Sarah Conzemius and Matthew A. Quinn Married 9/30/16 at Jo. Co. Courthouse

Captions: 1. On left, Sarah (Conzemius) Quinn; on right, Matthew Al Quinn. 2. Sarah (Conzemius) Quinn. 3. On left, Sarah (Conzemius) Quinn; on right, Matthew Al Quinn. 4. On left, Sarah (Conzemius) Quinn; in middle, Matthew Al Quinn; on far right, magistrate Karen Eggerton. 5. From left, Terrence Quinn, Sarah (Conzemius) Quinn, Matthew Al Quinn, and Renee (Duhinio) Quinn.

Our daughter Sarah and her fiancé, Matthew Al Quinn, got married Friday, September 30th, 2016, at the Johnson County Courthouse. It was a beautiful ceremony. Karen Eggerton, the magistrate, took her duties very seriously and did a lovely job. She’s an attorney and has beautiful red hair. (Mostly I saw the back of her as she performed the ceremony.)

I hope I didn’t say, “It was a real wedding!” too many times afterward. I didn't really know what to expect, but it was everything I wanted and more, not that I had any say in the matter.

Sarah was shy, embarrassed, and very happy all at the same time.

“Did you notice that I got choked up?” she asked me. No, I really didn’t. Matt, of course, was elegant. He always is. I could tell by his dimples that he was happy too. He has deep, noticeable dimples. Sarah has skittery, dancing, barely visible dimples. She gets them from her Dad.

“It was the first no-drama wedding I’ve ever been to!” Matt said later at Blackstone’s, where we went for dinner. Matt and Sarah planned it that way. The wedding was a very small and intimate gathering of loved ones.

We met Matt’s parents, Terrence and Renee (Duhinio) Quinn at the Crane & Pelican Restaurant in Le Claire, Iowa early Thursday afternoon for the first time. They live in Scranton, Pennsylvania. They drove out by car and didn’t get a chance to stop by Sarah’s and Matt’s new home in Davenport before driving to Le Claire. We were very curious to meet them and enjoyed getting to know them a little and more as the three days of festivities progressed. We lunched out after the wedding at Moonrakers’ (126), which is where Sarah and Matt had their first date, and coincidentally, Sarah’s brother and our son Jesse and his girlfriend Rachel Hileman had their first date!

Thursday night we dined at Basta’s, one of my favorite restaurants, and then we stopped by the Blue Moose later to do karaoke. Renee, Jim, and I went with Matt and Sarah. Jesse, our son, and his girlfriend, Rachel Hileman, had to work in the morning. Terry was tired. Matt sang really well, as did Clinton, one of his friends. Clinton sang Billy Joel's "Bennie and the Jets," and danced to it at the same time.

Clinton's girlfriend Laura and I did a duet. First we did "Respect," by Aretha Franklin (Otis Redding, another outstanding R & B singer, wrote the song) and then we did Amy Winehouse's "Rehab."We figured if we forgot anything we could always chime in on the chorus, "No, no, no!"

We were somewhat sobered by the knowledge that Amy Winehouse's refusal to rehabilitate from alcohol and drug use was death at 27, extinguishing the bright flame that was her incredible talent.

The wedding party dined at Blackstone’s Friday, which was also very good. Saturday morning we avoided the Homecoming crowd and had brunch at the Riverside Casino. That turned out to be handy for Matt and Sarah, as it turned out, because they needed to drive south on 218 to get to St. Louis for their honeymoon as it was anyway. They visited Ikea furniture store (of course), bought a floor lamp and a shoe rack, visited the Busch Garden, a museum, and some other places. Mostly, they just relaxed and enjoyed spending time together.

Sarah changed her last name. She was Sarah Rose Conzemius. She dropped the Rose (Aunt Rose Houser was my favorite aunt and Rosemary Conzemius was my mother-in-law) and is now Sarah (Conzemius) Quinn.

“Did we raise her?” Jim and I occasionally ask each other. She is remarkably successful, sensible, and kind. And she’s only 27.

We are, of course, also very proud of Matt. I checked out his law office and found out from a framed certificate on the wall that he graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Penn State. Whoa. He never mentioned it. No wonder he got into the University of Pennsylvania Law School.