After two tries—thank you, COVID!—my cousin Kelly finally married her fiancé, Vladimir (or Vlad, as we call him) in a lovely ceremony in the ‘Burgh.

It was a beautiful ceremony. I knew it would be, because Kelly and Vlad have great taste, but Kelly is also the principal flute for the Toronto Symphony (yes, I like to brag on my family when I can), so the music was exquisite, with some special touches. The first one was that some of the music was in Croatian, because Vlad’s family is from Croatia.

The second was, well, this:

This requires some explanation.

Kelly’s mom and my mom are sisters—my mom is number 3 out of 8, and her mom, Patty, is 6 our of 8. This piece of music was written by their father, our grandfather, Francis. He was a trumpeter, composer, arranger, and elementary school music teacher. He had a “side gig”, I guess we’d call it, called “Orchestra for Little Fingers”, where he arranged and composed music for young players. He used to put on classical music in the family room and then have my brother and I name what instruments were playing.

He met my grandma at Duquesne University, where they were both studying music. They both sang in their church choir. So, music is important to our family, and almost everyone plays or sings, or does both.

He died 11 years ago. Of course we think about him often, but especially in moments where there are big milestones, like births or marriages. So I was thinking about him anyway.

And then as I was flipping through the program, I saw this.

I didn’t even know he’d written this. I have no idea if he’d written more parts of a Mass setting or not. It’s a piece of music I’d never seen and none of us had ever heard performed—this was the premier.

It was gorgeous. Of course Kelly’s friend, who was the vocalist, sang it beautifully. But it, itself, was gorgeous. To see his writing brought back memories of seeing his pens and watching him write out manuscripts.

There may have been tears. Maybe. :)

OF COURSE I enjoyed getting to see Patty! (more on that in another post) This was her first time meeting the extended family and of course everyone wanted to see her and her siblings.

And since the wedding fell on Kelly’s birthday, there was also some “Happy Birthday.”

(Also do I even need to tell you that hugging my grandma felt amazing?)

Weddings are always special, but this one in particular? Yeah. It was darn special.

Congratulations, Kelly and Vlad!