Ryan and Shelley Mahannah

This was the big wedding weekend. Our friend, Shelley, got married on Saturday to a sweet guy named Ryan. We had good weather - for mid April. Could have been a lot worse. Katie was one of 2 flower girls, and I was one of 3 bridesmaids. It was a really fun day and I would gladly do it all over again because we had such a good time.

Shelley - the saucy bride

Shelley's friend, Sharon (who is great) did a beautiful job on Katie's hair. She was a princess!

Katie was really amazed at what her hair could do.

I am a horrible mother because I don't have any pictures of Katie in her dress. BUT - thanks to Shelley's great friends who were busy snapping photos, I have gotten a couple and I'm sure there are more to come. :)

Katie posing for a picture while the rest of us were being posed behind her.

Katie says her favorite part of the day was being at the dance party. I also think her and Will had a good time taking a limo ride around town. The kids got tired early - it had been a long day for them. So Will was sent home with Grandma Lyla around 8, and Katie was sent home with Denise and Sarah by 9:30. They were both coming off their sugar highs. Shelley had set up a candy buffet at the reception. Everyone could fill little bags with jelly beans, tootsie rolls, gum drops, M&Ms, and other assorted candies.

The Kubitz/Mahannah team had really thought of everything. As the reception started they had an appetizer buffet set up to tide guests over til the food was ready. They had shrimp, little smokies, cheese curds, nuts, etc. Yummy. "The Weeve", (whom we now love) one of Shelley's personal attendants also handed out kiddie bags to all the children at the reception. They were filled with stickers, note pads, erasers, glow sticks - anything to keep the kids happy, just in case the candy didn't do it's job. ;)

The bride and groom also anticipated guests getting a bit hungry during the dance, so.....around 10:00 just as everyone's tummies started rumbling - BOOM - pizzas by the armload - 20 or so - started showing up from Gus and Tony's, a local favorite. By the end of the night there was like 2-3 slices left. :)

Oh - did I mention the open bar? The ALL NIGHT open bar? If you can't have fun at a wedding with an open bar all night then you're not trying very hard. :) In addition to the open bar - there was bottle after bottle of wine from the Marquette Winery - very tasty, although it did give me a headache - which was cured later. And if you didn't want wine - well, how about brandy.....from a shoe? At first when I saw a crown of people passing around a shoe to drink out of, I thought someone lost a bet. But I was later told it's a polish tradition - so a new shoe was bought for the occasion...Vera Wang, no less. :) And I - like a lot of guests there, drank some brandy out of the shoe. Mmmmm....I was very warm.

Beautiful table decorations - 'Happy Balls' made in Lansing, IA just for Shelley's wedding....the flowers that Katie carried...and candle in the background.

It was so great to catch up with friends that I hadn't seen in years. It was nice to have fellow 30-something-ers out on the dance floor. We'd either give each other a puzzled look and mutter "What song is THIS? I've never heard THIS before!" or, scream "I KNOW this song!" Odds were that if the song was recorded prior to 2000 - we'd know it. After that - who knows.

It was an event that most of us hadn't seen in Waukon before...VERY well put together....VERY classy.....VERY detailed. Overall it was gorgeous. I'm so glad that I'm already married because I would hate to follow that. (Good job Sharon!)

Congratulations again Shelley and Ryan!