More on the wedding... I think the story about how we ended up with Paris is one worth telling. Neither of us claim roots in Paris and Charlotte's the only one of us (family, that is) that can speak any French, but in the end it couldn't have been anywhere but Paris. Actually, our first thoughts about the wedding had us in Scotland, the Isle of Skye to be exact. Charlotte's mom's family (Mackintosh) and my mom's family (Gray and McLaughlin) both hail from that neck of the commonwealth. So, of course, we were going to make our loved ones trek by plane, train and car to the remote northwest corner of Scotland. So we commenced with planning or hagis and whisky wedding from Gainesville, Florida (where we were finishing our residency training). We started with the pre-wedding/marraige classes at the Catholic church there and met a preist named Father Noonan. Turns out that this Irish-American intellectual was in the midst of getting his doctorate at the Jesuit University in Paris (topic: Existential Philosophy in Catholocisim no less). Charlotte had spent a happy college summer in the Loire valley studying and tried to spend as much time as possible in Paris while she was there. On a trip into the city, Charlotte found a tiny church in the left-handed shadow of Notre Dame that had survived just about as long: St. Julien la Pauvre. A small, quiet little chapel, SJLP is an ancient structure with self-confidence and grace. It was a spot that Charlotte found peaceful and perfect and which struck her as a possible marryin-place. Once Noonan and Charlotte got a-talkin about the city it wasn't long before we disocvered that Father Noonan knew a guy who knew the guy who ran the place. What are the chances? In Gainesville of all places. That night we walked out of our church in Gainesville with an itch for red wine and brie, knowing that a party in the Scottish Highlands would have to wait for an anniversary. Paris was the spot for us.