Wedding blagathon (and pics!)
I'm home sick today. It's a combination of exhaustion, allergies (my eyes are KILLING me today), and a funny tummy this morning. But as the day wears on, it's mostly exhaustion.
But I digress. This weekend was my nephew's wedding and L.I. Who (A Doctor Who convention in Long Island, NY). T-Rex and I traveled two hours to Matawan, NJ by railway for the wedding ceremony, then got a lift to Spring Lake, NJ for the reception, after which we took nearly 3 hour journey to get home starting at 11:50pm.
Then onto Ronkonkoma - another two hour journey - for the convention. Our dear friend Ken Deep was the primary organizer, and we wanted to show our support for his and the teams' endeavors even though we couldn't be there for the whole thing.
I'm not sure which way is up now. But I do have some nice photos to share.
It was interesting attending the wedding. I am not close to my nephew. He's a good guy. But my eldest brother married a very Italian Catholic woman, who raised the kids to be very Italian Catholic, and so it often feels to some of us like we are not really related. My SiL comes from a large, involved family. So my brother basically got absorbed into hers. Not a judgment, mind, just an observation. Feeling like an outsider (and involved in my own life's drama) meant not spending much time at their house. My nephew has also, despite my attempts to reach out, never visited me when he lived in NYC. I helped him move into the dorms his freshman year at NYU. So there's a sense of disappointment that, as an adult, he has not sought out to deepen the relationship we barely developed when he was a child.
At any rate, the ceremony felt weird to those of us who are not practising Catholics. I mean no disrespect to those on my flist who are Catholic. But I'm sure people can understand how it feels strange for a Jewish person (and not particularly active one) to be sitting in a church, repeatedly standing up and sitting down (no, I did not kneel and I did not take communion), standing silent and confused as the people around us repeat things back to the priest that is part of mass, etc.. It's like you're in someone else's clubhouse and you definitely aren't a member. But as both the bride and groom are practising Catholics, it was their day and we were there to witness it, not mould it to our own needs. T-Rex did his finest to remind me why I am with him, whispering jokes into my ear and even making something of a slashy observation relating the appearance of the pulpit to a scifi show (ST:TNG). I entertained myself imagining the water and wine the priest poured into the cup might explode into a puff of evil smoke like something from a cauldron. (Side note: I thought the wine was always red, not white. I looked like he had oil and vinegar up there). And at one point, the cellphone of the guy sitting behind me went off with a song from The Cure and this amused me greatly. (I had been wondering, from the moment the ceremony began, when someone's phone would ring!)
The food was good. The DJ was good. There was no major interpersonal drama at the reception. You can't really ask for more. Everyone was well-behaved and in good spirits throughout. But it was a bit bittersweet, too. My aunt and uncle (father's brother and his wife) came up from Florida to attend. They are advancing in years. I haven't seen them in ages. And although I am not terribly close to them, I had the deeply sad feeling that this might be last time I ever see them (My brother had the same thought). My uncle and I had a lovely conversation recently about our family heritage after my 23andme results came back. I have not been able to convince him to submit his own DNA sample, but we did talk about our shared interest in family migration history. My dad, however, DID agree to submit a sample! So I bought him a kit and set up the account online under my email address, which we completed at the reception. So soon I will be able to see what he contributed to my DNA, and what came from my mother.
Oh, and I did ask my mother if she knew the name of the synagogue my grandfather attended and had his bar mitzvah. But she had no idea other than "somewhere in the Lower East Side" and agreed with my suspicion (surmising?) concerning it. I had recently contacted the rabbi of said synagogue, but they don't keep records of bar mitzvahs, alas.
Flistees might recall that I don't really speak with my mother. But she was well-behaved at the event and so, so was I. She bounced up to T-Rex at the end of the ceremony and declared hserlf as my mother (I would say introduction, but it was more of an in-your-face declaration. I found this more amusing than anything else. But I think they didn't speak much at the reception afterward. And I thought about T-Rex's behavior compared to my ex [redacted] who met her at my brother's 50th birthday part and spent an inordinate amount of time talking with her (she found him very good looking and was clearly charmed), and how he then proceeded to tell me that she was "not evil" and that I should "mellow out about it" (paraphrasing).
T-Rex was sat next to my dad and they shared a few laughs. He happily ate, danced with me a bit, enjoyed the specialty cocktail (gin, St. Germain, grapefruit juice and seltzer), and was generally patient and resigned to the late evening (he was very excited about the Viennese pastries!). He is not one to make grand gestures. But his behavior made it very clear that he was there with and for me, which was a great comfort.
My stepmother said she'd never seen me so happy. But actually, it was that I wasn't completely miserable at the event. I am not a lover of family weddings. My other brother (not father of the groom) and I had a chat later about family dances and symbolism and all that. There is always a strain after a divorce (even if it is 30 years later). Apparently it is a custom for the grandparents to dance. Well, disaster was averted. There was no grandparent dance. But the conversation between my brother and I regarding our perspectives, our lives, and in conjunction with the entirety of the wedding just reminded me again and again of the extremely divergent perspectives between myself and my siblings. I told T-Rex that as much as I am glad for the happiness of my nephew and his now wife, I detest the formulaic and ritualistic nature of these kinds of events. I much prefer weddings that are more relaxed, creative, and fun than those that are about reproducing socially approved behaviors and roles.
