Feeling: blissful and wedded and stuff
Listening to: Paula Cole - Nietzsche's Eyes
Reading/Watching: Shopgirl

And now: the oft-promised pictures of the wedding. If you are a male or otherwise dislike things frilly, you may close this webpage now.

Before the ceremony, the bridesmaids and I helped each other get pretty, since professional stylists are horribly expensive and we all know girls like to dress each other up.

Krynn mostly took over the hair styling, starting with Marie and ending with Bear. Bear, since she's my favorite sister and all, was maid of honor, and of course displayed her usual fashion sense (in case you can't read the shirt, it has a rooster silhouette with the words "respect the cock").

Lynne showed up with a wedding-day survival kit, full of razors, deodorant, nail files, safety pins, etc. Basically, if we forgot anything, we were covered. I am so stealing that idea when Persephone or Bear gets married. Speaking of Persephone, she quickly discovered that I know jack about applying eye makeup, so stepped in to help me out (which was my secret plan all along). And thus the primping continued, until we all looked pretty.

I had quite a problem with lacing the corset-back of my dress myself, so Puppy's girlfriend very cutely tried to help me out (although I was so excited I kept wiggling, which did not help matters). Then I tied my shoes. (Okay, so they were flip-floppy little slippers that I chose because I didn't want to tower over my husband, on which I'd sewed ribbons so that the backless part wouldn't go flying off my feet.) But at least the picture looked very elegant... as well as a bit boobalicious, which was Bear's word of the day.

Puppy showed up to hurry us along, but then saw us all dressed up and said "oh." He still gives great hugs.

Waiting for the ceremony to start, my cousin Erin (the photographer) was trying not to make me pose, telling me to "act natural," but still expecting me to be all lovely and graceful and stuff. So I showed her a bit of my bridal yoga. Then she ran away to find more photogenic people, and found my brothers, Puppy and Maffrew, looking all suave.

Walking down the aisle was so damn slow. I kept wanting to ask my dad, "can we pick this up a bit?" because you know, people stare. And it's weird, having people staring at me when I'm not in costume. Although I guess the dress was sort of a costume. Oh well, the look on mon coeur's face made it worth it. And of course Prof. Moore, my teacher/advisor/cranky-music-department-magistrate played beautifully the whole time. Then I got to sit down and listen to people read and sing stuff. Nimsay, Krynn, and Mini-Me all sang songs. Unfortunately, I only have pictures of Mini-Me. And my father-in-law (or Other Dad) read Sonnet 116, my aunt read some Song of Songs, Ray read some Corinthians, yadda yadda. You kinda had to be there. But the entire time, Erin was there, clicking away. It's how she got a few rare pictures of mon coeur and me, close together and not smiling like loons.

We thought it was time for the "you-may-kiss-the-bride" moment about three times, though. Note to self: this may be the only occasion when my family is truly okay with our making out in public. Then, after the ceremony, we had some more kiss-the-bride moments... about 3,427.

And then we took the formal pictures, which are very boring, because by then you are through with standing still, and are really in the mood for food and music and hopping up and down, saying "yay and stuff." But in retrospect, it's nice to have a picture of all my air force boys, united, well-dressed, and not holding dice or playstation controllers (from left to right, it's Satan, mon coeur's twin brother, the groom himself, Steve, Sith, Ray, and Matt). Although clearly, formalwear doesn't always prevent weird behavior. And then we had the girls do the prettiness (left to right: Lynne, Persephone, Krynn, me, Bear, Nimsay, and Marie), followed by the traditional bridesmaids' battle cry*. And lastly, everybody took one big picture together.

*=battle cry is not actually traditional. I am just very odd, and wanted to do it.

Then the actual party happened (i.e. the cause of 85% of my pre-wedding stress). My cousin Lara decorated all the tables with candles and stuff, and a horde of family members cleared them all away at the end of the night. I tossed a bouquet that flew apart into six different pieces, because I figure it's not fair if a ten-year-old catches the whole thing, and nobody else gets something to take home. Then, I got overzealous and threw it really, really high. My new husband decided the best thing to do as soon as we were married was go up my skirt. Then he found a garter under there, and threw it flawlessly to Satan, the best man. It was a wasted effort, because even though he is already engaged to Persephone, he didn't want to keep the garter, because he's a big dumb freak. So Bork pocketed it, for what purpose I am not sure. But hey, he didn't mind that it was sweaty and rejected by its previous owner. Yay for him.

There was plenty of dancing, although my shoes flew off within the first half-hour of the reception, so I went barefoot. This was exceptionally dangerous during the dollar dance, when people would pitch in a buck to dance with the bride and groom (and allegedly, it's to fund their honeymoon, but it mostly funded the gas to get us to the honeymoon suite). Satan and Bear presided, trying to sell us off to the highest bidder. It meant I was dancing with anyone who carried enough cash to tip a stripper (although they also seemed to enjoy spinning me dizzy). My father said I danced well, because I followed my partners so easily. Mostly, it was because they were still wearing big thick-soled shoes, and "following" is nothing more exotic than knowing how to get your toes out of the way. I value my toes.

Everybody was dancing, including my gargantuan brother with his tiny, tiny girlfriend (she aspires to be five feet tall someday. He is 6'5"). I also discovered that wedding dresses, while pretty, do not allow for boogey-fever. There is far too much boning and bustling.

Eventually, we cut the cake which Maffrew's lovely wife made as her gift to us, and both that and the groom's cake (which was decorated to look like his family crest, despite the "lion" in the center looking more like a hobgoblin) were sliced up and handed out. Almost as much fun as the cake were the chocolate-covered strawberries, which we did not ask for, but were included anyway (years of making them for the school's annual fundraiser kinda turned me off them, but I discovered they taste better when I haven't spent the day stirring a vat of melted chocolate).

Finally, it was time to leave, so that I could eventually shower our hotel room with champagne and mop the floor in my skivvies. My dad pulled up in the getaway car, which our bridal party had dutifully decorated for us. After figuring out how to move the seat and turn on the headlights (everything was in weird places, since neither mon coeur or I have ever driven anything more high-tech or high-class than his '03 Chrysler), we finally took our leave, still being showered with bubbles.

My cousin Erin used 32 rolls of film, meaning it came out to over 800 pictures, and I had to sift through them to pick my personal favorites. But the job has barely begun- soon I'll have to put together an actual wedding album, and that will require a whole lot more than the ones I've posted here (and y'all are welcome to visit and flip through it until your eyes glaze over). At least I know that, with over 800 shots to choose from, I can convince my children that at one point in time, their mother was indeed pretty and well-coiffed, instead of telling them the real truth. It'll be fun to pretend.

So yeah. Hope you like the pictures. I literally have hundreds more.

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