Weddings, picnics, parades and barbecues are all a part of summer’s sweet season; and an outdoor wedding in the middle of June is as classic as hot days at the lake. Our beautiful daughter, Ellie, was married at our homestead in June, and it was truly magical, just as she had always dreamed it to be since she was a little girl. She was married in the meadow where she and her favorite little sister, Betsie, chased grasshoppers and fireflies. The reception was in our 125 year old barn, filled with straw and laughter, just as it was when the girls spent summer days swinging from the rafters. The homestead was, and will always be a place for family, traditions, joyful love, and so many memories. The day was filled with all of that, yet so much more! We gained more lovely family, and a sweet and wonderful son! We are blessed, so very blessed!

My daughter’s wedding dress was worn beautifully and happily from the minute I helped her put it on in my bedroom, until the second I found it dirty and crumpled on our bathroom floor the next day. Her dress was a HUGE part of “her best day ever!” She ran barefoot through sunlit country roads in it. She danced all night on a straw barn floor in it. She dropped some of her homemade strawberry wedding cake and Sweetie-licious key lime pie on two layers of its ivory tulle in it. It had grass stains from playing corn hole and riding her tandem bike with her new hubby all over the warm meadow of our farm. It had beer and wine spills on its gazillion buttoned bustle from guests giving her loving hugs; and lipstick stains from well intended, but short and sweet near-sighted grandmothers. Mostly, this special wedding dress was filled with dried stains of tears. Tears of love, joy and excitement of finding her great and true love.

Let us all be refreshed by wedding love, whether we have been married for ten or fifty years. Love sweet, and as deep as your heart can hold!