Lovely and amazing, as it should be
(I'm going through countless photographs from the reception but the couple were shuttled there by a well-timed pedicab.)
Back from a whirlwind trip to Chicago that was quite what it should be, I suppose, beautiful and crazy, more than a little awkward and filled with love and music.
The ceremony was in a chapel that maps alternately told us did not exist and was somewhere else entirely and the only thing that got our little motley group there was hearing the brides laughter as the formal portraits were being taken outside.
Inside, the ceremony was disrupted by a marching band (later found out to be a marching band cum circus whose schtick is to disrupt events; a guest capable of giving to the most stern talking-to went outside and shhh'd them but someone later wondered if they did the same thing at funerals and how truly sad that "performance art" would be). Given the choices of ignoring the marching band, fuming or anything else, the bride, again, laughed.
After the vows, the officiant told the couple and guests that he wouldn't be invoking the state to change them from two to one but asking us, those that hold a place in their hearts to join them together. The power we were asked to use was channeled through Stephin Merritt's lyrics as we turned over the program and sang The Magnetic Fields song "The Book of Love" to the couple and each other. I don't remember ever being prompted to sing like that or sounding quite as much part of something.