Well, (almost) the whole fam made it to New York for the wedding and back again. Tune in tomorrow for a full recap. In the meantime, be sure to check out DN’s blogpost from Friday in case you missed it!
*Bryan Ferry, 1985
Here a few pics of the day before the nuptials got rolling…
And a beautiful day it was! More pictures on Monday…
Daughter #1 heads back to NYC tonight and I have no plans this weekend beyond getting my house back in order and catching up on episodes of NYPD Blues on my DVR. And, hey, I haven’t watched a movie (except 21 Jump Street the other night) in two weeks!
Meanwhile the newlyweds are halfway into their “honeymoonshine”–
…a leisurely drive through Kentucky to Virginia and on to the Outer Banks.
Have a good weekend!
(The wedding photos were taken by my pal Becky.)
I’m back from my long weekend celebrating my niece’s wedding. It was fun being with my brother and his family.
Chris with his son Foster
My dual personality was there with one of her sons.
There was a lot of music.
…and plenty of cousin time…
Foster and the boy
Cousins, including Ellen, the bride
Good times.
*e.e. cummings
Oh boy, quelle weekend! Never have I been to such a multi-day nuptial event. It was so well organized and perfect and, at the same time, unpretentious. But I shouldn’t be surprised. That sort of describes my friend whose daughter got married.
[Let me interject here that I did not spend my time taking pictures. A few times I hauled out my iPhone to snap something when I remembered my blog, but mostly I forgot. I took my good camera to the Botanical Garden and that was it. Mea culpa.]
My two daughters and I rendesvous-ed in College Park, spending one night at daughter #1’s cool pad where we toasted the weekend with custom cocktails by Nate, which was appropriate, because we proceeded to toast everything all weekend. It was that kind of weekend. Daughter #2 cooked and that is always a reason to celebrate as well.
We shoved off bright and early on Friday morning in order to reach Norfolk in time for the 2nd party (we missed the first one on Thursday night) which was a luncheon and cruise onboard a three-masted schooner.
Yes, amazing, right? We reacquainted ourselves with old friends.
After tooling around Norfolk Harbor for a couple of hours, we headed back to our waterside hotel and all fell deeply asleep. (I dreamed that the old man–who, by the way, was at a conference and not the wedding–held an estate sale and sold all my stuff, but that’s another story.)
We awoke in time to get dressed to go out to dinner before changing again for party #3 at a private club down the street. Sorry, I only recorded the view out the window.
The next day we headed to the Norfolk Botanical Garden which was fabulous. We walked all around and then hopped on the tram for a second time around.
See the turtle?
Adorable that we packed the same outfit, right?
After departing the Garden we found a great place to have lunch and drank a pitcher of Sangria. Then we proceeded to get ready for the main event.
Don’t worry–we were hydrating.
We boarded a double decker tour bus for the church and the lovely ceremony. Do I have a picture of the bride and groom? Of course not. (But there was no picture taking in the church anyway.) Oh well, take my word for it–they were like the couple on the top of the cake.
We got back on the bus and headed to the reception at the Yacht Club. Picture perfect and a band that played everything from Motown to Pharrell. The guests danced for hours. I think I did too.
There was an after party, but I did not attend. I bid adieu to the young folks who have more stamina than I. The next day we packed our bags
and headed over to party #4–brunch at the lovely home of the bride’s parents.
The bride’s mother was planning to go to work the next day. Hello.
Thankfully we are a bit out of focus.
We hopped in the car and hit the road again. Sigh.
The Thin Man (1934) of course
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them: the same became mighty men, who were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4)
Leif Erikson was a Norse explorer who is regarded as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus.
In 1929 the Wisconsin Legislature passed a bill to make October 9 “Leif Erikson Day” in the state. That date was not chosen to commemorate any event in the life of the explorer, but rather, it marked the first organized immigration from Norway to the United States. The ship carrying these first immigrants arrived in New York Harbor on October 9, 1825. In 1964 the United States Congress authorized and requested the president to proclaim October 9 of each year as “Leif Erikson Day”.
My best friend in graduate school was a young woman whose father was a Lutheran minister and college professor at Augustana College. She was half Swedish and half Danish and a descendent of those 19th century immigrants who settled in the Midwest. She looked a lot like Loni Anderson. Many of my fellow (female) historians hated her because she was so gorgeous. (She was smart too.) I never held her looks against her.
She was a bridesmaid in my wedding and her parents drove down from Rock Island, Illinois to attend the festivities. They gave me a very Swedish-looking trivet which I have used ever since in all my kitchens. It reminds me of my friend and her Scandinavian parents every day.
Trevlig dag!
* Sometimes spelled Ericson; sometimes spelled Erickson. Zut alors! Someone please make up your mind!
How was your weekend? We had some (much-needed) rain on Friday night, but the rest of the weekend was lovely. Perfect, in fact, for a road trip–which I took with some friends over to Boonville to attend a wedding.
Yes, a destination wedding in Boonville, Missouri. And, yes, they spell it without an “e”. Don’t judge. The bride is from St. Louis and the groom hails from Steelville. No one seems to know why the wedding was in Boonville, but, hey, now I can say I’ve been there. Five hours in the car–well worth the effort.
