Welcome to The Chillon

I started working at The Chillon Reception Center when I was 15 years old.  My friend told me that they hired 15-year-olds and she and I both wanted to earn some money, so we walked up to The Chillon one spring afternoon.  After knocking on several doors around the building we decided that no one was there so we went to the neighbors home and asked for paper to leave a note.  When we returned to leave the note on the door, a man showed up and invited us in.  He had us write down our name and phone number and a little about ourselves.  I started working the next weekend and thought I might die by the end of the exhausting evening of clearing tables, washing dishes and running desserts up and down the stairs.  I guess I didn't know what I was in for but I really enjoyed it and continue to call and ask for work.  My friend only worked a couple of times and decided it wasn't for her.  I'm not sure why I decided that it was for me but something just felt right when I was there.  Maybe it was that I had something to call my own; a place that I felt like I belonged.  Coming from a family of ten children it definitely felt good to have something that was uniquely mine and somewhere other than home that I felt needed.  Little did I know how much of an impact that place would have on my life.

Over the 13 years that I have worked there I have seen a lot of joy, celebration, excitement, and a little heart ache.  I have seen a bride walk down the isle with one hand around her uncles arm and the other holding a phone in which on the other line is her father lying in a hospital bed.   I have seen a brides father read a letter from the brides mother who could not be there because she could not come to America from Cuba.  I have heard a young man tell his bride that he promises to love her the same way that his father and grandfather loves his mother and grandmother.   I have even seen a brides dress nearly fall off her when her groom rubbed cake in her face.  Whoops!  Did I say that?  I've seen a lot of fun wedding ideas (pizza or doughnut buffet anyone?).  And a lot of not-so-fun weddings ideas (black wedding cake icing all over your bridal gown?).

Part of my job at a wedding ceremony is to wait with the bride while the rest of the wedding party gathers and heads down the isle, then I tell the bride when to walk down the spiral stairs case toward her father who waits for her at the bottom.  I have the best view of the grooms face as he watched his bride walk toward him; everyone else is always watching the bride.   Then I sit in the balcony and watch the wedding ceremony.  I listen to LOTS of marriage advice; "Things turn out best when you make the best of how things turn out".  I even giggle a little when the officiator stumbles over his words, or when the dad on the phone starts telling a joke during the vows, or the groom says I DO before he is supposed to.  

I wanted to start a blog to record all of my favorite wedding ideas and all of the great (and weird) marriage advice I hear.  And let's face it - all the bad, weird, and crazy ideas that make my sister and I scrunch up our noses in the elevator are fun too (like when the flower girl wears a suit).