St. Louis Wedding of the Year

This past weekend Arnold, Jackson, and I drove to St. Louis to meet up with family for a much anticipated wedding.  We left Chicago Friday evening after work.  We fed J, put him in his pajamas, and hit the road.  Luckily Jack slept the whole way.  We arrived in St. Louis (Clayton, to be exact) around 11:00 pm and went straight to bed since it was way past our bed times.  Jackson let us sleep until around 8:00 am Saturday morning, and then we headed to the pool.

Jackson didn't seem too excited but I was!  We swam for about 20 minutes and then got ready for the day.  We then met up with our college friend Cory at a local restaurant for brunch, where Cory and Jackson met for the first time.

After brunch and a quick errand, it was time to get ready for the main event: Lydia and Tom's wedding!  The wedding was at the beautiful St. Joseph Catholic Church in Clayton.

Everyone looked amazing but the bride looked gorgeous!   

After the vows were said and it was made official, we got a snack at the hotel and then headed to the Forest Park Golf Course Clubhouse for the reception.  It was beautiful.  The room was decorated fabulously and looked amazing with floor to ceiling windows throughout the room, overlooking the golf course and pond.  The wedding had all of the typical reception things:

introductions

cutting the cake

speeches

first dances

dancing

What the wedding did have that wasn't so typical was an exceptional person: the bride, Lydia.  She is one of the sweetest and most inspirational people I know.  Just as her sisters Melanie and Angie expressed in both their speeches, Lydia is a truly a gift and anyone who knows her or even has the chance to interact with her is blessed.  I don't know the groom Tom, as well as Lydia but he too must be incredible if Lydia chose him to be her husband.  The local news thought so too as Lydia and Tom got their own segment on the local news.  (Click on "news" to see the story.)

After a wonderful evening, we went back to the hotel for some much needed rest.  The next morning we got up, got ready, and hit the road.  We stopped in Edwardsville on our way back to Chicago to visit our friends Sara and Jeremy, and their brand new baby girl Lyla.  

After some crying, many more stops, and one diaper explosion, we made it home around 6:30.  Just in time to put Jackson to bed and enough time to reflect on the wonderful weekend!