This weekend marked the marriage of my younger sister, Ainsley.
I was appointed groomsman, a position that I was very happy to fill. The day itself turned out to be beautiful, with bright sun and not too oppressive heat. Everyone was a lot more calm than I anticipated heading in, I had secret nightmares of my sister destroying entire city blocks if something small went wrong but she was really cool the whole day.
The night before at the rehersal she was having a hard time choking out her vows. This caught me somewhat off-guard, as my sister was usually one of the most fiery non-wishy-washy people I have ever met. I got a little choked up watching how emotional she was about this whole thing. I was ready for my mom to be a wreck, but for Ains this is very unusual.
By the time it came to that moment in the Mass, everything went exactly as planned with no mishaps. Ains knocked over one of the flower arrangements on the way back from the Unity candle, but it should’ve known better than to get that close to her dress. 🙂 Pictures were taken, doves were released, and the limo eventually arrived to wisk them off to the reception.
Now a word on my sisters chosen mate… most big brothers are notorious for providing thinly veiled threats, evil eyes, and other miscellaneous Bad Karmatic Elements to anything that involves their sisters. I have the good fortune of requiring none of that nonesense as Justin really is the perfect man for Ains. I’ve never seen them mad at each other for one minute of their relationship and Justin fits in very well with the rest of my tight-knit family. So well, in fact, that I don’t think I could’ve hand-picked someone better to trust my little sister with for the rest of her life.
The reception bore the slight handicap of several hundred partying Irish people, as the Erin Feis on the Riverfront happened to be taking place in the parking lot of the building that was supposed to be reserved for the reception. Lets just say that didn’t sit too well with my Dad, as most of the guests had no less than a three block walk to get into the building. That hurdle aside, the rest of the reception was great fun. The food was great, the music was pretty good, and I had a good time snapping pictures and quickly integrating them into the slideshow that was cycling through on the projector.
Highlights included the playing of “The Pretty Little Dolly”, which was originally recorded onto cassette from the Dr. Demento Show by Shanna and played every Christmas while we were waiting for Santa to show up. The tape eventually deteriorated or was lost, however a few years ago I spent a few days searching and came across an mp3 of the song that I quickly recorded onto CD. I had no idea it would show up as a tool to delight and mortify my sister all at the same time, but I was happy to see that come to pass. I think that everyone that participated in the annual ritual of listening to this somewhat twisted song was a little embarrassed to have that shared with 250 people, but oh well. 🙂
My Grandpa provided one of the other highlights of the night. He was crippled in an accident and has been in a wheelchair for most of our lives, however my sister used to ride around in his lap all the time when she was younger. I think she has a picture in Grandpa’s lap for every major event in her life, and this one was to be no different. Grandpa provided a dance with Ainsley by sitting her in his lap and wheeling around the dance floor in his electric wheelchair. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.
I won’t post the whole assortment of reception pictures tonight, but here was a *really* cool one that I got in the Gateway Building where the reception was held:
It was a great day for everyone involved. I’m glad that my sister ended up with such a great guy and that most everything went according to plan.
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