At this very moment, Jonathan and Caroline are at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport waiting to board a flight for their honeymoon trip to London and Paris, and in honor of this I will (finally) write about their beautiful wedding last November.
It was a wedding that, in many ways, was nurtured during two
back-to-back family weddings when Caroline was introduced to our entire family
all at once—siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. And she
held her own with kindness and grace; in fact, at the end of that first family
wedding (Nicholas and Lauren’s) my brother came up to me and said, “Okay. Can I
tell you how much we love Caroline? Jonathan had better hold on to her!”
I should also mention that Caroline and I roomed together at
both those back-to-back family weddings, and what better way to get to know
someone than when sharing a room and talking late into the night? I already had
one great daughter-in-law and, in my heart, I knew one day (hopefully soon!) I
would be getting another one with Caroline.
So, my brother’s words were prophetic because we all loved
Caroline and, indeed, Jonathan did hold on to her. Good job, Jono!
Which brings us to the wedding.
And this is where words fail me. Because how can words,
lined up in neat rows, sentence after sentence and paragraph after paragraph,
even begin to convey the myriad of emotions? It is like standing on the
seashore and trying to capture a wave even as the next one comes rolling in.
Where to even begin? At the rehearsal dinner where the
toasts had us simultaneously laughing and crying, or earlier in the day with
the bridal tea at Dr. Bombay’s Underwater Tea Party? Or should I start with the
sight of my son standing on the altar, looking handsome and grown up as he
watched Caroline walk down the aisle? Or maybe I could begin with Monsignor’s
homily, addressed directly to the couple, after which he
gave them a bible with instructions to highlight all the readings they had
chosen for their nuptial Mass and to use them as a blueprint for the rest of their
lives?
How can words describe the sweetness of groomsmen, with boutonnieres
in hand, waiting in line to have them pinned on? Or the quiet whispers of Caroline’s
dress as her bridesmaids helped her get ready, and the shuffling of feet and
murmuring of voices as guests began to arrive? How to describe the brilliant blue
sky that seemed to sing Hosanna as we exited the church?
How can the three little letters in “joy” be sufficient to
describe the exuberance of the guests dancing, or of Jonathan’s smile as he
twirled his new bride across the dance floor? Or of all the guests singing
along to “Sweet Caroline” during the father-daughter dance?
And the laughter, champagne bubbly, how to describe that? Or
the magic of descending into a ballroom festooned with blue and white, accented
with hints of gold and sprinkled with greenery, all magical and fairy-like. Or
the love of the new couple, holding hands as they walked through an archway of
sparklers to a future together as man and wife.
Words are too confining, so I will let the photos convey what I cannot.
