Jared & Courtney. Chicago 2007.

A relatively quick road trip to Sonoma put us into the wine country by Thursday afternoon. We were one of the first people to arrive in town. Once we got all settled into our hotel, we marveled again at how great Sonoma is for a wedding. The town’s organized around a great little park, has lots of choices for food, and generally it’s just a nice place to hang around.

My parents as well as Amy and Tim were all kind enough to take the trip up to Sonoma to watch the kids while we were at wedding festivities. Friday we waited for more wedding folks to roll into town, generally just taking advantage of the park. Nate and Jackson rolled into town pretty early and soon enough we also hooked up with Mike and Sara, too. On our way out of the park, we also ran in to Bobby and Susanna as well. We made our arrangements with our pinch-hitting babysitters for the pickup of the little ones – including Jackson.In the early afternoon, Mike, Nate, Bobby, Jamie and I all squeezed into the car and made our way over to the church for the rehearsal. Despite GPS in the car, we missed the entrance to the church. Things were looking pretty dodgy until Jared established cell phone contact and was able to talk us all the way in lire cet article. Quickly, it became apparent that the heat outside as well as in the church could be a real problem. After the rehearsal we scooted back to town for the rehearsal dinner which was fantastic all levels – great food, great space and great company.

Saturday, 3PM rolls around. It was a hot day and on the basis of the priest’s inside tip, several industrious groomsmen had purchased and refrigerated copious amounts of blue ice packs. Although skeptical at first, once I felt the regenerative cooling power of the blue ice pack tucking into the small of my back, I became an active campaigner for the blue ice.

Jared & Courtney's Ceremony. The View from the Cheap Seats.

The ceremony was lovely – made more complete and lovely by the priest’s inclusion of props as a way to illustrate the finer points of marriage. For those of you wondering, yes, a MagnaDoodle was part of the props list. After Jared and Courtney tied the knot in grand fashion, everyone made their way to the reception, held at the Viansa Winery, perched up on a hill. In addition to the spectacular views, we got to see lots of friends that we hadn’t seen for quite a while.

Friends on a Hill

Us. Already Married.