Madison Attends a Wedding

Madison attended her first wedding today, the marriage of Joey and Jordan Stone - and as you can see above, it was quite the thrilling experience for her.  She learned the basic routines of a wedding - the traditions that we have and the things we do, for whatever reasons.  Here she is above with the bride during the reception afterwards, who was kind and gracious, and right in the middle of a most beautiful wedding.

It was a perfect day for a wedding - especially one that is outdoors.  We drove up to White County once again, actually less than ten miles from where Daddy lived growing up.  Here she is with Mr. Josh, who attended - along with all the other friends from KidPak, really.  As Joey and Jordan are a huge part of KidPak, it was essentially a KidPak wedding.  We were honored and thankful to come.

Mommy dressed up Madison so nicely too.  Here she is waiting before the ceremony, looking behind her to see when the bride would come down.  As the wedding took place, Daddy explained each thing in hushed tones to her in the back:  here are the vows, and there is the ring, and there's the big moment when they say "I do."  Madison was very much into it.  And as mentioned earlier, it was such a scenic place.  Take a look at the tree swing they had nearby:

Madison and Mommy enjoyed posing there, as it was a perfect day for pictures, and it was a really nice spot.  A storm was brewing nearby, but it never crossed our path.  It did, however, create a nice breeze to cool everyone off.  The wedding took place in the cool shade, nearby the line of trees, and nobody felt overheated at all.  Madison kept going back to that swing though:

We know the bride's father from some time ago, and remember his love for all things rustic.  The reception took place in a barn, and there were bottles of coke and sodas for everyone.  There were some unique and delicious appetizers, and the meal was really good.  We had some roast beef - and Madison tried that for the first time.  It was prepared just right, and she actually enjoyed it enough to try some more.  Here she is, posing in front of the barn - there's always time for a new pose:

We took a lot of pictures today.  It was a perfect day for pictures, and we took many of friends, and of course a lot of Madison took.  The lighting was just right, and she looked quite lovely, and the scenery was too good to pass up.  Here she is, back on the swing, just to prove my point:

As we said, it was a "teachable moment" for Madison, as we showed her the ins and outs of a wedding.   One of those traditions, which seems to be getting out of hand, is the decorating of the bride and groom's car:

In the "good old days," they'd just hang some cans on the bumper and write "JUST MARRIED" somewhere on the back.  That of course did not happen with Mommy and Daddy's car, which was turned into a piñata.  And this car was attacked as well - with Madison's help.  Here she is, drawing hearts on the front windshield!

As you can see, she was there to see Jordan and Joey get to their car:  she thought it was hilarious!  Meanwhile, Joey is trying to figure out how long it will take to actually get in the car and drive off.  But this seems to be the new trend in weddings, I guess!

Hey here's another first for Madison:  line dancing!

It's the Cupid Shuffle.  Madison was hesitant, and nervous to join the dancing.  Fortunately, a friend invited her in.  Madison was pretty scared to begin with, but soon she was jumping in the next time there was a line dance, as you can see above.  There she is with all the big kids, watching carefully and following along.  It was really fun to watch!

We took so many good pictures today - it was one of those days.  The wedding was a really nice one, and as we told Jordan and Joey, it was the first one that Madison had ever seen.  She of course knows about weddings from all different sources:  books, movies, televisions shows.  But this was her first, and it was a really nice one.  She could have stayed a lot longer, actually, and as we waved goodbye to the happy couple driving off, she just wanted to go back to the swing, actually!

The reception was nice - at one point you can see above that Madison and Daddy were spending time texting with their butter pads.  We felt kind of left out by all the other texters at the table, so we grabbed the butter pads and had our own conversation:

MADISON: "How are you doing?"

DADDY:  "Fine.  And you?"

MADISON: "Fine.  Where are you?"

DADDY:  "At the wedding.  Where are you?"

MADISON:  "I'm at the wedding too!"

DADDY: "No way!"

It was a lot of fun.  But at one point in the reception, she did get sad.  A realization hit her:  she told us that she would have a boyfriend someday, and she would have to get married and move away.  She was in tears as she said this, hugging both of us.  Daddy was quick to point out that when she gets married, it just means that we'll not be saying goodbye, but instead welcoming someone new into our family.  This seemed to make her feel better - but the truth is that Daddy and Mommy feel the same way!  It's a bittersweet moment, the father-daughter dance.  Thankfully, they didn't play the song "Cinderella" when that happened!  Not that it is a bad song, but it certainly gets the waterworks going. 

The rest of our day was busy, believe it or not.  We had a great deal of work to do towards KidPak and Summer Xtreme.  The guys at the wedding left there to head back to the office, Daddy included.  It would be an extremely late night - four in the morning, to be precise.

Madison did piano today, and some of her speech practice as well.  Also, she did some of her other homework, with writing and so forth.  We'll keep that going, or at least attempt to.  One great thing is the amount of options we have with educational events this summer:  the library has plenty of interesting things to take Madison to.  And the art camp this year has a science theme to it.  We're challenging ourselves to keep Madison busy this summer - although we'll all be very busy these next two weeks.  It's the season of Summer Xtreme.  Madison is looking forward to it quite a bit - and Daddy is looking forward to that Saturday right after it is all over with!