Happy Anniversary....Blending our Family

Today is D's and my fourth wedding anniversary.

Sweet D is driving down from DC just to take me out to dinner tonight.

January 23, 2010
I like our anniversary date...0123!

Happiest Day!

After we were engaged, I spent A LOT of time thinking about our wedding.

It being a second wedding for both of us,

my first instinct was to have a very tiny ceremony in a church,

without a reception or any "wedding" type events.

I scoured all of my etiquette books, looking for how to have a "proper" second wedding.

Fortunately, ALL of our children were super excited about our engagement.

And they were SUPER excited about the wedding....

a wedding that was not the type of wedding that I was thinking we would have.

D and I talked about it, and decided that we were blending our families, 

therefore we needed to have a celebration that the children would all feel a BIG part of.

So we had a wedding...a REAL wedding.

At the United States Naval Academy Chapel.
Here is our wedding celebration in pictures...warning...this is very photo heavy!

Our wedding at the USNA Chapel.

My Michigan dad escorting me to the chapel...

My daughters, Caroline and Katherine, were my bridesmaids.

D's oldest daughter, Laura, was my junior bridesmaid.

D's youngest daughter, Grace, was the flower girl.

D's son, Kimo, was his Best Man.

My sister was my Maid of Honor (here with my girls).

D's youngest son, Collin, was the ring bearer...he is a ham.

and my boys escorted me down the aisle...they look so little!

Three of the sailors (still D's closest friends) who were on the boat in 1986
 when the jacket incident occurred were groomsmen for D.

I found a classy but simple ivory silk wedding dress and had the train cut off,
and the girls all went to my dress fittings with me and helped pick out their bridesmaid dresses.
The boys were fitted for tuxedos, and the twins especially LOVED wearing a tux...lol.
We tried to include the kids in all aspects of planning the wedding...
right down to selecting the songs for the DJ to play.


I will remember this moment forever.

Just Married!

One of the BEST parts of the night

 was when I pulled out THE sailing team jacket that D loaned me 24 years ago,

and put it on outside the chapel.

He still had it after all of these years,

 and I secretly gave it to my sister to have handy after the ceremony.

He was speechless!

D and I with my Virginia parents

I love this picture....

Our new blended family!

We had a formal dinner following the ceremony at the Naval Academy Club,

and invited all of our close friends...AND their children.

In fact we almost had more children than adults!

The menu selections included chicken nuggets...

and Shirley Temples were the most popular drink request at the bar!

The rat pack...my boys, their cousins, and  their best friends were all there.

Midshipman tradition of cutting the cake with his sword...

HELLO...the look on my face says it all! 

The children surprised us and had written their own toasts to us...

there was not a dry eye in the room.

My Michigan mom with new granddaughter, Grace, and my sister. 

My sister with (who at the time, we were hoping him to be) my brother-in-law. 

D's Weapons Officer from the USS Texas serenaded us! 

D and his beautiful sister...it truly is a blessing to be a part of his family.

All of the children truly had a wonderful time...they still talk about it! 

My beautiful sister! 

Crazy dancing kids

This is EXACTLY what we were hoping for at the reception...

no one wanted the evening to end!

It was an AMAZING night and our wedding celebration

truly blended our family together,

creating very special moments, silly stories that we sill laugh about, and cherished memories.

I may not have followed "proper etiquette" for a second wedding,

but D and I did what was the right and proper thing for our family.

Oh....and the jacket in mine now...D gave it to me to keep....forever.

All pictures posted were taken by our Photographer, Jennifer Cody, of Egomedia

as well as a few that were taken by my brother-in-law, of Two Twisted Trees Photography.

And if you are just dying to see more wedding pictures, 

you can visit this website.
To be honest, I have not looked at our wedding pictures in quite a long time,
and it was fun to go back and select the pictures for this post.