NoThroRiceYo

When last we met, Em and I had just gotten engaged. I had a job waiting in Louisiana just 9 weeks from that day, so we had to move quickly. Let me say that if you are to get married, plan and do it quickly. Yes, 9 weeks is an awfully short time to make a wedding happen, and I did offer to elope about a dozen times during that period, but I could not imagine spreading that stress out over a year or so. Since we both are into things medieval we decided on a period-esque wedding. That being said, we had both attended period weddings where we saw unhappy attendees wearing ill-fitting borrowed garb and feeling very uncomfortable. Therefore we decided that only those directly in the wedding party would be required to wear garb. All were welcome to, and many did, but no one was expected to. My mom got a dress that looked sort of medievalish, but my dad wanted nothing to do with anything other than a suit and tie. Em's folks we more amenable, and Em made her dad a nice outfit to give her away in. Brielle was our flower girl, and our ring bearer was the son of my best man, A. The bride's maids all wore green dresses, and my entourage was dressed, as A put it in his toast, 'like extras from a Captain Morgan's ad.' Even the pastor, who had been Em's pastor since she was a young girl, wore his best robes and went along with the theme.


Here is the wedding party.


The wedding itself was much larger than I had expected. Of course, Em comes from a Southern Baptist family, so of the 200+ people on the guest list the lion's share were from her side of the family. Most of my extended family are in Connecticut, and only a few of them were able to make it down. We were also disappointed that my minions who helped me propose had a show that afternoon and couldn't attend. But we had a special party for them later to make it up to them. My main contribution to the event was my connections to the entertainment industry. I hate it when I go to a wedding and you can't hear what's going on. So I had Em, the pastor, and myself all wearing wireless microphones. Also my friends Lyds and Holland ran the sound and video cameras only on the condition that we would not attempt to pay them. I did, however, receive a ration of crap for insisting on doing the sound check myself. Holland also brought the sound equipment for the reception, so we were spared the expense of a DJ. Em wrote the vows, and my friend Trish sang during the service. Emily looked radient as she came down the aisle, and I got a lump in my throat. Brielle was dropping rose petals, and Darrian(the ring bearer) was picking them up, which was both adorable and funny. The only real glitch in the ceremony was the point where we both drink from a single chalice, but the maid of honor forgot to put anything in the chalice, but we faked it and nobody noticed. All together the ceremony lasted a little under 30 minutes, and we beat feet for the reception.

We arrive at the reception.


The head table.

The reception was great. The food was awesome, the cake even more so. I surprised Em by singing 'I Swear' to her. We ate, danced(I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing was our first dance), did the Time Warp, and visited as much as we could. After what seemed like only a few minutes, but was actually 3 hours, my mom came up to me and whispered 'Some folks want to leave, but no one can until you go.' I had forgotten that our departure was part of the ritual. So, reluctantly, we made it known that we were leaving. The gauntlet was established, and we were assailed with billions of tiny paper hearts(rice being passe these days). My car had been appropriately anointed with balloons, streamers, and rude sayings in shaving cream, and we drove off to the undisclosed location(a local bed and breakfast) for our wedding night. We were exhausted, and the first thing we did when we got there was take a nap. Later we...well, some things don't need to be written about, but that was more than five years ago now, and we're still going strong.

See ya tomorrow,
Marius