riverECHO

Salsa finds a new hang out:

My sister Shalyn and her now husband, Randall, got married this weekend in Healdsburg, California, in the heart of wine country. They had been dating for 10 years after meeting in their freshman dorm at Stanford. Shalyn took what she called “Jewish 101″ last year and had a mikvah this summer, which allowed for a Jewish wedding. Traditional in some ways (breaking of the glass, blessings, signing of the ketubah, the chuppah) and very non-traditional in others (basically everything that happened once the ceremony ended and the party began), their wedding was absolutely beautiful and a ton of fun.Three days of events kept us busy, excited, full of tears, and drunk on champagne.

It was fun from the get-go. I arrived with Shalyn on Wednesday night to Healdsburg where we prepared Welcome bags, had massages, had pedicures (yes, I had a pedicure), eat a ton of food, drank a lot of wine, and enjoyed some quality sister time – I loved having her all to myself. Looking back I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard, cried so hard, was so incredibly embarrassed or was so exstatically happy in such a small time amount of time.

It was moments like these that I will never forget: Serenading Randall with all of the bridesmaids to our own version of Madonna’s “True Blue”; balling my eyes out during Sheila’s, Randall’s mother, speech on Sunday night and continuing to cry every time someone said “shalyn” or “randall”; Shalyn telling me she thought my eyes were really pretty after I was crying cause they are really red and really green – uh, yeah right; dancing at the wedding with BJ, my dad and Fran (both 73 years old), all the bridesmaids, Shalyn and Randall, and her 7 year old cousin “Emma”; meeting up with my sexy boyfriend at each event after not seeing him all day; and finally, realizing how much I love my older sister and her husband Randall!!