Fifteen year, part two. People.

[fbhjr]

The night before we got married, we had a rehearsal dinner. That was my mother’s idea and I didn’t have anything to do with it. The spring before we got married, my cousin Brian got married. He had a rehearsal dinner, so I had to as well for “the honor of the family”.
It is the only significant part of our wedding we didn’t plan and pay for.
It was OK.
The thing I thought was best about it was my father and his sister had a nice long visit together.

I didn’t crop that photo on purpose. I wanted to show that they were the last two left at the table when the meal was done. That was practically unheard of for my father. He once left a family reunion a day early because he had “said all he was going to say”. (My cousin Carolyn asked “what if I had something to say?”, but he was already in the car...)
So, to see him spend that much time talking with his sister...

Some of you have heard me talk (complain) about my wife’s coworkers at the time. The folks who brought her home too drunk to sit, then ran off leaving her sick all over our bed for me to deal with.
This is them:


Just over 25 years ago, my wife and I met at a party at our mutual friend Jack’s house.
This is Jack and his date “lady” Josephine:


Jack was notorious for not showing up to things he promised to go to. We were very worried he wasn’t going to show up for our wedding.
A couple of weeks before, he called us up.
“Is it OK if I bring my boyfriend, Alberto, as my guest?” he asked.
“Of course,” I told him. “Alberto is more than welcome.”
“Great!” he said. “We’ll be there.”
The next day he called back.
“Is it OK if Alberto dresses as a woman?” he asked.
“I don’t care how either of you dress,” I said. “Show up naked if you want, just be there.”
They showed up.
When they got out of the car, my mother saw their costumes and went over to them. She spent quite a long time talking about how nice “Lady Josephine’s” dress was.
Finally, Alberto said, in a very deep male voice, “thank you very much.”
I’m told my mother made an “eep” sound, turned and walked away. She avoided them for the rest of the day.
They brought us a jester for a wedding present. He went around making balloon hats for people and entertaining the guests. It was one of the nicest presents we got, and something I hadn’t even considered as possible before that.

mariness and her parents where there. Her parents just had a 40th anniversary party a little over a month ago.

On both sides of the castle:


mariness apparently spent some time with my sister walking the beach near the hotel. My sister later said “she’s a pip”. I’m pretty sure it is a compliment, although I never did manage to get my sister to tell me what she meant by it.

My aunt Robin and Uncle Jack came as Robin Hood and Little John.

Their daughter, my cousin Laura, was in the armor.

This might have been the last picture taken of my 93 year old grandmother before she died two months later.

You’ll note that although my grandmother boycotted the wedding as we weren’t being married by a catholic priest, she was willing to show up for the food.
In fairness, she was pretty far gone at that point.
After the cake cutting I brought her over a piece.
“Here you go, Nana,” I said. “Some wedding cake for you.”
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m your grandson,” I said. “This is my wedding.”
“No!” she said.
“Yes, it is,” I said. “I just got married. This is the reception.”
“Wait, I know you,” she said, staring at me. “You’re the weirdo!”
“Eat your cake, Nana,” I said and went back to the other guests.

This is Lou and his (not yet) wife Karen.

This Saturday will be 5 years since he died. After getting married we didn’t see Lou as much as we had before. But, I miss him being around.

This is my friend Gary. In good news, I’m told he just started a new job.

The funny thing is he always made fun of my going to fairs and such where he would insist people “eat with their feet”.
But, he showed up in a great costume.

This is one of my favorite shots of the crowd just before we got married.

You can see my father, cousins from both sides of the family, the owner of That’s Entertainment, evrgreen’s (not yet) wife who he had only met about an hour before, and a couple of other friends.


My brother and sister. Smiling.

This is my cousin Brian and his wife.


He is the one I frightened with the Darth Vader mask back in 1977. We call him the family drug dealer now, but he’s really a VP at a pharmaceutical company.

This is evrgreen and his (not yet) wife.

They had never met each other before. But, they were told “you sing, you play the guitar, I expect the two of you to perform something for our guests.”
They did. And, a good job too.
More than a year later, he came to visit with his “new girlfriend” for us to meet. Turned out to be my friend from college. Go figure.

You can see my wife trying to bring myself, my sister and my brother together.

But, for use, that close was already practically a hug.
It’s the last time the three of us were together. I saw my brother at my father’s funeral, but that was 8 years ago.

This is our wedding party.

gilden is on the far left, evrgreen on the far right. I occasionally get email from Dave (to my right), but don’t hear anything from the ladies. (Other than my wife.)

evrgreen wasn’t the only one we made perform. gilden played his recorder for the crowd as well. We also had several other people sing for us.


For those of you who’ve been to gaming night at yebo’s house, he’s the one in the middle in the green tights.

John, on the right, shows up there once and a while too.

This one shows more of the folks there.

At the right are my wife’s uncle and aunt. In the center are friends of ours from college, with yebo, then there is Glen/Gina and finally my Uncle Jack again. He didn’t know how to work that video camera. It was on when he thought it was off and off when he thought it was on. So, most of his video was the back side of my uncle Jim while the camera sat on a chair. Got some nice video of his dog Clancy before he left home though...


OK, I admit it, you could see the milk crates. I couldn’t from where I was standing, but from the back you could.
I like this picture because it starts with our JP on the left in black and ends with zemanel on the right in black. We hardly new the JP, and he was (and is) a good friend. Sort of shows the range of folks there.

Fifteen years.
I woke up before sunrise today too. Just like back then. Like then, today had a beautiful sunrise. Like then, I didn’t get a picture of it.

Of course, when talking about people there that day 15 years ago, there is only one who really mattered to me:

She was then, and is now, the most important person in my life.

Comments

[mariness.livejournal.com]

1. Pip?

2. Oh, the stories of that dress I was wearing...to continue the LJ name-dropping of a sort, it was made my the now ex-girlfriend of the now ex-boyfriend of caligatia and rebathehub. tgregoryt later rescued the girl from a Ren Faire at Vero Beach, and then things got really strange...

3. It took other family members years to get over Alberto. Years. But on the bright side, it was something for your father's sister to chat about, also for years. She showed that picture to everyone in her retirement community...

4. For the record, your father's sister really liked Alberto. Mostly, I have to admit, because she thought he was better than a snake. And interesting looking.

5. I loved your wedding.

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

1) "That Christine, she's a pip!" The way it was said leads me to think it is a good thing. But, I can answer no specifics about it.

2) At the wedding was the "great underwear exchange", so I'm not surprised other clothing went on to have adventures.

3) Yeah, people still bring him up to me too...

4) I liked him too. I'm sorry he and Jack broke up. They were together for several years. He did look very different in a suit. Your grandmother might not have taken as much interest if he had dressed that way.

5) I'm glad. I liked it too...

[palusbuteo.livejournal.com]

Awwwww

That seems like a pretty cool wedding despite the family issues. I'm glad so many people got into the spirit and had a rennie costume :D

I can't believe that's Yebo sans Beard...Wow that throws me off :P

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the beard makes a big difference for him, doesn't it?
I know him longer without it, so it isn't as big of a surprise for me.