Monday July 28, 2008
This
past weekend I was in Ohio for my father's wedding.
Even though this is not the first wedding for either
my father or his new wife, Irma, they had a fairly
formal wedding. Being in Seattle, perhaps
contributed to the confusion around my role in the
wedding. I had believed I didn't have a role until I
was asked to do the first reading. Suddenly, upon
arriving in Ohio, I find out I need to wear a
particular color and style of dress.
Hmmm....well, my sister did all of the leg work and
stressed it out for me by finding me a dress (that
actually fit!) and having it cleaned for me. She put
so much effort into finding me something that her
own dress needs were put off until last. Silly girl!
I wasn't the most appreciative at the time being
forced into something I felt I had no say in and was
not aware I'd have to do; but in the end, I wore the
dress. Everyone thought it was lovely. It was good
that my sister went through the trouble because she
wanted us to match at the
ceremony. I don't know why we had to match, really.
Irma was worried about clashing colors in the
photos. However, her sons each had a different color
shirt on and the 2 girls representing her side of
the family had bright red dresses. We had pale blue.
And, there was no photo of the 'new' family. So, if
you are going to put both photo sets on the wall,
we're not going to mesh. I suppose it's better
than being asked to wear pink. :) Anyway, Irma
was happy with everything and in the end, that was
what was important. 
The
dress confusion and stress were the least of Irma's
concerns, in my opinion. Trying to get married in a
town you don't live in must have been difficult for
her to arrange. You can bet she was the driver for
many decisions that have to be made. On top of those
challenges, she had to worry if all 5 of her kids
would come, which at the last moment they all did.
Her family is from New Jersey and did the long drive
over to be with her on her special day. The rehearsal went smoothly. No glitches. Everyone understood what needed to be done and when. The only problem appeared to be the music for the processional and recessional. It was selected by the couple and the music burned to CD. Unfortunately, the CD player wouldn't play the CD. All of the data geeks assumed the CD must have the wrong format for the songs...so, several of us went to work trying to resolve the issue. I volunteered to sort it all out, but no one confirmed I was in charge of getting a solution. The other parties who also volunteered were also trying to find a solution. We were not coordinating, despite some effort on my part. I decided it wouldn't hurt if I went ahead and tried to troubleshoot this. Better to have multiple solutions than none.
The rehearsal was held on Thursday night, the night I flew in...I don't know how I overlooked this bit of information, but I'm glad my flights were smooth and I even arrived 30 minutes early. Friday, I took some time to work on the music. Josh, my nephew, is a sound expert so I took him with me to the church where we tried my CD (freshly burned). Father Al, of St. Agnes, had the originals so I finally had a chance to compare the two discs. The original discs were .CDAs and so were mine but neither would play on the player. Hmmm, baffled, we went to plan B: my laptop. Josh brought the right adapter and we hooked up the music and tested the songs. It went perfectly. We wrapped up and I made the note to bring my laptop and the cables, just in case some other provision wasn't available.
The day of the ceremony, I went up to the choir loft to check in on the music. No one else had arrived to sort it out so I decided we were going the laptop plan. The pianist was there and he knew how to work the sound system so I worked with him to get it together. I noticed the vocalist, Kim, had her laptop there so instead of having her try to figure how out work mine, we opted to just use hers. Relaying Josh's configuration instructions, we were all set. It appeared that everything was going to go perfectly. And then...
It was time for the music and it started fine, but it didn't take long before it was cutting out. I didn't know what to do. well, there wasn't anything I could do, but I felt bad that this part was not working and I felt responsible because it was the one thing I was really contributing to the wedding. After a bit of it cutting out, Kim, the vocalist and the pianist, pulled the plug and sang solo. It was beautiful. Her voice rang out and was much better than the CD, IMO. I and I think everyone else was relieved at the change. unfortunately, poor Irma was nearly in tears stressing over the glitch. I can only imagine what was going through her mind. It's definitely not the best intro a bride could hope for, but despite some near cut outs later in other musical sections, there were no other musical disasters. I know she'll remember that part forever. :)
It was during this ceremony, after missing my queue to do the first reading, that I realized why rehearsals are done the night before the wedding. I mean, you think you could remember your part and cues, I mean how difficult are weddings, anyway? but, it's not true! You forget...and suddenly some moments feel like other moments and you're guessing what you were told to do and when. For my part, I sat down after the intro of the Mass and was waiting for something to happen. Father had to say my name for it to dawn on me that I was up. :) Oh well. I slowed down on the reading, trying to be deliberate and hoping the words coming out of my mouth were the ones on the paper and not the ones going on in my head. That would have been bad.
There were some other snaffus, Father forgetting to let my Uncle go up and do a reading and the end song lost the vocalist after the first verse
;
me forgetting to let Stephanie out for communion;
but I thought it went well, even so. By the
receiving line, everyone was smiling and looked like
they were having fun. By the time we were
orchestrated through the first set of pictures, it
was time for the reception. My camera died on
the plane after taking this gorgeous shot of
Rainier so all of the photos were taken by Danny, my
brother-in-law. And, his camera died half way
through the reception. Oh, and I think everyone
forgot they had a camera during the ceremony so I
don't have any photos from that.More photos can be found at http://good-times.webshots.com/album/564684969xBaQDk.
