And... exhale

After days of crazy overfilled house, Saturday night and Sunday morning were actually nice and quiet. Only my sister spent the night before the wedding here-- everyone else was at the hotel. Sunday morning, while JD went to get bagels, and before the crowd descended, we even had some time to lazy about our bed, just the girls.

 

 
For all of you lovers of shiny, here's some more.

 
Soon the house was buzzing-- the hair lady, the photographer, bridesmaids, parents, aunt and uncle, my friend Natalie who was doing makeup for everyone in need. Miraculously, even though it was pretty crazy, it all also went pretty smoothly. Cream cheese ended up on bagels, not wedding attire. Coffee was administered strictly orally, and none of it got applied topically-- a minor miracle, considering sheer number of people roaming around my decidedly not-huge house and the amount of said beverage brewed for the occasion. Hair and makeup for seven people was being done in a fairly optimal order and in time.

And then the limo didn't come. For real. Calling the number on the reservation or the number on the company's website yielded no answer. The bride, unlike our mother, however, reacted in the most reasonable manner. All she wanted to know was which car was going to take her and her dress to the temple.

So we all got there, my sister got into her dress, some pictures were taken. I got myself into the bridesmaid dress that still zipped (can you believe it?-- most excellent choice of style back in December, and of size back in February). Then it turned out that our cantor's wife's water broke about 30 minutes before the start of the ceremony. Luckily our ritual director has pipes that some cantors elsewhere likely envy, and even more luckily he was puttering around his office that afternoon and was, therefore, available. He lives close enough by that even with going home to change he was still back in time. I feel compelled to point out that twelve years less one day before the events in question my own wedding got underway much later than scheduled, even though our limos came on time and there were no last minute clergy substitutions. So color me impressed.

 
Even more shiny for you-- my girls in ivory.

The limos came after the ceremony, thanks to the aunt of the groom who put in ridiculous amount of time calling, and calling, and calling until she got someone on the phone.

 
I went a bit special effects-happy there. You like?

 
This is Mozart the mouse, a gift to Monkey from one of the wedding guests. She hardly parted with him since making his acquaintance on Friday.

 
New cousins. Watching them at the wedding, you would never have believed that the first time they met was Friday. In fact Elizabeth was the one trusted to hold Mozart through the ceremony.

The party rocked all the way to midnight when the bus for the hotel left, the band stopped playing, and the custodians came to take apart the room setup. As the catering was from the Old Country catering business, we had so much food to take home with us that for a while there we were unsure that we would fit into the cars we had with us, and then, upon getting home had to spend about an hour finding room for all that food.

Monday our friends came over to help put a dent in our supplies and to celebrate our own twelfth anniversary. Yesterday the newlyweds took off for their honeymoon and my parents went home, taking Monkey with them. I planned to mark the occasion by staying at work late to catch up on some neglected projects. Instead I got hit with some relatively frequent contractions, necessitating a trip to the hospital. Turned out they were just annoying and not at all productive. Fetal fibronectin was negative, and contractions I got while on the monitor were much milder and much rarer than what sent me in in the first place. So today I am mostly hanging on the couch, and so far so good. Tomorrow I am going back to work with the hopes that yesterday's performance was due to the excitement of the past week, and not to sitting in my work chair.

But dudes... My baby sister is married. Married, I tell you.