Sunday, September 11, 2005
connections
So, I went to Chris's wedding. The service was pretty simple, and what you would expect in a wedding. The brother of the groom supplemented the recorded classical pieces by playing an acoustic and singing some praise songs in Italian. The message was your normal exhortation to the couple--which they probably were too excited to hear, but knew already.
The reception was fun, talking to people, good food--I didn't feel like I had enough, so I ate several extra salads from empty seats, (can't let food go to waste). They used dinging-the-glasses in the way that I was culturally used to--I explained it to the others at my table, (who were expecting an announcement) that it meant we wanted the bride and groom to kiss. There was also a tradition I had heard of, but not seen: the groom was "kidnapped" and held for ransom, the bride going around with a pair of pants, gathering donations. Eventually he was released, and the money was given to the couple.
Four voices and a guitar from the groom's family added a nice interlude, although one speaker in a gym doesn't bring out the beauty of closely harmonized voices very well. The normal wedding cake was supplemented with Torta Claudia, of which I was able to bring home a few extra pieces. I liked the crunchy fried bread suspended in the cake.
Afterwards I helped clean up, which made me feel useful, and then I went over to the hotel where the out-of-town friends and family were staying and watched the OSU/TX game(we lost). It was nice to just hang with people. Even though my only connection was that I went to school for a few months with some of them, and they knew my siblings, I still was a strand in the web of interlaced lives. Among the ten there were people who had grown up in Ecuador, Italy, Thailand and the US and I felt at home.
Now I will go to bed before I come down off the emotional high of feeling that I belong.
The reception was fun, talking to people, good food--I didn't feel like I had enough, so I ate several extra salads from empty seats, (can't let food go to waste). They used dinging-the-glasses in the way that I was culturally used to--I explained it to the others at my table, (who were expecting an announcement) that it meant we wanted the bride and groom to kiss. There was also a tradition I had heard of, but not seen: the groom was "kidnapped" and held for ransom, the bride going around with a pair of pants, gathering donations. Eventually he was released, and the money was given to the couple.
Four voices and a guitar from the groom's family added a nice interlude, although one speaker in a gym doesn't bring out the beauty of closely harmonized voices very well. The normal wedding cake was supplemented with Torta Claudia, of which I was able to bring home a few extra pieces. I liked the crunchy fried bread suspended in the cake.
Afterwards I helped clean up, which made me feel useful, and then I went over to the hotel where the out-of-town friends and family were staying and watched the OSU/TX game(we lost). It was nice to just hang with people. Even though my only connection was that I went to school for a few months with some of them, and they knew my siblings, I still was a strand in the web of interlaced lives. Among the ten there were people who had grown up in Ecuador, Italy, Thailand and the US and I felt at home.
Now I will go to bed before I come down off the emotional high of feeling that I belong.
