Our daughter Ashley lives in Astana, Kazakhstan with her husband and (now) six kids. Kathleen, their oldest, left last August to begin college at Brigham Young University - Idaho,. As part of the financial agreement with her parents she found a job cleaning university buildings on the 4:30 AM (!) custodial crew shift.
As luck would have it, an honorable young man from Indiana was also on that slacker shift, and they became friends, then serious friends, then girlfriend/boyfriend and finally affianced by early 2025. We were sent by her concerned parents during our November trip to Utah to check this guy out, and we reassured her folks that he seemed OK.
We were calmed by a) he was putting himself through school, and anyone willing to do custodial work at 4:30 AM gets some points, b) he drives a 1996 Camry, which earns both he and Toyota some more points, c) he served a mission for the Church in the Philippines (add some points), d) he has six sisters (more points plus automatic admission to heaven for surviving THAT), and most importantly, e) he seemed a gentleman and treated our granddaughter kindly.
So the wedding plans were on. Initially, the rest of the family would come to the States in July for their between-country break, attend the wedding and then decamp to the annual joyous family mess on a NC beach. However, Kathleen and Brian moved the date back to April at the end of the BYU-I winter semester. This meant some serious travel for the remaining eight back in Central Asia, but hey...
And finally the Big Deal itself, on Thursday April 10th. Everyone got spiffed up and looked great.
The ceremony itself went well; no one fainted, Kathleen and Brian both said "Yes," and emerged a new married couple. Kathleen honored her mother (and saved some serious custodial earnings) by using her mother's wedding dress, which her mother had borrowed from her sister, and...
