A St. Louis Wedding and a Kansas Championship

We spent last weekend in St. Louis for my nephew’s wedding and had such a good time. The setting was great (springtime in the city!), the wedding was beautiful, and the couple was so, so happy.

We go to a lot of weddings these days and out-of-town weddings have become our favorites. A mini-vacation built around a festive event? We’re in!

I love having an excuse to get away, stay in a nice hotel, and have a little adventure. Our favorite part is running into other wedding guests in the hotel lobby and having a chat or grabbing a drink. Like I said, we’re fans.

We stayed at the Le Meridien in Clayton, which had a modern vibe and was in a great location within walking distance to several restaurants and bars. Because I never plan ahead for these posts (I need to be better about that!), this was the one picture I came home with from the hotel and Lindsey was the one who took it. I’m sure the Le Meridien people will be contacting us any minute now to see if they can use it in their marketing materials.

Here are some more of my favorite photos from the weekend…

I loved this series of pics that a friend (thanks, Sue!) took of Lindsey and Morgan at the rehearsal dinner. This is the first family wedding since theirs last October.

Our family at the rehearsal dinner.

The wedding was at the Basilica of Saint Louis, King of France, which sits right by the Arch.

It sits so close, in fact, that this was the view out the window from our pew. How cool is that?

Grant, who was an usher, is getting pre-wedding instructions here.

The grounds of the church and blooming trees were perfect for family pics after the wedding.

The reception was at The Coronado, which is just across the street from St. Louis University, where Grant went to school. We spent four years visiting St. Louis while he was there and I love having reasons to go back.

The bride is a big fan of blue and white and hydrangeas and the flowers and tables were stunning.

The happy bride and groom. It was so fun to celebrate them.

A few more family pics…

Tom with his brother, the father of the groom.

And me with the mother of the groom, who I consider more of a sister than a sister-in-law.

It was a fun, fabulous three days.

And then…AND THEN…our Jayhawks played for the National Championship on Monday night.

Grant is in grad school at KU and his apartment overlooks Mass St., which is the main street through downtown Lawrence. We watched the game with him and his friends at his apartment so we could be in the center of it all in case we won. (Fun fact: our tv feed was a minute or so behind the ones down on the street so when we heard big cheers we knew something good was about to happen, and when it was quiet, we got nervous!)

As the game went down to the wire, the kids ran out to watch on the street while I was happy to watch from my perch at the window.

One of the kids took this pic…lol. I look lonely and not the least bit excited. Trust me, neither of those things was true! What’s really happening here is our tv feed froze with a minute or so to go (can you believe it?) and I’m yelling down to the street: What’s the score? How much time is left? A Lawrence police officer yelled back up at me: We’re up by 3! 4 seconds!

Here’s a video I took from the window at the moment we won.

And another of the growing celebration later.

So much fun and excitement in just a few days’ time. As we know, life is about good times and hard times so you have to really grab onto and appreciate these special moments when you can. Thanks for letting me share these with you.

P.S. A Chicago wedding trip report and St. Louis by iPhone.