At a wedding last weekend, I was reminded my husband and I have come full circle. Twenty-odd years ago, as the new kids on the block, we were visited by a picture perfect family, living two doors down.

Balancing a home-made cobbler, ice cream and holding onto two blonde boys with bowl haircuts, they welcomed us to the neighborhood. I took one look at them and my Alabama homesickness waned.

We watched those boys grow up, saw them outgrow tricycles and bicycles, then drive their first cars. The Tom Sawyers of our summers, they brought along a radio when they painted our picket fence and inhaled deli sandwiches, fuel for a patio project of stone, sand and sore backs.

Their dad shook his head over wages paid.

"Too much," he'd argue, but we were welcoming both their help and their company, the sharing of their days and their friends, who dropped by to visit.

The Thomas boys came caroling at Christmas, left their boots outside while they drank hot chocolate when it snowed.

When they left for college, I cried, holding fast to their mother whose sons were leaving home.

On college breaks, the sound of the boys' car doors slamming and their buddies laughing on a porch brought back the old days. Last Saturday, at the wedding of the older brother, I asked one of his friends how many of their group had settled in Marietta. He counted more than a handful.

They are all grown-ups now, handsome as ushers and groomsmen, offering toasts. When the younger brother of the groom stood to speak the night before the wedding, his voice broke.

"We've done everything together," he said, adding how happy he was for his brother, no doubt feeling that rabbit's foot of luck, knowing they would be living in the same town.

And, so, a new generation of families begins. Already, there is a baby on the way for one couple in the group, and looking ahead, I can see young fathers chasing toddlers at summer picnics and shiny-haired young mothers, smiling at the sight of their husbands, scooping up laughing children.

But the "for better or worse" promise also brings with it the reality of times when those young families will need to shore up each other's lives and do the hard work of easing sadness, no matter how helpless they feel.

For now, the Thomas boys (the younger one married last year) are back in the neighborhood often enough for us to get to know their pretty wives and watch a first puppy romp in their parents' back yard.

A marriage ceremony is a union, promises made, words spoken to join two lives, and, often, a time for family and friends to come together, forming an invisible circle around a bride and groom, a time to celebrate, but also one when support is exacted, a future of extra arms for a couple to lean on.

When a priest or minister looks over the heads of a bride and groom and asks: "Will you who have witnessed these promises do all in your power to uphold these two persons in their marriage?" and we, who look on, respond: "We will," we are changed from guests to voices in the liturgy, recognized as those who intend to make a difference in two lives, committing to one another.

The backdrops of television weddings, those towering cakes and flowers suffocating a room, brides in dresses costing more than houses, have nothing to do with real-life marriage.

Trappings fade. "To marry" is a yeoman's intention, akin to "to cherish," the practice of "treating one another with affection and kindness."

An old friend of the groom offered good wishes at the wedding, declaring, married over a year, he found it "easy."

Lucky guy!

Here's to all new husbands and wives, finding their way together.

Bless them, every one, and, especially, our boys of summer, Andrew and Roddy Thomas, and their brown-eyed girls!

Judy Elliott is an award-winning columnist from Marietta.