Then last night I had a dream that I was at the hairdresser and someone brought three dresses in for me while I was getting my hair done. Apparently I was getting married and we needed to make sure my hair worked with the necklines of the dresses. There were three dress and two out of three looked like my style, but I had not picked any of them out and did not like them. The wedding dress looked too much like an ordinary summer sundress. It came to my knees with a grey ribbon framing an empire waist, and a long bow from the neckline hanging down. The party dress was also sleeveless, and very long - to the floor. It had a UK flag pattern on it. The third was a hideous denim tank dress, and it might have even been the wrong size. In the dream, I wasn't happy with any of them, but I felt like there was nothing for it. It was a fait accompli. I think it's interesting that my mind used the formula of a wedding to explore some other area of my life that does not feel sufficient and where I have a feeling of frustration and impotence. (And yes, I do know what the dream was about, and it's not about a wedding).
Amusingly, at the wedding Saturday I asked the bride, groom and her mother how much planning they put in and they all claimed to have done the majority of it! There's no question it was a very expensive wedding, and that her parents started saving for it the day she was born. I suppose they were all just proud of how well it turned out and I certainly spared no compliment as I know how difficult it can be to coordinate events much smaller than that.
So yeah, a variety of emotions were generated and we all played our parts for the benefit of the young couple.
But anyway, enough blagging on and on. I know it's the photos you want to see. I hope you enjoy. I took a lot of "selfies" with family, and we had fun making funny faces. Unfortunately, due to the lighting many of them are quite grainy. My flash didn't work very well either, when I did use it. I won't be in any of the wedding party photos, and T-Rex and I did joke about making hideous faces whenever the official photographer came around. So for all I know, these may be the only photos I'm in!
A link to the full set is here. Thumbnails below.
The cake, first dance, and a quick kiss
My aunt Carol and uncle Rick, one of the three of us, and a hilarious attempt at a selfie with them
My dad and stepmother
Daddy/daughter selfie
Funny face selfie mayhem then ensues with my nephew, neice, T-Rex and my brother (and SiL trying to get "a nice one" in)
Niece photobomb of me and her mom!
Some "nice ones" with the bride, groom, my brother the father of the groom, and my niece the sister of the groom
Uncle of the bride and family
T-Rex and I with the happy couple
My dad and stepmom with the couple
Cake cutting
How it looks when you've reached your limit at the end of the night
But I digress. This weekend was my nephew's wedding and L.I. Who (A Doctor Who convention in Long Island, NY). T-Rex and I traveled two hours to Matawan, NJ by railway for the wedding ceremony, then got a lift to Spring Lake, NJ for the reception, after which we took nearly 3 hour journey to get home starting at 11:50pm.
Then onto Ronkonkoma - another two hour journey - for the convention. Our dear friend Ken Deep was the primary organizer, and we wanted to show our support for his and the teams' endeavors even though we couldn't be there for the whole thing.
I'm not sure which way is up now. But I do have some nice photos to share.
It was interesting attending the wedding. I am not close to my nephew. He's a good guy. But my eldest brother married a very Italian Catholic woman, who raised the kids to be very Italian Catholic, and so it often feels to some of us like we are not really related. My SiL comes from a large, involved family. So my brother basically got absorbed into hers. Not a judgment, mind, just an observation. Feeling like an outsider (and involved in my own life's drama) meant not spending much time at their house. My nephew has also, despite my attempts to reach out, never visited me when he lived in NYC. I helped him move into the dorms his freshman year at NYU. So there's a sense of disappointment that, as an adult, he has not sought out to deepen the relationship we barely developed when he was a child.
At any rate, the ceremony felt weird to those of us who are not practising Catholics. I mean no disrespect to those on my flist who are Catholic. But I'm sure people can understand how it feels strange for a Jewish person (and not particularly active one) to be sitting in a church, repeatedly standing up and sitting down (no, I did not kneel and I did not take communion), standing silent and confused as the people around us repeat things back to the priest that is part of mass, etc.. It's like you're in someone else's clubhouse and you definitely aren't a member. But as both the bride and groom are practising Catholics, it was their day and we were there to witness it, not mould it to our own needs. T-Rex did his finest to remind me why I am with him, whispering jokes into my ear and even making something of a slashy observation relating the appearance of the pulpit to a scifi show (ST:TNG). I entertained myself imagining the water and wine the priest poured into the cup might explode into a puff of evil smoke like something from a cauldron. (Side note: I thought the wine was always red, not white. I looked like he had oil and vinegar up there). And at one point, the cellphone of the guy sitting behind me went off with a song from The Cure and this amused me greatly. (I had been wondering, from the moment the ceremony began, when someone's phone would ring!)
