The Roberts Family Celebration Season continues with the first of our two family weddings. This time around, it was a celebration of my cousin Jordan and his fiance Colette. The wedding was a weekend extravaganza, held in Big Indian, New York at the Full Moon Resort. Family and friends from various corners all gathered together to celebrate. I, along with my sister, brother-in-law and niece, drove up Friday after work to begin the celebration. After a very brief settling in at my godmother’s house (our residence for the weekend, one town over in Shandaken, NY), we gathered ourselves up and headed over the resort for the Arrival barbecue. We met up with cousins, grandparents and extended family to begin the weekend.

It’s always great to see Grandma & Popops, who spend most of their time now at their house in Virginia. For the most part, unless it’s a holiday or special occasion, we go down to them. For the weddings however, they are up by us for the next month. On a side note, they are celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary on Christmas Eve – in Paris, no less!

The BBQ was a low-key affair, and a perfect way to start the weekend. Pulled pork, mac & cheese – your typical BBQ fair (though if I’m to understand correctly, Popops was upset that there were no hot dogs… I guess there are two kinds of BBQ people). It’s a really nice thing to get these lower-key moments at a big wedding weekend, particularly with family all together, something that doesn’t happen very often (and now I wish we had gotten a big family photo at some point!).

The next day, we spent a leisurely morning at Pierrette’s house getting ready. At about one o’clock, we headed out to grab some lunch before meeting my dad and stepmom at the resort. Since we had been slowly getting ready all day, it was finally time to change and actually get ready for the wedding. It was time to celebrate!

Of course, as is always the case with me, I used the event to practice my photography skills. I think I got a couple of good shots, but I’m really lacking in the right lighting equipment so I’ll have to fix that as soon as possible. In any case, the ceremony was lovely. Jordan and Colette each chose one attendant, so they had the best man and maid-of-honor. They also walked into the wedding ceremony together. I was unclear as to whether the gentleman performing the ceremony was a pastor of some kind or more of a justice of the peace, but either way he did a nice job.

Cocktail hour was now underway. Food, drinks, fun. (How else can you really describe a cocktail hour??) Then it was on to the reception! The reception was really nice – not insanely loud and it definitely did not feel supercrowded, which are the two things that almost immediately make me uncomfortable at events. There was “dj” of sorts, but mostly the music was a playlist on the computer (which I must say seems like the way to go these days). Jordan’s friend’s band also played a few songs. Everyone ate, drank, and laughed.

And of course, with every wedding there are the happy, tearful moments. My uncle Kevin made a great speech, as did Colette’s mother and the maid of honor and best man.

And then on to more celebrating! Cake was cut, more drinks were had, the four month old behaved beautifully, and we stayed for most of the party. There was an after party as well, but we decided to forgo that and head on back to Pierette’s house for the night.

The weekend ended the next day with a breakfast back at the resort. Family got a chance to say goodbye and have one final celebration time with Jordan and Colette. And thus another special event has become one for the Roberts Family History Book.

Congratulations Jordan & Colette!