Wedding Photos!

Shauna and Rich

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

Chagrin Valley Athletic Club

Chagrin Falls, OH

It was a beautiful wedding! Everything went really well. It was chilly and windy here in Cleveland on Friday, and chilly, windy and rainy today, but Saturday was 66 degrees, and sunny with a nice breeze - perfect weather for a wedding!

The wedding was outdoors. The bride and bridal party got to walk down a stone path, over a bridge, and past a waterfall and pond. A friend of Shauna's who is a local orchestra played instrumental music (along with a few other musicians she knows) for the ceremony as a gift for Shauna. Our older brother, Brian, walked Shauna down the aisle and gave her away, since our dad is deceased.

All of the kids in the wedding party did really well. Here's my daughter Bethany, junior bridesmaid (10), her cousin Rosie, also 10 (my brother Joe's stepdaughter), and her cousins (my sister Desiree's daughters) Alexis (11), junior bridesmaid, and Kaitlyn (4), flower girl. All of the girls looked so beautiful!

My handsome little man, Dominic. When I first saw him all dressed up in his tux, he looked so grown up that I got tears in my eyes. Shauna did too.
My niece Rosie with her little brother, Mohammed (8).
Shauna was surprised and happy when I made a speech for her and Rich. I normally hate speaking in front of people, and she told me beforehand it would be OK with her if I didn't want to give a speech, but I thought of something great to say, stood up in front of 80+ people and made a speech. It felt good when I got lots of compliments on it.

We had great food and a beautiful cake (ivory with blue hydrangeas). I had a picture of the cake, but it's too fuzzy to post. A friend of Shauna's decorated the reception hall for the wedding as a gift. The DJ was great too - besides being a professional DJ, he is also Shauna's boss's accountant. He made Shauna blush when he read from some emails (I think Rich snuck them to him) Shauna and Rich exchanged after their first date, LOL!

The kids had so much fun at the reception, dancing, eating, and playing with their cousins and siblings. The athletic club was a great place to have a wedding with all the places indoors and out for the kids to run around. Dominic had a lot of fun playing with Alex, the son of one of Shauna's friends. Bethany and her girl cousins loved dancing with Nikki, the daughter of a family friend - Nikki is graduating from college today with her bachelor's in elementary education, and is doing her student teaching in a second grade class, so she's great with kids.

Here's me and Bethany (note to self: stick with strapless bras for halter dresses, LOL!):

And me and Dominic:
Shauna dancing with Dominic:
Shauna and Rich:My husband and I had fun dancing, even though I can't dance worth a lick. My husband is a fabulous dancer though, so my oldest sister, Diane, and her friends (all a little tipsy!) dragged him out on the dance floor to dance with him. Poor guy was one of the few men out there, until some of the other men had a few drinks, and got out there, LOL!

Overall, it was a great day, and I'm thankful and proud to have been in the wedding. I'll post more wedding pictures when I get copies some of the professional photos. In the meantime, here are some short videos from the wedding - my husband was able to take these with our digital camera (they even have sound!) - I think that's pretty cool, LOL!