April 22, 2017.   This morning we gathered at the Beech Mt. house with Nancy, Bill, Denis, George and grandchildren Nancy, Laura and Jack for a huge breakfast of eggs, cheese grits, bacon & toast.   We set off for the wedding as soon as Stacy arrived for the great dog-handoff, at 11:45.

The wedding took place at 1 pm in the same church where the rehearsal dinner was last night.  It is a modern church designed to accommodate a large membership, set in a multi-use building with a full stage, stadium-style seating and a professional acoustical sound set-up.  The 13 bridesmaids (each of which was either a Kennedy, a Barry or a Cockman) wore pastel colored dresses of their own choosing, and each of the 12 groomsmen (of more varied parentage) wore khaki slacks and a white dress shirt.  The ceremony was very personal, just perfect for this particular young couple.   Heidi played the piano as the mothers and grandmothers were being seated.  As you can imagine, there was a host of child attendants (maybe a dozen) under age 5, who processed en masse down the aisle singing, surprising well, Jesus Loves Me!  An excellent ensemble of four a capella singers (Grace’s sisters, Heidi and Hope, and her uncles Clarke and Jonathan) performed during the lighting of the unity candle.  And as mountain music is a mainstay of this community of friends, there were several congregational songs of that genre, led by Dustin Petrey on guitar and John Cockman on fiddle.

Immediately after the ceremony, while the wedding party disappeared upstairs for formal photography, specified guests whisked away the seating and prepared the church floor for dancing.  Once the traditional first dances were out of the way, things got lively.  First was an Anniversary Dance in which all married couples were invited to the floor for a waltz.  Couples were required to leave the dance floor in the order called (based on the number of years they had been married), leaving the longest-hitched dancing until last.  Nancy & Bill won the prize for being still married after 56 years!  Then the mood turned to mountain music.  Before long, 400 or so men, women and children were expertly flying up and down in rows and swirls, doing the Virginia Reel, Hunt the Fox, and other elaborate group musical machinations.  It was a unique wedding!  I loved it.