An American Wedding

Our first, but hopefully not our last, American wedding was a fine show. Steve & Kristi, friends of ours from my office (Steve that is) were getting hitched, in a Lutheran service.

We learned all sorts of new traditions starting out at the church. Todd (my guv'nor) was telling us that quite often the photographs are taken before the wedding takes place (but I thought it was bad luck to see the bride before the wedding).

This kinda makes sense, as everyone is fresh, looking their best, not stressed from the service, etc. Some people do it so early that they have to go home get undressed and wait till later to get dressed again, which seems like a really extreme measure.

After leaving the church, the bride and groom returned to "dismiss" the congregation, one row at a time. This replaced the traditional "line up", and was actually quite a nice way to do it, rather than have to shake hands and make small talk with the whole family, particularly when you hardly know them.

The no pictures thing meant that there was a significant gap between the wedding and the reception though, so we went to our hotel and had some funky martinis with some of the work gang. We arrived at the golf club (should have filled the service/reception gap with 9 holes!) and went to the function room, which had a free bar, including cocktails, which is apparently pretty much the norm for an American wedding.

In the reception room, whilst people were gathering, there was a lite buffet of some fruit and cheese, and some circulating servers with Swedish meatballs, dim sum, and other appetisers, mmm very nice.

Ooops, missed the bells. Before we entered the reception room, we had to find our table. Not content with the traditional seating plan, we each had a bell, with our table number and main course choices on the back (neat idea). The plan, we later found out, for the bells, was that every time someone rung one, the rest of the guests were supposed to follow and the bride and groom should kiss. Should either be missing, the remaining person had to kiss the best man or chief bridesmaid as appropriate.

At the table there were CDs with a selection of music from Steve & Kristi's past, their favourites, first concert, etc, for each couple to take home. All the guests seemed to have a fabulous time, the food was first class, the free bar certainly helped things along and the DJ did a pretty good job on the music front. The three little guys you can see here on the right were very well behaved. The two on the right looked very smart bringing the rings down the aisle on little pillows, although I am sure they will grow up with a complex having been made to hold hands on the walk :-) It's one of those pictures that will be shown to all their early girlfriends by proud mothers.

Another tradition we learned was a picture slideshow showing the couple growing up, baby, childhood, teen and adult years, before getting together, culminating in those through the days they met, first date, to the present day. Let's just say, like all of us 30 somethings, Steve had some very questionable taste in clothes and hairstyles.

The last tradition that we saw that was new to us, was the tossing of the garter, not the bouquet, although that was done too. Steve had to crawl under Kristi's dress and retrieve said item with his teeth. The garter, a Chicago Cubs theme of course, was then tossed by Steve to the single male population of the wedding guests, although I swear a bunch of them were hiding.

The tradition means the same as the bouquet, which is probably why I won, although it wasn't really a challenge. Steve sent the garter over my head and it landed on the floor behind me, where a dozen blokes gawked nervously, wondering just how long they could get away with not picking up without getting in trouble, and hoping someone else would pick it up first to "save" them. I had to wear it on my sleeve, as it would not have fitted my leg, although it looked rather fetching, when worn as a headband!

I don't think Steve made it to breakfast the next morning. We left the hotel at around 10am (they stopped serving at 10:30) and Kristi said that he was still in bed, having partied in the hotel bar until gone 3am the night before. There are a few more pictures here.

They are heading off to the Dominican Republic on Wednesday for one of those all inclusive jobbies, hopefully the forthcoming "poorly organised depression" currently named TD5 (I understand that they don't get named until they reach a certain magnitude, this one might end up as Emily) is headed towards the Dominican Republic, but it is thought that it won't reach land. Fingers crossed!

Have a great honeymoon guys; thanks for an excellent party!