Family Reunions are the Greatest

I consider myself lucky enough to have a family that I am very close to. Last weekend, my cousin Shane got married, so my mom's whole side of the family traveled from all over to Winston Salem, NC to celebrate. It's always so exciting when we can all put our busy schedules aside and see each other. We had people coming in from Georgia, Minnesota, West Virginia, New York, Ohio, and North Carolina. We pretty much covered half of the country, wouldn't you say?


The whole family, after the wedding


My mom has three sisters, so between their husbands and kids, their kids' spouses and significant others, and grandma, we made up a grand total of 23 people (I think?). Much of the weekend was spent in the hotel, only because there were too many of us to go to restaurants. It was pretty great though, because it gave everyone time to catch up, eat pizza and drink wine. Saturday afternoon, we were feeling a little stir crazy, so we headed out to a WS fair. There was lots of food, drinks, and entertainment, so it was great to walk around and see the sites a bit!

My favorite couple spotted in WS.. Coca Cola pants!

As for the wedding itself...it was beautiful! Of course there were tears, mostly coming from the females of the group, but what's a wedding without them? Afterwards, we all headed back towards Winston Salem to an old post office turned reception. It was awesome! A very cool reception location. There were fabulous appetizers at the beginning (bacon wrapped scallops, bruschetta, asparagus in phyllo dough, etc..) Inside the wedding, there was actually a candy bar! Something I've never seen before, but you can imagine everyone's excitement when they got to reenact their childhood memories of filling up the plastic bags of candy at Sweet Factory - only it was free! The only downside to the candy bar was the amount of crack-induced kids under the age of 8 that immediately hit the dance floor in a sugar-induced craze... but that's a different story :)

Holy candy, batman!

By the end of the weekend, everyone was exhausted and dreading the drive/flight home. I was so happy to see everyone, since it only happens every year or so. I took the bf along with me to meet the whole  family, and lets just say he was given the seal of approval by EVERYONE! I had no doubts that he would be completely adored and embraced by the family, but it was still nice to get official approval from grandma ;)

Some photos of the weekend:

My dad takes 1,976,753 pictures at weddings, so I caught him in the act!

Cousins enjoying delicious food

Me and my momma!

All the sisters - can't you see the resemblance?

I brought my moves straight from ATL.

All 9 cousins before cramming into the photo booth

I suppose I'm teaching my parents the electric slide?

More cousin dancing...



My favorite bro!



J4 showing off his moves

 Looks like a pretty fun time, eh? We kinda like to dance...