apropos of anything

The camera was on LSD, but aren’t we pretty girls?

Sumaiya and me

I’m trying to track down the other (good) copy of this picture…

This week so far has been about only the mehndhi, and now, 2000 flowers, 1000 lights, one arch, six tables, four trays, 65 chairs, and twelve tulip-shaped candleholders later, it is done. I think I can safely say everyone had an amazing time.

I am far too tired to write up anything resembling a description, so I’ll limit myself to the most important event: the stealing of the shoes.

I took Dave’s (borrowed) shoes when he went down to the basement for prayer. Some may say that was an unethical shoe stealing, but I prefer to think a savvy groom would have taken the shoes down with him and placed them somewhere among the men where he would know I wouldn’t go. (As a side note, that too may have been futile as I had secret compatriots in the boys, but he didn’t know that, did he?) After prayer, I was upstairs getting some of Sumaiya’s later-arriving friends settled, when I heard him bellow, “Hey! Where’s my shoes?” That was my cue.

The negotiation process was, like the wedding, a little different than the norm in that the girls didn’t crowd around Dave to pressure him into giving up more money. Instead, I wandered around and did my thing — whether it be eating dinner, herding people towards the henna-applying women, or mingling in the crowd — and he came to find me to work on getting his shoes back. The first bid, which was a genuine brand new Abraham Lincoln penny that Dave claimed to be worth $1000, was duly rejected with all the scorn it deserved. I countered with an offer of $250 per shoe. We eventually settled on $260 (plus an additional $40 Dave threw in just for kicks) for both shoes, but not until Dave received much taunting from both sides of the bridal party; his father and uncle in particular seemed to enjoy the whole process quite a lot, even to the point where Dave’s father offered to float him a loan.

My mother and uncle think I shouldn’t have agreed to less than $500. There was so much conversation about the “low price” of the shoes that Dave actually asked me if I was okay with it, which I was. I’d feel bad asking a grad student for too much more. He did offer me $100 protection money so I wouldn’t steal his shoes the rest of the wedding, but a mobster I am not. Yet.

More wedding news to come. There are three days left!

At approximately 8:30 a.m. today I put on a pair of pink Chinese Laundry shoes (similar to these, although I think my heels were shorter) that I found at DSW in five minutes yesterday. (In five minutes ’cause I only had five minutes as I was technically on my lunch break — my 3:00 lunch break — and I had spent the bulk of it in traffic and picking up my pink dress from the alterations shop.)

At approximately 6:30 p.m. today I took them off, having spent the day wearing them as I trotted up church steps, around hallways, down aisles, down church steps, into bathrooms, across ballrooms, and through parking lots.

Owwwwwwwwwww.

Sarah and Joe cut their gorgeous cake. Sarah’s wearing her Korean dress at this point.

Otherwise, Sarah and Joe’s wedding was lovely. They were married at noon at Christ the King in a picturesque formal ceremony that was followed immediately by a reception of waaaay too much food at Maggiano’s. The bride changed clothes twice and everyone ooh’d and aah’d appropriately. My dress ripped as I was driving from the church to the restaurant, but Jessica managed to pin me up so I wasn’t flashing the crowd. And four hours after it began, the reception ended in a cloud of bubbles as Sarah and Joe ran into their waiting limousine.

(On a tangent, they disappointed a little girl who came running out the restaurant door because she wanted to see the bride. The limo was already pulling out of the drive by then.)

There are some friends you love like family; in fact, these days, when family can be defined in so many ways, they are part of your family. For me Sarah is one of those people. I have not yet come to terms with her moving across the country (for the duration of the ceremony and reception, the m-word was banned in my presence), but it is wonderful to see her so happy. Congratulations then, to my shopping buddy, the girl who taught me to wear makeup, my partner-in-baking, and the sewer of my Odyssey of the Mind costumes. And to Joe too, ’cause he’s getting a great girl.

If you’ll excuse me, I need to go pass out now.

For various reasons, I can’t put up the monster post I have been working on for the last hour or so. Instead, I just want to say this — Dan and AM, congratulations on a beautiful, perfect wedding. It was straight out of the movies. I love you both, and I am so happy for your happiness!