Jim and Judy Kurt's Wedding

A week ago last Friday my Dad got re-married. For those of you who don't know, my Mom died almost two years ago of pancreatic cancer. Around the beginning of this year, he announced to the family that he was going steady (complete with "going steady rings" from the TV show "Happy Days"). The whole thing took a lot of getting used to. The woman he started dating had been a friend of my Mom's, Judy Prelsnick. At first this seemed weird to me, but as my Dad and I talked, he explained how cool it was to have someone in his life like this that knew my Mom, loved my Mom and it wasn't weird to talk about my Mom with. That made sense. It also helped that it was someone my Mom was friends with in that I know she liked her, and that means a lot. My Mom had tough standards in terms of friends and from what I know of her so far, she seems like a great person as does her family, which consists of three kids, their wives and four grand kids.

About three months ago he announced that he and Judy were getting married. We expected it, but again, it took a lot of getting used to, to think that my Dad would have another wife, who was not my Mom. Last week was the wedding ceremony. They got married at my Dad's church in Dewitt and Dan, Jon and I all stood up for my Dad as his groomsman. My Dad didn't want to tell the other kids this, but since I am his favorite child, he asked me to be the best man and not tell the other kids until after the wedding. We had the rehearsal on Friday afternoon and then the wedding later in the afternoon.

The guys wore suits (even though we volunteered to wear our tuxedos) and Susan and Judy's daughter Kristen were matrons of honor and stood up for Judy. Some of the grandkids did readings during the service, including Shabadu who did the responsorial reading, complete with an outstretched arm to make sure everyone knew that they were supposed to respond. We made sure he knew that the arm should be outstretched at the side, and not in front, which can often be confused as a nazi-hand-gesture.

The wedding ceremony was very nice. Although none of his children were asked to sing in the wedding, Dan was kind of enough to volunteer to sing the Ave Maria. Judy's daughter-in-law sang beautifully, including the longest hour-father-song-prayer ever. The ceremony went off pretty much without a hitch, except for a couple last minute debacles with Jon's corsage and Dan standing up at the wrong time during the ceremony and ruining the wedding.

The reception was held at the same place as Will and Monaca's reception and was very nice. My Dad had threatened to give his son's drink tickets to keep the cost of the bar tab down, but he decided to cut loose in the end. My Dad decided he could shorten the reception by having me do the prayer instead of the toast. I was able to finagle a dinner prayer into a few introductions and an emcee position over the night. I was able to introduce my prayer, pray, and then talk about the prayer afterward, including references to the Meet the Parents prayer. I think I showed great maturity in not making any references to Talladaga Nights "8lb 6oz baby Jesus". I'm sure my whole piece was well under a half hour.

Although she arrived very late to the wedding ceremony, one of the other highlights was our very dear friend and extended family member Sherry. The initial outfit had a "malfunction" (a certain part of her anatomy kept being exposed) that forced her to do some high end clothing shopping (Meijers) between the wedding ceremony and the reception.

We're very excited about the merger of the two families and we are very happy for my Dad and Judy. This is not an easy family to integrate into and Judy is going out of her way to be kind, humble and gracious as we try and figure out how all of the parts of the family fit together.

Oh, and one more picture of my wife looking hot.


Again, Susan tells the story very well in her blog....

Like I said, my dad and Judy got married on July 18th. I didn't have any pictures, until now.

For your viewing pleasure, I'm going to do this whole entry in as many pictures as possible (with as little rambling as I can.)

The Rehearsal....

I was a little nervous about walking down the aisle by myself. So to make it a little more fun for me I decided to pretend I was a model on a run way. Hm. I don't think I am going to quit my day job (not that I technically get paid for it.)

Dave told me that if I did that during the wedding, he would pay me $1000. (Little did he know that my dad offered to pay $1100 not to do it.)

Dave has a real short attention span. Therefore during the entire rehearsal, he was either.....

.....playing with his phone or.....

......trying to stick his finger in Dan's ear.

I think my dad's reaction here.....

....sums up his feelings on Dave.

Now, the real deal.....

The Wedding Ceremony

Judy's sons, Mark and Mike walked her down the aisle.

Apparently Jon thought they said, "hold up a shoe", when really they said, "look super happy and stick up your thumbs like you are shooting Kate (the photographer)"

The groomsmen and the groom.
Hm. Which one is the best man??

The ol' Matrons of Honor (that makes us sound really old)

Judy and Jim Kurt.

Kristin and Dan.

Dave. Me. Jon.
Finally, the reception.....

We did it!!! We have our first Kurt-Prelesnik Family picture. Between my dad and Judy, they now have 14 kids and 16.5 grandchildren. You can call them Mike and Carol.

Matthew, Andrew, Nate, Stephen (what is he doing??) and Gabe.

Cathie and Emily.

Sherry was a little better behaved at this wedding, compared to the other one. She did come to the wedding dressed a little funny, but luckily she stopped at a store before the reception and got something a little less, um....revealing.

My dad thought that since he had asked Dave to say the prayer before dinner, that he would be safe from Dave "being Dave." You'll be shocked to know, that Dave managed to have everyone rolling on the floor laughing in the middle of the prayer. He even managed to get a quote from "Meet the Parents" in the prayer. It was awesome!!!

Dan gave the toast.....
......guess this answers the question as to whom the best man was.

My dad and Judy had a few words to say too. My dad probably wished he would have stopped short when he messed up his words and said, "We all know that she [Judy] got the better end of this deal." Whoopsie.

The kids had a blast running around on the dance floor (and the rest of the reception hall.) There wasn't any music, but that didn't stop them from doing a chorus line.

Congrats Dad and Judy!!!