Boonville is a town of about 8,000 in Cooper County on the Missouri River. Nothing much has happened there since a skirmish early in the Civil War when Union forces defeated a small and poorly equipped force of the Missouri State Guard in the first Battle of Boonville.
There are quite a few interesting buildings in town which are on the historic register, including the Thespian Hall, which is the oldest theater still in use west of the Alleghenies. Check out those brick columns!
The wedding took place in this lovely Episcopal Church.
I wish it had been held in the First Presbyterian Church in town, because–wow–I was dying to go inside this striking buff brick structure built in the Spanish Baroque style in 1903 with corner towers and a variety of classical motifs. What were those Boonville Presbyterians thinking?
As I have asserted before, the traditional Episcopal wedding service is hard to beat, but the organist played his instrument like a calliope and raced through the hymns. I’m not sure what the rush was–there wasn’t anything else going on in town. Perhaps he had a date at the local casino, but I digress…The bride was pretty and the groom smiled a lot, and that is always a good thing. (Don’t get me started on bridesmaids with tattoos.)
The reception was in the historic Hotel Frederick which had a nice vintage ambience.
The food was excellent as were the pear basil sipper cocktails, and there was cake.
Meanwhile back at the ranch, we continue to enjoy a cooler summer than we are used to. The flora continues to put forth bounty at a time when usually everything around here is burned up and nothing blooms but a few hardy roses. I really can’t believe this weather.
Carla’s lush front yard
I hung up some vintage curtains which I got on eBay in my laundry room and put two new shades in daughter #1/#2’s old bedroom with the help of my husband assisted by the boy.
The latter job took two weekends and the purchasing of a new tool. Things are never as simple as they look.
I am enjoying my current reading material.
Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin is surprisingly well written and chock full of fascinating characters who are not of the cardboard variety. What are you reading this summer?
Reblogged from Bless This Mess who reblogged it from somewhere else.
Who knew July was such a month for wedding anniversaries? My dual personality’s. The boy’s. And our brother celebrated one back in June.
Well, it’s okay to be proud of some things. I ran across this picture on a blog and I thought it was worth sharing with our readers. Something to aspire to, as it were–the long marriage, that is, not the shirts!
I know a couple who has been married for 70 years–they’re in their nineties! This is mind-boggling to say the least. And awesome.
Likewise awesome is this poem by Anne Bradstreet (the 17th-century Puritan who was the first poet and first female writer in the British North American colonies to be published.*)–To My Dear and Loving Husband
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
I better end this post before I get started on Puritans. Most the people who read this popular poem at their own weddings nowadays probably don’t even know who Anne Bradstreet was and that she was a Puritan! Zut alors!
*According to Wikipedia.
Hard to believe, but it’s been a year since the boy got hitched!
On Saturday the old married folk came by and retrieved the top of their wedding cake which had been residing in our freezer for the past year.
Looking back, the great event was a wonderful one indeed.
Almost all the cousins (minus Foster) were together for the first time in a long time.
The old fogies partied like it was 1980.
A good time was had by all. We hope that all parties involved live happily ever after!
The wedding pictures are here. This one prompted me to rummage around and find ours from back in 1980. (Unlike most people we do not have them prominently displayed.)
The church is the same and the flowers were from the same florist, but our wedding was much smaller. An even smaller wedding was Mary and Newell’s wedding at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Savannah, Georgia in 1950.
Do you think he borrowed that blazer, or what? (I did a little internet sleuthing and verified the name of the church. Here’s an up-to-date picture of the church door–see?)
Here is a picture of my mother’s sister Donna’s more traditional wedding back home in Worcester, Massachusetts. I thought I had a picture of the wedding party with multiple bridesmaids (including my mother) and groomsmen, but (not surprisingly) I couldn’t find it.
Word is that we’ll get a CD with all 300-plus photos on it. Oh, the wonders of digital wedding photography!
Well, we have survived the wedding festivities. Beloved family members and dear old friends found their way into town (sometimes delayed overnight in places like Syracuse and Newark–bah–but eventually intact). The rehearsal dinner, my main concern, went smoothly and was lovely. The wedding service was beautiful and went off without a hitch. The bride and her bridal party were lovely and rocked the long walk like super-models. The groom and his men were stalwart and stood up straight and true. The reception was wonderful. Everyone is still speaking to each other. More pictures to follow. For now a few wise words from Madeleine L’Engle:
“No long-term marriage is made easily, and there have been times when I’ve been so angry or so hurt that I thought my love would never recover. And then, in the midst of near despair, something has happened beneath the surface. A bright little flashing fish of hope has flicked silver fins and the water is bright and suddenly I am returned to a state of love again — till next time. I’ve learned that there will always be a next time, and that I will submerge in darkness and misery, but that I won’t stay submerged. And each time something has been learned under the waters; something has been gained; and a new kind of love has grown. The best I can ask for is that this love, which has been built on countless failures, will continue to grow. I can say no more than that this is mystery, and gift, and that somehow or other, through grace, our failures can be redeemed and blessed.”
dual personalities 