Listen to the Rain

lisekatevans and afschifler got married! Congratulations!

I've actually never been to a full-on traditional Christian marriage ceremony before now. lisekatevans is a deacon at Fourth Presbyterian Church downtown, so that was where the ceremony was held, in a giant church sanctuary with a functioning pipe organ. There were hymns, there were blessings, the vows were the traditional vows ending in "as long as we both shall live", the pastor gave a sermon, it was all new and strange to me. It was a beautiful ceremony, though, with the organ music and the lovely architecture of what was basically an actual cathedral, and a very long aisle for the wedding party to walk down (the wedding was well-attended but it did not have 700+ guests). It's right on Michigan Avenue, too, so at the end we processed out and waited on the sidewalk amongst the St. Patrick's Day revelers while the wedding officiants proclaimed the marriage and the bride and groom came out to greet the crowd.



The ceremony done, we had some time before the reception started--and it was on the south side on the University of Chicago campus--so after a brief chat outside the church with sam.locke.54, who I hadn't seen in five years since before the Plague Years, and his girlfriend who I had never previously met, we joined lisekatevans's roommate luke.beasley.262 just next door at the Four Seasons bar for an hour for a drink and some snacks. sashagee and I spent most of it talking to one of lisekatevans's friends who works in children's television in Los Angeles, who did one of the readings at the ceremony and who later gave a toast at the reception before our time ran out and we all snagged a Lyft and made our way south to the Quadrangle Club. We spent most of the reception talking to sam.locke.54 again, I drank several Old Fashioneds and sashagee drank vodka seltzers with lime, and I even had a brief civil conversation with tropicanaomega at her instigation--it was about her seeing me walking on Berteau and asking if I lived nearby, and me explaining that we took Laila to her swimming lessons on Mondays by that road.

The biggest draw of the reception (for me) was that they had a live band for most of it! Sure, for some parts during breaks they would play pre-recorded music, but the bride and groom's first dance, and some of the dancing we did ourselves, was done to the sound of live music. We ate dinner--I had salmon, sashagee had the ravioli--chatted with the guests, ate chocolate dessert, and danced the night away. I even got a dance with the bride, after most of the guests had cleared out from the dance floor. We left just after ten, after a full day of celebrations, and came home and went to bed. A lovely day for a lovely couple.

To very_strong_and_cool (possibly the best Instagram name of all time).


sashagee and I left with plenty of time to spare and then traffic was the worst I've ever seen, so we arrived fifteen minutes late and missed the opening drinks. We got there and saw a few people standing outside the ceremony area holding angry toddlers--separated from the rest of the hall by a curtain--and slipped in to find tom.hen.12 reciting the sheva braḥot, the traditional Jewish wedding blessings. There was only another ten minutes or so left after that, with the traditional vows and the kiss and the party proceeding out, and when we were standing out with tom.hen.12 and his wife eating the hors d'oeuvres, he said that the ceremony was the shortest he'd ever seen and we had honestly barely missed anything.

britshlez had originally told me she was going to seat sashagee and I at a table with her friend pinktokki1004's parents (who only speak Korean) with the idea that we could still communicate with them, but when we actually checked the seating arrangements, it was the two of us, tom.hen.12 and his wife, and kjtrujillo and his boyfriend and the other two seats were taken up by a couple who never showed. That meant I got two pear and goat cheese salads and two dinner rolls, which was pretty nice because the main course (I had requested kosher) was a veggie burger seemingly straight out of the 90s--it was a thick lump, slightly rubbery, and nothing like modern veggie burger technology. I ate it, of course, because what else was I going to do? But tom.hen.12's wife and I spent some time commiserating over how bad it was.

We didn't get much of a chance to talk to britshlez during the night, because that's how weddings work. Even beyond the ceremonial parts, she had to go through to all guests, thank them for coming, chat with them for a few minutes, all of that. Most of the rest of the night was sashagee and I dancing together and chatting people as the guests gradually thinned out, and just after midnight our table were the only ones left. britshlez said that she and very_strong_and_cool were going to the Billy Goat Tavern downtown and invited us, but after some internal discussion we decided to give them some time alone, so we got a cab with tom.hen.12 and went back home and straight to bed.

IIRC britshlez and very_strong_and_cool aren't going on a honeymoon right away, they're waiting until a bit later. But hopefully they have a lovely start to their married life!