Welcome Letter

Welcome to our wedding magazine and one of the most remarkable journeys of our lives. We began with one idea of what a wedding meant and ended with a different view.

At first, we considered that our wedding was a celebration of our love. As time passed and our wedding day drew near, we began to understand that our wedding is more than a celebration of one love, our wedding is a celebration of two families becoming one.

Our wedding is a mile mark embracing our family histories going back generations. Our wedding tied us to this history. Before we married, we were a small part of this history, but now we feel that we are the torch bearers of a new beginning.

I first understood what my wedding meant to my family when I told my Gram that Drew had proposed to me. A smile came over her gentle face. She took my hand and led me over to the big marble-topped oak bureau in the dining room that Grace, Michael and I, and all our cousins, too, know so well. Papers, office supplies, and sewing equipment stuffed the top three drawers, but the bottom drawer is full of Dad’s old toys, coloring books, and other treasures for her grandchildren.

Gram pulled out a battered old sweater box tied with a string from one drawer. She turned to me and said, “I want to give this gift to you. You are the firstborn in your generation and the first child to wed. In this box is the family history of both the Walsh and Phelan families. I was entrusted with the beginnings of  this more than sixty years ago; now I entrust this legacy to you."

Gram and I sat in at the dining table for hours talking, looking over the genealogy chart she had made, reading old letters, and looking at old pictures. There were fascinating documents from Ellis Island, diplomas from high schools and colleges and deeds and trusts from the family businesses and the purchase of family homes.

What I loved most in this family treasure were old family wedding photos and marriage vow booklets. Many of the people in the photos had passed long ago, but somehow I felt connected to them. I understood that a wedding, and our marriage, is a bond with the past, present, and future.

We hope that this wedding magazine will be a journal of this significant mile mark in our families’ histories. That maybe one hundred years from now this magazine will help a new generation understand the importance of family.