Note: Blogger ate my first attempt at this post, so I'm a little peeved. I had it all done and then POOF. Gone. Son of a beeswax! So, this might be briefer than the first go-round. Sorry.
After the wedding ceremony, I mingled and chatted with Jim's parents' friends during the cocktail hour. I've met them all several times over the years, but only remember a handful of their names. I suck like that. Thankfully, they're all very kind anyway, so we drank our Pinot Grigio and ate our hors d'oeuvres and had a good ol' time. Yes, folks, I was drinking white wine, which is usually very un-Bev, but it was hot, and it tasted good. Quenching. On a side note, I could eat nothing but appetizers for the rest of my life and die happy. I just love little bite-sized food, and these were particularly good!
Ok, enough about my stomach. (blush) After the cocktail hour we moved into the tent, and the band was quite good, as was the dinner and the open bar. Yay! I'll have you know, however, that I didn't over-indulge. I got my buzz on, sure, but I didn't go nuts. Danny was there, after all, and was a dancin' fool. People were actually clearing a circle around him and clapping. He was the life of the party. Hee! I have no idea from whom he got this flair for the dramatic. Heh.
In case you're wondering where my youngest son was (Mala), he was in the bride's parents' house with a sitter. Jim and I checked on him throughout the night, but it sure was nice to have a chance to party down unfettered. Also, Danny could go in there whenever he needed a break, and he did eventually go to sleep in there around 10. YAY!
So they had this really cool idea for their guest book. They had a photobooth set up, and the guests would go in and get their picture taken, then you cut them out and paste them into the guest book and write a little note. Jim and I went and did ours first thing after happy hour, so we look pretty put-together(ish) in our first attempt. Oh, and the bow tie Jim is sporting was part of his groomsman ensemble, but combined with his glasses and his hair (which always reverts back to bowl-cut territory no matter how nicely it is cut; it is straight and thick and he refuses to use hair products!)... well, he kind of looks like Bill Nye the Science Guy a little bit. Bless his heart.
Later on, we found ourselves chatting with Jim's cousin B and his wife, J for most of the night. We go way back, and they got married just a couple of months after we did, and have a son the same age as Danny. They still like to tease me about breaking a model ship at their wedding reception. What? It was this tiny little room in a yacht club with low ceilings, and they had a great band, and we were ALL cutting a rug & knocking shit down. But yes, I was the one who actually knocked a boat off the wall and broke it. Allegedly! What can I say? If you're gonna play Stayin' Alive, expect that I will be throwing an arm out ala John Travolta and plan a-fucking-ccordingly, ok?!
Later on, B started cracking jokes about doing a "wife swap" in the photobooth and making a funny page for the guest book. We all started throwing out funny captions and cracking jokes about it... but next thing you know, I'm actually IN the photobooth with Jim's cousin. OOPS. I kind of looked at him like, "Err, what did you have in mind, exactly?" So we pretended to make out for the camera. PRETENDED. No actual groping occurred! But, the pics were kind of incriminating. Whoopsie! Then Jim took J and his other cousin, D in. In retrospect, I wish we'd brought D in too, so it would have looked less awful!
We put a couple of the pics in the guest book with the caption, "Share and share alike. Keep it in the family!" D'oh!
(shading eyes with my hand) Sorry, A&A! Feel free to rip that page out of your guest book! Please.
The worst part was that on Sunday, after I got home, I got a text from my BIL saying that all of the photobooth pics would be put up online. D'OH! Thankfully, he agreed that they wouldn't be sharing that website with anyone. Egads. Embarrassment galore.
A good time was had by all, clearly! Also, we saw B&J at the brunch the next day and we're all still speaking and even planning to visit each other this summer. So, yay!