Melanie and David, with family and closest friends

I've always loved a December wedding. My parents were married on Christmas Eve in 1937. So for all my life, Christmas and weddings have been intertwined.

It was a treat to see the festive white Holiday lights surrounding the Celebrity Dairy in Siler City as I drove down the long driveway on the already dark Saturday evening of December 12th.

I've officiated lots of summer weddings at Celebrity Dairy over the years. I've always loved the cats rubbing your ankles, even during the ceremony, and the contented clucking of chickens in the background. But this evening, it was all about the warmth inside.

After having worked together for over seventeen years, and after each had each gone through a divorce in the last few years, David and Melanie's friendship caught fire.

For their wedding David and Melanie wanted to emphasize the future and to unite their families: Melanie has two daughters and David has two sons, and the four were their attendants.

Here David and Melanie and their children are looking up to the balcony while their professional photographer, Wendy of Wendy Savage Studio snaps a shot from above.

These are just my photographs taken by my Droid. Pardon their quality as I get used to its eccentricities.

This is the small room off the main dining room where the ceremony was held for about 12 close family members and friends. It was just the right size for this group so that the wedding felt intimate and close, but not crowded.

Melanie and David chose to include their children in their vows. I'd never done this before and it was lovely and powerful. The first words of their vows were: 'I love you and choose to share my life with you and your children.' I enjoyed meeting the children to whom these words applied, and they were all great!

David and Melanie's reception dinner was held in the big dining room and was catered by Celebrity Dairy staff while their cake was created by Once in a Blue Moon Bakery in Cary. Celebrity Dairy has wonderful art work all over its walls and with the added Christmas decorations it sparkled.

















Melanie and her daughter's bouquets were created by Blossom in Pittsboro.

I left as family and friends were being called to the table for dinner to drive back to my home and my Sweetheart, Ruben. As I did, I delighted that these two people and these two families were now joined.

I've always believed that you can never have too many people in your life who love you. And that the blessing of divorce and remarriage, if we can remember that love takes many forms, is the power of new bonds being formed and the possibility of new love arising.

I wish this new family all the best, and a Happy Christmas!