The whole thing was held at a hotel, a v. nice hotel out in the scenic hilly area outside of Hartford. The pictures were done before the wedding, when none of the mothers had ruined their makeup yet by crying, and when nobody was having to fend off gangs of wellwishers with a Tazer. The wedding itself was approximately ten minutes long--actually too short for anyone to even get started crying; even me. (I'm so sentimental. I always cry at weddings. Just the idea that there are people who can promise eternal love and fidelity, even if I don't trust myself to ever make those promises, is enough to set me off--love exists! waah!--and when the couple being married are my best friends...well, I fully expected to be a mess. And unfortunately my bridesmaid's dress didn't have anywhere to stash a large handkerchief.)
After the ceremony was over, we all had cocktails while the chairs in the hall were being rearranged for dinner. And after dinner (and actually before and during dinner--the DJ was most enthusiastic) there was dancing at the end of the hall. It was very handy having everything in the same couple of rooms; not to mention the fact that everyone could wander upstairs and pass out when they'd had too much to drink, instead of having to worry about cabs and ruining their hairdos by going outside.
And thinking of hairdos...T & her mom & I all went that morning to get our hair done. I'd never actually had that done before. It was an hour and a half well spent. And the hairdresser made sure to use an extra gallon of hairspray to make sure the curls would stay put. The result was that, since I was too lazy to take out the hairpins before I went to bed that night, the hairdo was still intact the next morning. Almost frightening, really.
The event started off with the rehearsal dinner. It was at an Indian restaurant where T&M are on intimate terms with all the employees, having gone there at least once a week for the past four years. At the end of the meal I took the opportunity to make the speech that T had forbidden me to make at the wedding reception. ... I am going to quote myself here, because I just love listening to myself talk.
T first met M at a party at my place. She came up to me and said, "Who on earth is that cute guy who came in with Will???"
I thought for a minute: cute guy, cute guy...uh.....
"And," she continued, "he has a british accent!"
I knew then that it was fate.
I didn't get to talk to M at all that night--T monopolized him entirely--but the next day I got to hear all about him. Specifically, I got to hear about their plans to go out that night, and to reassure T that just because she had had to initiate the good night kiss didn't necessarily mean that he wasn't into her: he just might be the kind of boy who doesn't kiss until the first date. I also got to help her decide what kind of underwear to wear to their date [self-conscious giggles from both T&M here].
I added something about "may everyone who finds a relationship as right as this one, have it recognized and supported by their friends and family," which was part of my pro-gay-marriage brainwashing campaign, and which seemed to go over the heads of the people who might have benefitted from it. Oh well. (I was considering taking it up a level by responding to one of the "And when are you going to get married?" comments with "Whenever I meet the right girl," but I really didn't want to know how some of the folks there would react to a statement like that. T's family are from Texas and Kansas, and I spent the whole weekend avoiding conversations about politics and religion; I didn't also want to have to avoid conversations about human rights.)
The other thing that happened was that I skipped the dance, in order to avoid an awkward social situation. I was disappointed to not get to boogie with T & her friends, but figured it was tidier this way. And anyway, the weekend was more about mudita than about personal enjoyment. That's what a bridesmaid's there for.
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