Max & Cyndee Tied the Knot!

November 2014
Newport, Rhode Island

Oh goodness! This is a very special post. Max and Cyndee are such an important part of our lives.

Max (Harry’s friend from college, my friend with brother-like qualities in grown-up life and the best man in our wedding) is a firm believer that we all have two families: our families and the our family of friends. Since I met Harry, Max has been cultivating our family of friends culture: hang out a lot on weekends, eat and drink together often, lean on each other when stuff gets hard, watch sporting events, ring in the new year all together, chat late-night about politics or other controversial topics and make fun of each other whenever possible.  Don’t get me wrong, all of us have always been onboard — but Max has lead the charge, and I can safely say, we are so happy for that.

Max and Cyndee getting married was a huge family wedding for the family of friends. The stuff I loved about the weekend:

Max and Cyndee. They were totally themselves. And as far as I could tell — they weren’t stressed or worried. Just happy. In fact, I think my most favorite detail of the entire weekend was all of Cyndee’s smiling. She smiles a lot in regular life, but during the wedding weekend, she was beaming. I’m smiling now just thinking about all that smiling.

The Words. At the rehearsal dinner, Max told us that all of the speeches were on Saturday. Moments later his beautiful mom stood up to give an impromptu toast she said: Max is my first born and the love of my life. And then she declared her love for Cyndee and welcomed her to the family.

I can’t do Barry’s speech (Max’s oldest friend) justice, but I will say that Max and Barry should quit their jobs and launch the new version of Car Talk. I’d listen all day. 

On Saturday, at the very end of the night, I overheard Cyndee’s dad commenting: Best. Wedding. Ever. Hours earlier he has declared during his speech: Max we freakin’ love the sh$t out of you. There was so much love, sincerity and humor all wrapped up together in the words of the weekend. It was a magical mix.

Breakout Dance Moves. You may or may not know that Harry has pretty sweet dance moves. At one point during the reception, Matt and Harry broke out into a man dance to be remembered. Sadly, I was too caught up in the moment to capture a video. I am hoping the photographer snapped a pic.

All the Ladies. The family of friends is rooted in a fraternity at the University of Maryland, but it as obviously stretched and changed over time including the insertion of all of us girls.  We spent Saturday afternoon at the hair salon catching up and just simply passing time together. As my friends from high school and college know, I love getting ready all together…so 5 hours of getting ready was amazing.

Also Cyndee’s bachelorette was a 30-somethings dream complete with a plenty of pool time, Cards Against Humanity and girl talk. Although I didn’t know all of Cyndee’s friends from college, after the bachelorette I was sure we had all been close in another life so it was great to see all of them again on the dance floor.

Pizza! I didn’t want the night to end. As most of you know, I am usually ready for bed on a Saturday night out around 11, but it was just so nice to be spending time all together. As we headed to the hotel bar, I pulled the move that I knew would keep the party (mostly me) awake: I ordered Pizza and declared myself a hero (perhaps an overstatement, but it felt right at the time).

The Morning After. Max and Cyndee got the family together for a casual brunch and beers. It felt quite right.

Oh what a weekend! Max and Cyndee, we love you! So much.

Harry and I are missing Friendsgiving this weekend in Jersey City. But we can’t wait to see the family of friends again soon.

P.S. Newport is such a cozy backdrop for a wedding. I want to go back. And if you are headed there be sure to check out IYRS where they are boatbuilding and restoring boats right before your very eyes.