My niece, my brother's daughter, got married on Saturday. She and her (now) husband live in the Twin Cities and the wedding was several hours north of Minneapolis at a large, fancy resort. We flew to Minneapolis and then drove up and stayed at the resort.
The name of the resort is Grand View Lodge, and it did indeed have a grand setting for their outdoor wedding. We sat at the base of a long set of stairs coming down from the lodge, facing the lake. It was a beautiful view of the lake and woods, but it was also incredibly hot. The bride and groom had told all the men to forget wearing their suit jackets. The resort passed out paper fans.
But it was all worth it. My nephew, the brother of the bride, is a professional trombone player, and his wife is a harpist. They provided the music, while their toddler son hovered near by. The little one was also the ring bearer, though he had some trouble with the concept. The rings were in a fairly large box, which he dropped, but he finally made it over to the bride and groom, helped by his father.
The bride and groom had been together for a long time before getting married. I don't think you can call it "dating" if it goes on for years. They each wrote a lovely speech that they read to each other (and the guests). It was a very heart-felt ceremony.
There was dinner and dancing after, but the best part for my husband and me was talking to people. My brother, sister, and I, and our families all live in different states, so we rarely see each other. We have been zooming occasionally, but there's nothing like being able to sit and talk in person. And we did a lot of that this weekend! We also saw people we hadn't seen in years, and met guests we hadn't known before.
Regarding dinner, I am lactose intolerant and a pescatarian, so I got a lovely salmon without the sauce that everyone else had. It was delicious - my husband was jealous and ended up eating part of mine. If you need a special dinner, you probably have to wait til they have passed out all the regular dinners, but mine was hot off the pan and absolutely delicious.
The party continued the next morning when my brother and sister-in-law invited quite a few people to the cottage they were staying in, also on a lake. I think this was a different lake than the one by the resort. Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes after all. More chatting and eating, and then we were off, back to Minneapolis to catch our flight back to Chicago.
My siblings and I and our spouses have all agreed that next summer we will meet up somewhere in the middle and hang out for a few days. Family is important.
