Real Marriage, Sham Wedding Part 1

Before things get away from me again - a quick recap of the main event of my weekend: I went to Chicago (the going part merits its own post) for my friend Sarah's wedding, which took place in a suburb north of O'Hare.

It was a weekend of firsts for many of us - for me, a first peer wedding, and first rental car, first ring-bearer requiring a police note for anyone I've ever known (the ring-bearer was the bride's family's St. Bernard who required permission to be allowed a brief parole from house arrest since he allegedly bit - but did not injure - a child at some point in the recent past), but, as it happens, not so much a first wedding for the bride and groom. They got married for the first, legal time, at the US embassy in Ghana three(?) years ago, a fact which they didn't really make public until recently, though many of us knew slightly ahead of time. This eased things in terms of the ceremony, which was a "officiated" by Eli, the bride's college roommate and probably the most organized person I know. It was, really, lovely, if a little chilly - very personal, a little improvised, a little Ghanaian, a little Quaker, and there was a lot of crying.

A. Lot. Of. Crying.

Then the reception involved a great deal of champagne, spanakopita, not quite enough crab cakes and, in lieu of cake, homemade brownies (which the bride and groom served, personally, to each of us) and bite-sized tartlets of many kinds. And then the dancing.

A. Lot. Of. Dancing.

Tony, the groom, proved early on to be the ruler of the dance floor, with a brief challenge from the bride's brother in law's mother, who met his repeated splits with a fairly extensive repertoire of Russian folk dancing. As far as music, first up was a reggae band that the bride found on Craigslist, which played "Stir it Up" at least twice, and, apart from the vaguely skeezy manager who hit on one of my friends by complimenting her calves, was pretty fun, then we switched to an ipod and had a little almost-choreographed group "Single Ladies" dance.

As the night progressed, there was some more crying, a balloon-flower headdress that escapes description, and, finally, a shuttle ride back to the hotel that somehow devolved into a great deal of Amy Poehler-as-Hillary-Clinton-style cackling.