Snapshots: A Giant Wedding

When I stopped at the dollar store for milk last week, I was highly amused by this contradictory gardening display outside the store.

Potting soil and extremely fake flowers? Pick your type of gardening, I guess.

My own garden, which is very much Not Fake, has been having a rough time of it this year. The complete lack of rain in the spring meant things didn't grow all that well and were still pretty small. Then we got hail a week ago that caused quite a bit of damage. I actually went to Tractor Supply when I was in town on Wednesday and bought some tomato plants. Literally a few hours after I planted those on Friday . . .

Those are the new tomatoes drowning in the row next to the ones covered with milk jugs.

That is a lot of hail.

Despite the beating they took, I think everything has enough growth still on it to pull through. I hope, anyway.

We were all watching that storm Friday night and wondering if the giant wedding we were supposed to go to Saturday was even going to happen. The bride was our agriculture teacher and FFA advisor. Her family owns a huge ranch down the hill, and that is where the wedding was. They invited over four hundred people, so everything was outside, and getting to the spot required driving several miles of dirt road.

Eldest was helping them set up, and he told us in the morning that the wedding was definitely still on, so we got all dressed up in the afternoon and went.

I should note that "all dressed up" meant we were following the dress code of "country formal/cocktail." And THAT meant starch, and lots of it. The boys all wore jeans and button-ups with their boots and hats, which was pretty standard for this wedding. The boys' teacher/bride is very insistent on them ironing carefully for all their FFA events, and middle son did his best ironing in her honor. I helped the youngest do his ironing. He'll be starting FFA next year, so he needs to practice now. Eldest thought he would have time to come home and get himself ready for the wedding, but didn't end up having time, so I ironed his clothes for him and brought them down when we went.

A. didn't wear western clothing, but I ironed his shirt for him, anyway. It was a lot of ironing, which I hate, but I love this teacher, and the wedding was worth it.

This ranch is in a spectacular location, and by some miracle, the extremely threatening storm we could see during the entire ceremony passed to the south of us without a single drop of rain at our location. 

We had to drive through a small river on the way there, but no big deal.

It was beautifully decorated and all the flowers were real.

I appreciated this very much.

I also appreciated the big tents for the reception.

The sun was out when we were eating, and it would have been very uncomfortable to have no shade for very long.

One nice thing about living here is that dancing is still very common. Everyone here learns to two-step, which is a very forgiving kind of dancing. You don't have to be good at it, as long as you can follow the flow of dancing and not get in anyone's way. The result of having a common form of dance that everyone learns is that everyone dances. Little kids, teenagers, adults are all out on the dance floor. It makes for a very fun wedding.

We didn't stay for all of the dancing, because by the time the special dances were done and the general floor was opened up, it was already almost 9 p.m. and we were all ready to go. Well, except Poppy. She LOVES to dance. We stayed for a bit so she could dance with her friend, and then A. and I each did one dance with her before she reluctantly agreed it was too late for her and we should go home.

The view of the party from the parking area.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.