The Stars and the Cookie Jar

I'm supposed to add, because I forgot it in the wedding post, that N's aunt read Shakespeare during our ceremony. She did a very good job on very short notice, which is hardly surprising because she's a candidate for ministerial things. I had wanted sovay to read the Shakespeare, but.

And now,

Things got off to an interesting start. The caterer, much as we loved them in the end, was half an hour late with the setup. The cake -- you remember our poor defenseless unboxed cake, our rather large poor defenseless unboxed cake -- had suffered another layer-off-layer landslide during transit onto a cake trolley, and so I tucked my wedding dress out of the way and squeezed back into the kitchen and spent ten quality minutes with a palette knife and a butter knife, scooching buttercream strategically. In the end, the front looked okay, and I begged them to cut from the crooked side and display the repaired side, and I don't think many of the guests noticed.

Then we mingled, and things got better, and food was passed around and it was delicious. Watching my smallish, shomer-almost-everything friend terriqat fall upon the milchig kosher selections was extremely humorous. Because all this tasty but trayf food would go by and she'd be perfectly placid about missing out on the proscuitto-wrapped melon, and then! The tortellini or the brie tartlets would come by and her eyes would gleam, and there was a sudden bare hors d'oeuvres skewer.

The food was exactly what we wanted, in short, and I was impressed by the level of sophistication in its service and execution. I think everyone had enough.

And then my family arrived, and they swooped upon the champagne (which we were saving until everyone had arrived) and it will always stand out for me, the memory of how sixty people left the champagne where it was and minded their own polite business, and my family had a flute in each hand before even coming to say hello. We had to rush the champagne toast or we wouldn't have had any left. [As it turns out, the caterers were pouring someone else's, leftover, champagne. But we didn't know that, and they didn't know that, and now N's mom has two cases of champagne in the basement.]

We sat down to tea and tea sandwiches and scones and Bakewell tart and lemonade and many small nibbly sweet things, and then when my family had eaten, as we were thinking about maybe cutting the cake soon, they all got up to start to leave. So we had to rush the cake-cutting, or none of my family would have been there.

Our guests were, for the most part, well-behaved. We had a number of delightful and unexpected Milliways people from all corners of the country! We had college friends of mine and high school friends of N's! And we had my family, but what can you do?!

N to Sam, my aunt's foster child: "Did you enjoy the food, Sam?"
Sam: "We're going out to dinner after this."
Selkie: *blink*

The Rittenhouse String Trio played beautifully, and it was such an elegant party. I just can't get over it, how elegant it was, how it was just what we wanted. You hear all these horror stories about weddings out of control, but ours just fell into place. I feel like I'm glossing over the highlights, but it was all a highlight. The food. The music. The people. It was what we had planned, and it was all ours.


And then we went back to the hotel and had more champagne, and in front of witnesses, tore open cards and gifts in a most mercenary fashion. [We got beautiful, wonderful, thoughtful presents, including a fabulous cookbook with British and Australian recipes in it.] It made us hungry, so we took friends and the famille la_rainette out to Pat's King of Steaks for hot, greasy junk food. It goes so well with champagne.

...And maybe I write about the honeymoon tomorrow.