Kathy’s wedding itself was a great day. I took lots of photos and did a great job as fourth best man; if I say so myself. During the service, after saying their vows Pete and Kathy had their backs to the crowd. I caught Kathy’s eye for a second and smiled, she smiled back and gave me a confident thumbs up. I suppressed a laugh. It was a private moment between us that no one else saw. The wedding party filed out and greeted people as they left the church. We then had to go take the wedding party photos. I brought my camera and Ann went to the reception to wait for us. I took some photos when I could and asked one of the bridesmaids to take photos when I was being posed. I got some nice photos of Mom and Dad too as well as the grandparents.

I sat at the head table but visited Ann, who was sitting with some of my cousins, several times. She said she got here before almost anyone else, but that there were employees of the hotel catering service preparing the food and setting up the tables, so she had nothing to do. I laughed politely, having half expected her to say something like that. Ann had also checked into the hotel where the reception was and brought my overnight bag to get changed into casual clothes. I took her picture sitting next to my cousin Rick and continued to circulate.

Ann and I danced many times during the reception and as the evening wore on I took a whole bunch of photos including black and white photos and did some catching up with a lot of my relatives. Ann was introduced to all sorts of people, friends and relatives, and had a chance to ask them about my prom experiences. I think she had finally started to believe that I did indeed attend 22 proms. Actually one of the proms I attended was in this very hotel banquet room. I opted out of telling Ann that factoid.

At the wedding I was talking to my Aunt Linda, my father’s youngest sister. She told me that her oldest son Chris was going to spend a year in Paris during his junior year in college. He was leaving in a few weeks. This was a big coincidence because I was leaving for Paris in a few months, and our time there would overlap for several months. Chris was at the wedding dancing with a group of other guests as Aunt Linda was telling me this. I needed to talk to him to make sure we could connect in France. Chris was an Architecture Major and would be studying French architecture, which is a great thing to be studying in Paris. With several thousand years of civilization in Paris going back to the days of the Roman Empire, it is an architect’s dream to study there for a year. Chris was a couple of years younger than me and we hadn’t had much opportunity to socialize over the years, but he was family and a genuinely nice guy.

When I caught up with Chris I told him that I was going to be in Paris at the same time he would be there. He was surprised and we talked about our agendas there. He would be staying in south central Paris with a large cadre of other college students studying there, and I would be going to work on a train line near where he was going to be. We agreed to exchange contact information and I would hook up with him once I got there. Aunt Linda and her husband Uncle Garry were happy that a relative would be nearby for Chris during his school year away, and I was happy to know someone in Paris besides Renee.

After the reception a bunch of us ended up in Kathy’s room. How a group of reception guests and family ended up in the bride and groom’s room on their wedding night is hard to say, but it happened. We raided their mini bar and tried to have a post-reception reception for them. That idea did not really have legs and we eventually everyone made their way back to their own rooms. Ann and I slept soundly that night. By my reckoning, if Ann could manage meeting all my family members and hearing all those tawdry stories of my younger days, we were made for each other. None of the stories of ex-girlfriends or multiple proms seemed to faze her, which they shouldn’t and they didn’t. This was like a rite of passage in my mind because if there had been gaps in my history, Ann now had them filled in. Our relationship had taken a big next step.