Wedding in Grande Prairie

We left on Friday morning to head on up to Grande Prairie.  Its about a 10 hour drive from our house and I was not looking forward to it.  I knew the wedding would be good but I just didn't want to drive that far.  Plus the fact my knees had been bothering me something bad since last Sunday it was not fun.

But we headed up anyways and the first few hours were OK, we stopped for Breakfast in Drum and then stopped to look at our heifers at Donalda, and then we never stopped again after 3 hours and that was a little long but we ate lunch and wandered around for a bit then onto the last stretch of 4 hours.  That was the longest drive ever!!!  So far and nothing to see but trees and more trees and occasionally a cleared spot with farming going on.  But no moose even though it said moose crossing everywhere, and no bears either :(

(Neil walking among his heifers, they are not very wild)

We got there and all checked in our hotel and tried to get a hold of others who were down, but they were all somewhere else.  So we went shopping for  a bit then had supper and back to the hotel and we found Neils mom and dad and Aunt Jennie.  But it was kinda late so we just had a drink in our room and went to sleep.

Saturday morning was breakfast at the hotel and almost everyone eating there was with the wedding so that was pretty cool.  Then after Neil and his dad went shopping and I stayed to visit.  I talked a lot with Terry and he gave me a bunch of help on running, which he has been doing for 5 years so that was cool.

Then after we got ready, we headed out to the church for the ceremony.  It is a fairly new church and really big.  The Priest said it would hold 1000 people!  Wow!  They just recently got the bells up and that is nice, I like church bells.

The ceremony was very nice, I was worried it would be long, but it was just about perfect.  What a beautiful bride she was.  And I had never met the groom, but he seemed super nice and everyone else loved him so that is good.

 (the grooms mom had on this cute little hat)

We had a few hours between the ceremony and the reception so we headed out to have lunch and then just hang out then out to the hall.  It was at the Elks hall and just a perfect place, only about a block from the hotel so we could all just walk back and no worries about driving while drinking.

 (table decorations)

(they had a candy table with these cool bags)

They did the regular speeches and a video show that was neat and then it was party time!  The Beckers realy like to dance so it was perfect.  I am not a dancer but they did get me up there for one song.  I told Neil I will dance with him if there is a slow song cause neither of us are much good, but all the slow songs his Aunt and Mom wanted, so that was fine with me too.

 (first dance)

 (dance with her mom)

( a ukranian custom to dance in a bucket if your younger sibling gets married first, 

I had never heard of this but it was sure entertaining)

They also had a tickle trunk of stuff for everyone to dress up in and give wishes to the bride and groom, that was so much fun, i think everyone got involved in that.

Then we finally headed back to our hotel way to late and the next morning went back over to the hall to help clean up and say our goodbyes and be on our way home.  We saw on the way up I have a road!  so on the way home we stopped at it and Neil took my pic and then we saw the sunset looked cool so I stopped to get some pics of that as well.

It was a good time, but sure glad to be back home again.