It's all fun and games until you shoot off a cannon.

So this weekend, CB’s parents threw an engagement party for us in their back yard. You know, a small, intimate gathering of our closest friends and some family, a few drinks, and some delicious food.

And by “intimate” I mean there were 60 people there, and by “gathering” I mean the police showed up twice and I ended up in a pink bathrobe with a bottle of champagne in front of me by 8:30.

What? I’m the bride!

As you all know by now, I come from a small family in the Midwest, so the idea of an engagement party was a foreign concept to me. However, when you live in New Jersey and are marrying into a family that multiplies like Gremlins every time you turn around, the concept that we’d pass up the chance for a party is foreign and, might I add, not even remotely close to any form of reality in their world.

And so we had an engagement party.

Of course, since my immediate family lives in Michigan and North Carolina, and CB’s dad’s side of the family is gigantor in their own right and live in Virginia and elsewhere, it was just one half of CB’s family and none of mine. Which should terrify you/me about the size of our actual wedding while simultaneously making you eager to fast-forward one year and read about the goings on when there’s an open bar and no kids around.

Anyway, it can always become a little unwieldy when multiple, separate facets of your lives come together to meet for the first time – which is why we had a lot of champagne and beer on-hand – but it was as seamless as it could be. People laughed, kids played, and then the police showed up after we shot a cannon off of the deck.

What, there wasn’t a cannon at your engagement party? Weird.

But whatever, sensitive neighbors, you should know better than to think we’d have a family/friend function of more than 12 people and not shoot off the cannon. It’s like you don’t know us at all!

However, since we’re not ones to be scared off by a a few blue and red flashing lights, the party continued on into the wee hours of the night, sans cannons.  I mean, I didn’t see those wee hours because you’re lucky I made it ‘til 10, let’s get real. But others, I heard the next morning, thoroughly enjoyed themselves AND nobody got arrested. Win/win.

Happy Monday, everyone!