Wedding of Stéphanie Bien and Sébastien Ratte

Earlier today all 4 of us attended the wedding of our friends Stéphanie and Sébastien. We met Stephanie when we first returned to France in 2000. We were briefly part of a small church that she attended. She left it several months earlier than we did for our beloved Belleville.

They met at a small group at our church. They both have international tastes. Stephanie has spent time learning English in Ireland. (The reception room was decorated with shamrocks). Sebastien served for 2 years on the Operation Mobilization ship, so we don't know him as well as Steph. The church was decorated with different flags on both sides. Some of the guests wore outfits from their region of the world.

One of the healthy signs of a church is when it has lots of weddings and births. Our church is going through a wedding and baby boom. We're glad that our kids have other peers their own age. It's weird to think that some of them could be our future daughter-in-law/son-in-law. But we don't have to worry about that for a couple more years.

We ended up arriving an hour late, at the very end of the wedding ceremony. That's life with small kids. But we were glad to all be able to go together.

One joy of weddings is bumping into people. We ran into a number of old friends, including teammates Steve & Miki Thrall. Because of the busyness of our lives, we haven't seen Miki in about a year. We ended up going to their house in a near eastern suburb after the wedding for a barbecue. The kids loved their swingset and backyard, something we don't have in our current apartment situation. We loved the barbecue, something we don't have the right to do on our apartment balcony.

Ironically, the last event where I ran into so many people from different circles was Patty Walker Franklin's funeral last November. Weddings definitely win hands down over funerals!

Congradulations Stéphanie and Sébastien! May you have many happy years together! Thanks for providing an festive occasion to be with many friends.