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RSSWedding Tales: At My Most Beautiful
Mar 18
Relationships Wedding Comments Off
To kick off the night, the bridal party was introduced. We fashioned a tunnel for the bride and groom to run underneath and then they began the first dance to At My Most Beautiful by R.E.M. FYI for all future wedders, you can’t dance to this song. It has no beat, no discernible rhythm and it’s too fast to slow dance to. I know, I know, it is the sentiment that counts. Just putting it out there.
I ordered the chicken. Oh yes, I got at least three “really? You ordered the chicken?” I mean, if the chicken wasn’t a good choice, why was it on the menu? “Not the duck? I thought for sure you would order the duck.” Fuck you, I ordered the chicken.
The dinner at the wedding reception was really good. Most of the men at my table order manly filets, except Sherman who ordered the shrimp. You also had the option of a vegetarian dish (not in this lifetime) and pasta. Or maybe those were the same dish.
The dancing music was salsa, I have nothing to say about that.
So look, that pretty much was the wedding in a nutshell. Except for two things: the speeches and the Jewish ceremony. In a way, I have nothing to comment about either. Both the father of the groom and the father of the bride gave very moving speeches. The matron of honor spoke at length about her devotion to her sister and the best man spoke on behalf of the groom. It was all very moving and appropriate.
The groom got up and gave a truly awesome speech, as a way of thanking the guests. He called out the members of the bridal party individually and even gave part of the speech in some of the different native languages of the guests (English, Spanish, German, Ukranian, did I miss one?) It was really the only time I might have teared up. Normally a six page speech and I out at the bar trying to plug my ears with slices of lime. And what do you know, six pages flew by.
As far as the Jewish ceremony, I really enjoyed that. The groom did all of the Hebrew portions and the bride translated into English. A lot of “lord our father, king of the universe” verses. The basic Jewish ceremony parts include Havdallah (on Saturday night, to conclude the Sabbath), the chupah (the traditional wedding canopy), the breaking of the glass. Last time I tried to explain this in any detail to someone, it got lost in translation. But it was a short service, it kept people engaged and I really thought it was excellently choreographed. The non-Jews could follow the gist. It was a nice touch to have a Catholic wedding and a Jewish ceremony to honor the traditions of the couple.
Speaking of food (trust me, we were,) we also were treated to cleansing sorbet and the wedding cake (or another cake we were meant to believe was the wedding cake after they wheeled it out of the room! This conspiracy brought to you courtesy of the groom.) I didn’t really enjoy the wedding cake. I’m not a big fan of fruit stuffed into the interior of cake, and where was the frosting? I don’t think you are supposed to bad mouth wedding cakes, it might be the height of poor manners. I never met a wedding cake that really worked it for me, so I feel like I have enough experience to speak on the matter.
The biggest problem came at the end of the night when the bride went to change out of her dress. She had nothing to change into, someone (presumably a bridesmaid) had taken her change of clothes and she was sitting in the reception hall bridal room in her undergarments.
By then the guests had left and it was just the groom, his parents and two groomsmen. We were loading gifts into the Cadillac when I came across a gift bag that the reception hall had put together for the bride and groom. Lo and behold, it was champagne and t-shirts! I whipped upstairs to offer the bride a t-shirt to wear, and she also wrapped herself in a swath of jackets before making a quick exit to the car. Although I take full credit for coming up with a solution (I also offered to strip from the waist down so she could slip into my pants – what? it was just the employees left at the venue and I have fabulous legs) one of the employees did find and offer a clean pair of chef pants for her to wear, by which time she was already in the car but it was thoughtful.
But hey, maybe it’s just me, but if that is the worst thing that happened that night, that’s pretty good for a wedding, right?
The Sunday morning after was about goodbyes and farewells. When the hotel later asked me about my stay, my only real complaint was about the carb-overload at the complimentary continental breakfast. I know, it was free (well, included) but the thing is, we live in a world where you are only as gassy as your last meal.
I’m telling you, no matter what tale you’re telling, it always comes back to food.
