Babble

The best gift of the holiday season turned out to be a new sister-in-law, which arrived in the form of Mrs. Molly Walsh, when she married JeffO on Saturday December 29.

The festivities began… well they actually began this summer with an engagement party, multiple showers, and bachelor and bachelorette party weekends (and just a few planning sessions.) But for the big event, the festivities began Friday with a bridesmaids’ brunch at Maple Bluff Country Club, thrown by long-time family friend of the Walshes Diane Tzakis. As we sipped Mimosas, Molly lavished us in gifts to go with our dresses on the big day… gorgeous jewelry, an eggplant-colored sash and a beautiful light blue pashmina that turned out to be not only elegant but surprisingly warm. Which came in handy, given the small blizzard we had Thursday and Friday. Dashing home through the snow, I finished the slideshow just in time to dash back through the snow to the Madison Club, drop everything off and get to the rehearsal with 5 minutes to spare. The rehearsal proved to be an exercise in futility… the main goal seemed to be getting the 10 groomsmen and bridesmaids — on each side — to turn and sit down in unison. Even with the church coordinator, wedding coordinator and eventually David Walsh instructing us on this simple maneuver we were pretty much hopeless, much to the clear annoyance of the wedding planner. Which was kind of amusing. Eventually we arrived at the Madison Club, got Schroeder’s Jeep valet parked (thanks Dad), and walked into a warm room of reds and golds, filled with friends and relatives and flowers and wait-staff offering mini grilled cheese finger sandwiches. The parents welcomed everyone, excellent veggie-pasta was served (and other entrees for the meat-eaters), funny, witty toasts were made and the slideshow played. And I went home and slept for 8+ hours for the first time in a looong time. Fantastic day.

I arrived to Molly’s floor at the Concourse somewhat late Saturday morning to find all the bridesmaids looking gorgeous and Molly looking a little pale and sipping anti-nausea medicine. We took a limo to the church, got ourselves and Molly dressed and posed for photos. The ceremony went well, aside from the tone-deaf priest whose voice prevented everyone else from even attempting to sing on key. Which was actually kind of fitting for Molly’s wedding, but anyway, Jeff didn’t break down, Molly got her vows out, the attendants turned and sat down in complete disarray, as practiced, and all of a sudden, they were married. Jeff appeared to be in a state of semi-shock for the next hour as we posed for more photos and then took the trolley downtown to the capitol for even more photos. The cold seemed to snap him out of it though and by the time we got to the reception everyone was ready to celebrate. Maple Bluff Country Club also looked warm and inviting and the tall floral arrangements were incredible. More great speeches, more great food, a video of the day put together on the fly by the videographer, and a fun band rounded out the evening. It was great to be surrounded by so many friends and family; I just wish I had more time to talk to all of them. So it goes with weddings. The party continued at the Great Dane and into the wee hours for some of us and then there was a mini-party back at condo Hulio, which involved Schroeder, me, warm comfortable clothes, cheesy sticks and lots of pizza.

The final event was a brunch at the beautiful home of Tom and Martha Beach on Sunday, with great food including more yummy breakfast pizza, as Tom owns our local Pizzeria Unos. We were able to spend a little more time with friends and relatives and say goodbye to Jeff and Molly, who departed for their honeymoon at the El Dorado Spa Resort in the Mayan Riviera that evening.

Photos, photos, photos

I’m collecting photos from friends and family and placing them in one spot (on Flickr), so if you have photos from any of these events that you would like to share, please send them to me. Here’s what you’ll find so far:

• Photos of the pre-wedding festivities
  View them as a slideshow
• A miniature version of the slideshow I made for the rehearsal dinner
  Warning! This is a 39MB download that will play with Quicktime Player (which you can safely download here if you don’t already have it.) This is a 3-8 minute download with a high speed connection. Other (hopefully full-size) formats will be available in March, soon after the arrival of my new Mac.
• Photos from the wedding weekend
  View them as a slideshow