On weddings and goggles

The wedding was BEAUTIFUL. The Thayer is a quirky antique hotel with dark wood beams and creepy hallways in the old part of the hotel. I was in the newer part, but the sign in the elevator made me laugh. The buttons go from the basement to the 4th floor, but there are two more floors above that. The instructions say to get to the 5th and 6th floors, press "M" and follow the signs. Then you wander through these hallways to another elevator that takes you up to those floors. I kind of hoped the instructions would say you had to press "M" in combination with either "3" or "4" so you could pass through the space/time continuum to the other dimension where the 5th and 6th floors resided. I don't have any good pictures of my own to show you, since it is hard to get pictures when you are in the wedding, but I have borrowed some from other guests who got busy posting on Facebook. I am standing in between the rabbi and Laura, the lovely bride in this shot. In the event you didn't figure it out, it was a Jewish ceremony. I have never participated in one or attended one before, and found it very meaningful and beautiful. Laura made this wedding happen. She made her own dress, all of the bridesmaids' dresses, bought 4000 candles and all of the glassware to dispay it, designed the table markers etc. Her family put it all together on the day of the wedding. She has four brothers and their assorted significant others to call on, plus her parents. They were like an army making this work. This picture is of the ceremony room beforehand. The room where the cocktail hour took place was a duplicate of this room, with candles all down the windows. She bought out IKEA of every piece of stemware and candles I believe. More candles. The lovely couple during their first dance. You can't truly appreciate this dress, but it was gorgeous. This is what Laura does though, makes dresses. Well, she is a financial aid professional by day, and a Super Seamstress by night. She made my wedding dress and another dress for me once upon a time. It was a great weekend, and I finally feel mostly recovered today. I didn't even stay up that late but it was go go go the whole time we were there.

I am so happy for them. They waited a long time to be together, and had to get through being bicoastal and one of them getting divorced before they could come to this point in their lives. I see a long and happy life together for them. They are each others' ying and yang, both a support and a challenge to each other, helping them grow and become more than they were before they came together.

And that is what I would have written in the guestbook, but I forgot to sign it. So when you read this Laura, you can print it out and put it in the book!

And finally, to make your day complete, a video of my child from yesterday morning, wearing swim goggles to school. He has taken to finding something he wants to take with him to school these days. Last week he brought a saxophone, and his stuffed Rudolph, this week so far it has been swim goggles. He is random and funny and I love it.