The food was good. The DJ was good. There was no major interpersonal drama at the reception. You can't really ask for more. Everyone was well-behaved and in good spirits throughout. But it was a bit bittersweet, too. My aunt and uncle (father's brother and his wife) came up from Florida to attend. They are advancing in years. I haven't seen them in ages. And although I am not terribly close to them, I had the deeply sad feeling that this might be last time I ever see them (My brother had the same thought). My uncle and I had a lovely conversation recently about our family heritage after my 23andme results came back. I have not been able to convince him to submit his own DNA sample, but we did talk about our shared interest in family migration history. My dad, however, DID agree to submit a sample! So I bought him a kit and set up the account online under my email address, which we completed at the reception. So soon I will be able to see what he contributed to my DNA, and what came from my mother.
Oh, and I did ask my mother if she knew the name of the synagogue my grandfather attended and had his bar mitzvah. But she had no idea other than "somewhere in the Lower East Side" and agreed with my suspicion (surmising?) concerning it. I had recently contacted the rabbi of said synagogue, but they don't keep records of bar mitzvahs, alas.
Flistees might recall that I don't really speak with my mother. But she was well-behaved at the event and so, so was I. She bounced up to T-Rex at the end of the ceremony and declared hserlf as my mother (I would say introduction, but it was more of an in-your-face declaration. I found this more amusing than anything else. But I think they didn't speak much at the reception afterward. And I thought about T-Rex's behavior compared to my ex [redacted] who met her at my brother's 50th birthday part and spent an inordinate amount of time talking with her (she found him very good looking and was clearly charmed), and how he then proceeded to tell me that she was "not evil" and that I should "mellow out about it" (paraphrasing).
T-Rex was sat next to my dad and they shared a few laughs. He happily ate, danced with me a bit, enjoyed the specialty cocktail (gin, St. Germain, grapefruit juice and seltzer), and was generally patient and resigned to the late evening (he was very excited about the Viennese pastries!). He is not one to make grand gestures. But his behavior made it very clear that he was there with and for me, which was a great comfort.
My stepmother said she'd never seen me so happy. But actually, it was that I wasn't completely miserable at the event. I am not a lover of family weddings. My other brother (not father of the groom) and I had a chat later about family dances and symbolism and all that. There is always a strain after a divorce (even if it is 30 years later). Apparently it is a custom for the grandparents to dance. Well, disaster was averted. There was no grandparent dance. But the conversation between my brother and I regarding our perspectives, our lives, and in conjunction with the entirety of the wedding just reminded me again and again of the extremely divergent perspectives between myself and my siblings. I told T-Rex that as much as I am glad for the happiness of my nephew and his now wife, I detest the formulaic and ritualistic nature of these kinds of events. I much prefer weddings that are more relaxed, creative, and fun than those that are about reproducing socially approved behaviors and roles.
Then last night I had a dream that I was at the hairdresser and someone brought three dresses in for me while I was getting my hair done. Apparently I was getting married and we needed to make sure my hair worked with the necklines of the dresses. There were three dress and two out of three looked like my style, but I had not picked any of them out and did not like them. The wedding dress looked too much like an ordinary summer sundress. It came to my knees with a grey ribbon framing an empire waist, and a long bow from the neckline hanging down. The party dress was also sleeveless, and very long - to the floor. It had a UK flag pattern on it. The third was a hideous denim tank dress, and it might have even been the wrong size. In the dream, I wasn't happy with any of them, but I felt like there was nothing for it. It was a fait accompli. I think it's interesting that my mind used the formula of a wedding to explore some other area of my life that does not feel sufficient and where I have a feeling of frustration and impotence. (And yes, I do know what the dream was about, and it's not about a wedding).
Amusingly, at the wedding Saturday I asked the bride, groom and her mother how much planning they put in and they all claimed to have done the majority of it! There's no question it was a very expensive wedding, and that her parents started saving for it the day she was born. I suppose they were all just proud of how well it turned out and I certainly spared no compliment as I know how difficult it can be to coordinate events much smaller than that.
So yeah, a variety of emotions were generated and we all played our parts for the benefit of the young couple.
But anyway, enough blagging on and on. I know it's the photos you want to see. I hope you enjoy. I took a lot of "selfies" with family, and we had fun making funny faces. Unfortunately, due to the lighting many of them are quite grainy. My flash didn't work very well either, when I did use it. I won't be in any of the wedding party photos, and T-Rex and I did joke about making hideous faces whenever the official photographer came around. So for all I know, these may be the only photos I'm in!
A link to the full set is here. Thumbnails below.
The cake, first dance, and a quick kiss
My aunt Carol and uncle Rick, one of the three of us, and a hilarious attempt at a selfie with them
My dad and stepmother
Daddy/daughter selfie
Funny face selfie mayhem then ensues with my nephew, neice, T-Rex and my brother (and SiL trying to get "a nice one" in)
Niece photobomb of me and her mom!
Some "nice ones" with the bride, groom, my brother the father of the groom, and my niece the sister of the groom
Uncle of the bride and family
T-Rex and I with the happy couple
My dad and stepmom with the couple
Cake cutting
How it looks when you've reached your limit at the end of the night