My brother's wedding

[erilyn]

My brother got married today. Just, wow. When he said "my wife" at one point, it was quite mindboggling. They've been together for 5 years, and living together for years, but my brother being married just still seems slightly unreal.

The weather was just gorgeous. Warm, and sunny, though a bit breezy, but just amazing for the end of August, so it seems wrong to complain (though the bride's hair was getting blown around a lot). They were married outside at the beach, so we'd been stressing about the weather quite a bit :) The groom and groomsmen wore white silk ties, white waistcoasts and black suits. The bridesmaids were in flowy black pants and cute pinkygreymushroom-coloured tops. The bride wore a white halter neck dress with a small amount of beading on the bodice, a bias cut skirt with short train and some interesting gathering around the waist that was very smart. The celebrant was a very nice guy, they had a string quartet playing the music, I did a reading beforehand, and my cousin gave a prayer afterwards. My brother cracked his bride (and everyone else) up by inserting (without her knowledge) a promise to "keep her in shoes, as she is accustomed" into his vows.

The reception was at a restaurant just across the road and up a long flight of stairs, overlooking the beach. It wasn't a formal sitdown meal, but finger food (seriously delicious) and the like while everyone mingled and sat where they like. The cake not only had the cutest bride and groom I've ever seen on it, really goofy looking rather than the boring plastic looking ones, but had the most amazingly realistic decorative versions of their two dogs on it as well! It was adorable. I met my cousin's fiancee, got to ogle another cousin's cute baby (they should know what they're doing by now, it's numero 4 for them *g*), chatted to many many people (some of whose names I could remember). I'd been proud of not crying during the ceremony, but I forgot, it's the speeches that are the real danger. My sister-in-law in particular was getting quite emotional during her speech, and I was very teary-eyed after them all.

I had some very nice food and wine (and champagne with guava juice, mmmm), got lots of compliments about my coat (almost knee length, crushed blue velvet with fur trim, far funkier than my usual garb), and my hair, which for the second time in my entire adult life, I had gotten put up. Thirty bobby pins and a mushroom cloud of hairspray went into keeping my hair an immovable architectural edifice, of cornrow-like twists and a french roll at the back. With the collar of the coat, I really needed it up, and it ended up taking the hairdresser only about 45 minutes, including washing the hair first. I've never seen such frizz as after I took it apart this evening *g*. Everyone seemed happy with how the reading went, so yay. If you're curious, this is what I read, many many thanks to joeyvanne for passing it along :)


The Apache Wedding Prayer

Now you will feel no rain,
for each will be shelter for the other.

Now you will feel no cold,
for each will be warmth for the other.

Now you will feel no loneliness,
for each of you will be companion to the other.

Now you are two persons,
but there are three lives before you:
his life, her life, and your life together.

May beauty surround you both
on the journey ahead and through all the years.

May happiness be your companion
to the place where the river meets the sun.

Go now to your dwelling
to enter into the days of your life together.

May your days be good
And long upon the earth.

My brother is married! Sorry, just still a little boggled by it all :)

Gonna have to do something tomorrow. Between hen's parties, skiing, recovering from skiing and this, I've been rather socially unavailable the last few weeks. Must get out of house or something :)

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_bettina_/]

Your hair must have looked beautiful, did you someone take picture? I can't imagine my brother being married, that must take some time to get used to.

[erilyn.livejournal.com]

I think there were more cameras than guests, at one point (and there were almost 100 guests *g*). So yes, lots of pictures :)

And yes, my brother being married is still confusing me. He's someone's husband. Wow.

[claire.livejournal.com]

You'll get used to it after a while (says the girl who's baby sister has been married for almost 8 years!)

[erilyn.livejournal.com]

I hope I will, cause at the moment, it still feels kind of un-real *g*.