ended up gathering them right back up and dropping them in her basket. Next up, my 7 year-old niece entered the room, taking her duties as ring-bearer quite seriously, slowly marching forward while balancing the rings on her white beaded pillow. Finally the bride, escorted by her grandfather Nathan, entered the room looking beautiful, radiant and teary in her short, strapless, pale pink, tulip-draped gown accessorized with black ankle-strapped heels with lace detail and black lace gloves. She made her way to her teary-eyed groom, who was sharp in his charcoal grey European-cut Kenneth Cole suit, which he described as “channeling his inner Ari Gold.” Vows and exchanging of the rings followed; meanwhile the oldest niece decided that her cousin was too pre-occupied, as most 3 year-olds are, and not showing proper respect for her position as flower-girl so she began stage-whispering telling her to pay attention. Of course this cracks everybody up and wraps up the ‘serious’ part of the ceremony. After the newly wed couple is reintroduced to us as Mr. and Mrs. Asa Jefferson, we dig into the fantastic food and then hit the dance floor to celebrate this truly joyous occasion.
Now, this sounded like the perfect setting and it turns out it was, but boy was the week leading up to this wedding rife with drama brought on by Mother Nature. The rains came down, pounding the East Coast into watery submission. It rained every single day last week and the reason it was worrisome was because the wedding was scheduled to be on a quaint smaller version of a Mississippi River-style steamboat, with vows exchanged at sunset, dinner in the cabin, and dancing on the deck. That was not to be because the cause of all this rain was slow-moving Tropical Storm Lee, which after Hurricane Irene, saturated the ground so much that low-lying areas, including where this boat was docked, had to be evacuated, which led to about 48 hours of panic-at-the-disco. Thankfully the couple who owned the boat were resourceful and came up with the alternate plan to allow us to use St. John’s Episcopal Church hall in the historic town of Havre de Grace, couple this with the first beautiful sunny day in 2 weeks and we were blessed with a beautiful day.
I want to offer up a shout-out to both family and friends for showing your love and support for Asa and Jade. I also want to shout-out Jade who, now that her last name is Jefferson, I’ve decided to call JJ. Welcome to the family JJ! Again, congratulations to AJ and JJ on this new chapter of your lives!
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