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Tag Archive for summer backyard wedding

Have you Met The Super Six?

Posted on February 18, 2014 by Renee Spindle

This is the Super Six.

They have been together for a lifetime. Let me introduce you to my four kids, and their cousins ( my brother’s son and daughter). Starting from the left, Naomi is the oldest, and I’m pretty sure at this point in her life she’ll remain the shortest of the bunch. Next is Jim, my brother’s son, he’s the tallest one in the crowd these days, and then Hilary, Mary (my brother’s daughter), Bryan and Zachary.

The layout style of this picture became a tradition with this bunch many, many moons ago. We would shoot this group shot from oldest to youngest, and then from tallest to shortest. My grandma (great-grandma to the Super Six) lives out-of-state, and would always ask to see a picture of the kids together. She wanted to see how tall each of them were in relation to one another. So that started the tradition of the Super Six photos. And I’m fairly certain my Grandma coined the phrase “Super Six” for this gang.

Over the years we have taken quite a few Super Six pictures. I just love, love, love a walk down memory lane like this. When Tom’s son, Ryan, was living with us the group expanded to the Super Seven.

Scan

As you can see in the pictures below, when Evan got old enough he honed in on the photo line, and made sure he got himself included. These pictures should be called “The Super Six” plus one, since Evan is the next generation!

This bunch has been fortunate enough to live near each other growing up, pretty much until everyone started working full-time or took off for college. There were lots of Friday night sleepovers, chances to do fun things together, family beach parties, cheering each other on at school events, or at a sports game. Just all round having cousin fun as often as they could. I think my brother and I subconsciously made a point to get the kids together as often as we could.

Now that they are all a little older it’s not easy to get this picture, but we are still doing it. These shots were taken at Zach’s wedding this past August. I may be partial, but I can feel a lot of love and happiness coming from these pictures.

This group of amazing young adults have been through a lot of life stuff together. Graduations, milestone birthdays, 4th of July celebrations, Halloween’s, family reunions, weddings, divorces, cancer in the family, and the loss of their Grandpa. They have experienced all of the ups and downs of life. They are positively surviving the roller-coaster ride together, and have come through it all with smiles on their faces.

My one hope for this great group is that they stay in touch and support one another for eternity. (That’s my Mom voice shining through.) My quest with this bunch is to continue capturing the Super Six line up for many years to come.

This post linked to the GRAND Social

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A Lovely Backyard Wedding

Posted on October 19, 2013 by Renee Spindle

What does it take to throw a backyard wedding? First and foremost is a big backyard, which we have. Check that one-off of the list. Then the bride and groom have to be willing to pitch in and get the backyard ready for a wedding. Check, we have that. Then we limit the guests to no more than 70 people. How do we know this is a good number you ask? We’ve had lots of parties and lots of people in our backyard, and this is the number that works and is controllable.

The remaining major supplies to get our backyard ready for a wedding went like this- Over 20 strings of white lights, 350 ft. of speaker wire for the PA system and the music, around 20 poles for the lights to be strung up on (this was for the Mama Mia effect!), an amazing misting system (put together by our favorite uncle), a newly painted deck for dancing the night away on, rented tables, chairs, and table clothes, lovely centerpieces crafted by the bride, lots of big bags of ice, and lots of helpers to get it all set up on time. Plus we were really hopeful the weather would cooperate, which it did.

Our youngest son got married in our backyard towards the end of August, and due to the nature of our “stressful” summer there were a lot of plans that just ended up being put together at the last-minute. This was a 5pm wedding, and my son’s vision was to have the backyard lit up with white lights for a truly memorable evening, once the sun went down, and I think we pulled it off. We had around 65 guests (that’s my closest guesstimate), in our backyard. A party this size has not happened since the ladies of ZTA (Kappa Theta chapter of Zeta Tau Alpha) graced our backyard, as we were the host of their annual Bid Day (there were around 70 giggly, gaggling girls in attendance that day!).

The weather was not too hot, which we were all thankful for. The temps stayed somewhere in the 90’s, and cooled off quickly after the sun went down. The California summer heat swooped in the weekend after the wedding. I think it was around 105, the Saturday after!

The wedding ceremony was performed flawlessly, everyone looked so wonderful, and then it was time to party. We had an amazing caterer who brought in Mexican food, some of which was cooked on the grill right before our very eyes. This was a great set-up and the food was spectacular. Drinks were kept simple; just soda, beer and wine. A cake was brought in by a friend of the bride (it was delicious!).

And then it was time for the dancing. My most memorable moments from the dancing were watching my baby boy (he won’t like that I called him that) dance with his Grandma, and seeing the daughters dancing with their dads. Of course, the first dance by the bride and groom was memorable too. Such a cute couple. My favorite dance of the night was our deck filled with party-goers dancing to “The Macarena”!! That was fun!

This was definitely a ceremony/party to remember. One for the ages so to speak. I loved the toasts that were given from the heart. I loved the fact that almost all of our family got to be here with us to celebrate this special occasion. I loved the fact that all of my kids were so helpful on “The Day”, and made everything fall into place for their baby brother. And our backyard wedding would not have been complete without this amazing ring-bearer. He carried the rings in his pants pocket, and was so grown-up and handsome when it came time to pass the rings to the groom. He made his Grandma’s proud.