Knit Sisters

If you’ve been reading over the past few days, you will have noticed that a theme has developed, one that has nothing whatsoever to do with knitting. Some of you may be sick unto death of this wedding theme, but bear with me.

It was a major life event and attention must be paid. So.

I will also remind you that up until literally days before this wedding, I assumed that it would turn out to be a day that we would never forget.

No matter how hard we tried.

But no! The weather was unseasonably sunny for San Francisco in June…

…(I expected—and with good reason—fog), there were no wardrobe malfunctions, and everyone was on his or her best behavior. Given that we’re talking about a family occasion here, people, I think we can fairly say that the event exceeded expectations. Against all odds, it really was all that and a bag of chips.

Which is saying something given the inauspicious start to our California travels.

Yes, the course of true love never did run smooth, nor did the course of modern day air travel.

Walking the trail to the lighthouse, where the wedding qua wedding was held. Alex on the left, Sarah carrying my train on the right. Observe carefully, my friends, for I doubt that you shall ever again witness my sister playing the role of the lady-in-waiting. It does not suit her.

We were meant to fly out to Oakland via Chicago on Monday night (the wedding was Thursday), but thunderstorms in Chicago meant our original itinerary got scrapped. So we trudged home for the night with a ticket to fly to San Francisco early the next morning.

Our checked bags, however, flew on to Oakland. With our wedding shoes, accessories, vital undergarments, and various important toiletries containing over 3 fluid ounces. As Alex put it, “Carry-on bags only is just another word for nothing left to lose.”

Now separated from these relatively important items, we nonetheless remained in high spirits—we were after all travelling light at this point—and arrived at Logan Airport at 5 a.m. on Tuesday morning, having slept about 3 hours…only to discover that the flight to San Francisco that Mr. United Gate Agent had rebooked us on the night before was leaving at 7 a.m. FROM CHICAGO.

My favorite view from the trail.

Again, we were at Logan Airport in Boston. I’m sure it rather goes without saying that Logan is NOWHERE NEAR O’HARE. This was bad. This was very, very bad.

I’m not proud to admit this, but we were forced to play the wedding card, I’m afraid, to get onto a flight to San Francisco…that left Boston approximately 42 minutes from that moment.

Here we are before the ceremony (and before the gale-force winds had deconstructed my hairdo).

Ever try to get through today’s airport security in 12 minutes with a wedding dress? Which travels in a garment bag so large that it looks like you are putting a body through the scanner? Yeah, well, imagine if you will…

But all was well that ended well. In spite of these considerable obstacles we were, by 2 p.m. PST on Tuesday, reunited with our bags, armed with a marriage license, and checked into a hotel.

The rest is, inevitably, photo history:

The thing you gotta ask about any dress that doesn’t have a train is, “Why not?”

A couple of shots from the beginning of the ceremony. We had no idea what to do with our hands, but were trying not to show it.

The veil is borne aloft!

The exchange of rings.

Me pouring way too much wine into the ceremonial wine cup. Way too much. I was unaware that we had to drink all of it or else ruin the symbolism. Silly me.

Alex struggles manfully to quaff all the wine. Fortunately, the vows were over by this point.

The requisite kiss, naturellement.

One of the sweetest and most sincere moments in all my life.

And then…well…basic character will out, you know!

Quite possibly my favorite photo.

What’d I tell you? All that and a bag of chips.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 7:50 pm and is filed under Bridezilla. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.