He's Come a Long Way Since We Used to Smother Him with Beanbags

My cousin Mike made this comment about his younger brother Marc who got married last weekend in a beautiful seaside ceremony that made all in attendance completely oblivious to the Nor'Easter raging outside the bay windows. During his toast, Mike, the best man, brought back some long-forgotten memories of what a pain in the ass Marc was as a child. Long forgotten because they strike such a sharp contrast to the man Marc is today. Growing up, the Moschella family tagline regarding my three cousins was: "Dawn sucked her thumb, Mike sucked his pacifier, and Marc just sucked." Mike recalled that whenever the family went to a restaurant, a park, other people's homes or even the mall, the outing would inevitably come to an abrupt, frustrating end, with my Aunt J yelling at Marc: "Walk out of this place backwards because you're never going to see it again!" One Christmas, my other cousins and I -- after Marc had ruined our Star Wars parade one too many times -- finally rose up to do battle with our instigator. It was at my house during the family Christmas party. My cousin Kaera lay down on my bed in a corpse position with a black lace veil over her face. This freaked out the six-year-old Marc in a large way, but the rest of us pretended we couldn't see Kaera and acted like he was crazy. Then of course there was the beanbag smothering which almost always (inexplicably) involved an 8-track of Barry Manilow's song "Jump Shout Boogie." Even so, Marc never told on us.

Last year when Marc & Eileen hosted the family Christmas party at their house, we shared a lot of these stories with Eileen and her family and they agreed that childhood Marc -- the one altering the brakes on others' Big Wheels -- and adult Marc -- the kindest, gentlest and coolest of the lot of us -- are two completely different people. That said, their wedding was both emotional and wild: a beautiful night that reflected on their marriage as well as inspired everyone to dance their faces off. Caroline was a rock star as a flower girl, which made it that much more special for us. It was touch and go for awhile there, however, as evidenced by her 'tude at the hair salon. (More pictorial evidence that we're screwed when she turns 12.)   So, here's the crappy low-res slidehsow of my pictures. There are about 900+ more pictures floating around out there that are likely crashing the servers of Facebook, Shutterfly, Ritz and others as we speak. Congratulations, Marc & Eilleen. We love you.

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com