Utah Wedding, Part 2

I'm in Utah, attending my daughter's wedding - my first post of this trip can be found here. I will continue with the wedding "events":

Friday brought a host of family members flying into Utah for the wedding. I spent a good chunk of the day at the airport, picking people up. My brother-in-law arrived (he is always the life of the party), as well as my son and daughter-in-law (she's an amazing help at every family gathering). As most parents can understand, I was really, really excited to see my oldest son and his wife. After being married for only eight weeks, it seems strange to type that ; )

We rushed down south to Utah County, to begin preparing for the rehearsal dinner. In LDS temple weddings, there's really not a lot to "rehearse", so we used the BBQ dinner as an informal way to introduce all the families (see yesterday's post). My Aunt was kind enough to host the event at her large home. We put all the young men to work, to assemble the tents in her back yard:

Nice to see the boys trying to figure out how this whole thing works...

My other brother-in-law and my oldest son confer on the layout

It was pretty hot outside, so the tents created some shade. The bride's mother pulled together some beautiful flower arrangements and helped make the whole thing look elegant:

We fired up the grill and put my ex-wife's husband on the job. He's an amazing cook and kept the food flowing for the entire evening:

The bride and groom-to-be had a great time visiting with all of the guests...probably too many names to remember, but several great conversations:

Away from the tables, you had even more action ; ) All of the little kids banded together and pretended to play "bowling" in my Aunt's backyard:

It was so fun to watch them all play together! I suppose this was yet another lesson that we can learn from children - everyone can play together and get along, no matter what family you come from.

Inside the house...where the temperatures were a little cooler...you had another collection of children. I suppose that "children" is the wrong term to use, as they've all grown up ; ) This bunch includes my oldest son, my nephew and two of my younger brothers. Here's a pic of my son "holding court" with all of these amazing young adults:

Back outside, the guests all had a chance to introduce themselves, and here a cute poem, about the bride and groom, by my wife's grandmother.

We finished the dinner, as all good meals should, with some great desserts. The hit of the evening was an evil concoction from my Mom. It's called "Death By Chocolate" and it was requested by the bride:

We had a great time and I loved seeing the merging of all these families. We had so much help to pull this off - the first of the five wedding "events". The next post - the wedding...