August 14, 2010

Our niece, Kristin, was married to Corey last summer and asked Grace to be her flower girl. At the time, of course, Grace was just barely two years old, so our first response was, "Do you care if she actually walks down the aisle, throws flowers, or does anything else she's supposed to do?" Since this wasn't of concern to Kristin, we happily accepted the invitation on Grace's behalf.

Grace actually did great.

We practiced for a day or two. "Walk, walk, walk, THROW!" Mostly she just liked the throwing, so we emphasized the walking.

Then at the rehearsal, Grace got to practice twice with an audience, and we taught her to "throw the petals, stand by Julie." (She loves her cousin, Juliann, so we knew she'd go to her.)

Finally, the big day.

It all went well until Grace got one quarter of the way down the aisle and came face to face with the photographer.



He hadn't been there during rehearsal, of course, and she was a little frightened by the big, tall guy and the bright flash. No amount of cajoling on the part of Vic or the wedding coordinator would get her to go any further. So her mommy briefly joined the wedding ceremony.



Once Grace got down the aisle and finished throwing her petals, she stood quiet and wide-eyed next to her cousin Julie for the entire ceremony.







Since we'd sort of been counting on her fidgeting and having to go sit with mommy, we had no exit strategy for her, and she ended up trailing behind Julie and her escort out of the church.



I'm amazed, looking at the rehearsal video now, at how well our little flower girl did. I'm not surprised, of course, at how beautiful she was.