Kathleen and Mark's Wedding (Before)

I arrived in Ohio on Wednesday night, just in time for a family dinner at Aunt Nancy's house. We went to Carfanga's and got the sauce, pasta, salad and of course the meatballs. 

The sisters were given the task to fold the napkins for the reception. Aunt Janny had provided a napkin folding website. Mom and Laura are checking it out.

 The next night, we had a cookout at Aunt Janny's. Being from AZ,  could not get over all the green in the back yard. And it even rained a little. I threatened to go out and roll around in the wet grass, but I didn't.

The best part of the cookout was when Melanie showed up. It was a super top secret mission, and everyone who was suppose to be surprised, was. Mike and Scott flew her in, and her best friend picked her up. Unfortunately, they got a flat tire on the way home from the Dayton airport. But they arrived save and sound. There was a lot of hugging and not a few tears. It was awesome.

The next day Kathleen, her best friend Britt, Laura, Melanie, Janny and I all went to the florist to create the bouquets, and centerpieces. It was totally fun and I think they came out just fine, if I do say so myself. 

The florist was super organized and had an action plan together with how many of each arrangement we needed, as well as a recipe for each type. The instructor gave us a little lesson and demonstrated how to do each thing, and then we tried to copy what she did. We started small with the boutonnieres and worked our way up to the more complicated stuff. 

These white roses were for the mothers' corsages.

The instructor knew what she was doing and had a lot of patience. There place was packed, and I think there were about 6 other bridal parties working on their flowers at the same time.

After each thing was done, we had to spray it with a preserver and then put it in a plastic bag.

While we were there, this little dude stopped by to say "hi".  The guy (the man, not the penguin) is the fiancee of one of the girls that works there. He works at the zoo and was on his way to a school to do a talk with some animals. He created quite the stir.

These are the bridesmaids bouquets.

And these are the centerpieces for the tables at the reception.

It was a great way to do the flowers. Everyone had great time and it was cool  to contribute to the wedding in such a fun way. 

On the day of the wedding, the three oldest cousins, (floundering without any responsibilities to speak of), thought it would be prudent if we settled ourselves by going out for lunch and ice-cream.