cheerfulBetween my usual lethargy, and the fact that I had to load the truck, I didn't make it to Sanborn Park until the crack of 9:00am. That turned out to be just fine - the only two of us to receive that particular bit of instruction were myself and
trivialt, so everybody else started showing up at 9:00am anyway.Well, except for
misswong77 (7:30am!), but, well, what can you say about the chronologically insane?I showed the initial people the layout of the site, got them to start unloading chairs, then proceeded to drag equipment to the gazebo. I think I was ready to go by 10:30am, which is an insanely long time for setup. I forgive myself. With all that, my equipment worked without a hitch, which is simply unheard of.
I think it was about 11:00am when
cekyr0 and jeffercine showed up with the USB disk of background music. All 1530 songs. I hate spending my time adjusting volume from song to song, so I copied the disc to my machine, and started running the whole pile through MP3Gain to normalize it. Unfortunately, MP3Gain takes several seconds a song - the process didn't really finish until 1:00pm or so. Fortunately, by 11:45am I had enough that I could start what had been converted.With all that, the actual music aspect was fairly easy. One of the simple beauties of this wedding was how much was free form - they had a processional song, a ceremony, and a recessional song. Otherwise, it was a party with background music followed by karaoke - with, of course, a break for cutting the cake (which was one of the most beautiful wedding cakes I've ever seen. Not the fanciest, but it was incredibly elegant, with a simple cherry blossom motif).
There was also the simple fact that this group of people is awesome. Something I'm sure I'll be reiterating for a long, long time. Most weddings don't involve a standing ovation during the kiss. Also, most weddings - at least of this size - aren't this well planned, while being completely volunteer affairs.
The processional song was the Alex version of "If You're Not The One," which I've mentioned earlier. Several people have asked me for copies, so here it is. It's far from studio quality (4 takes in the middle of the night from someone who feeds off his audience is not going to give perfect results), so Alex will be completely embarrassed every time he hears it. So I encourage people to sneak it into the background here and there, 'cause I'm that sort of bastard.
The recessional was the first 2:06 of Come What May. My main fuck up of the day - not that anyone complained. They wanted it cut there, and I cut it, instead of fading out. The shock was slightly painful. Such is life.
Then I played background music, got in the receiving line, added an incomprehensible scribble to their wedding picture/guestbook, ate a bit of food, and schmoozed for a while.
I got quite a few comments on the suit, mostly from people who'd never seen me in one before, much less a silk one. The fact that I was still wearing Birks got a few comments, too...
hollyk, who spent most of the afternoon quite entertainingly blasted, told me at one point that I "cleaned up nicely." I could say the same for her - she's normally attractive, but she actually managed to pull off "sophisticated," which is just not a thought you tend to associate with Holly.There were a huge number of people there, so I'll mostly limit my comments to the female side, 'cause I'm a hornball.
princesskiti22 was her usual hawt, squee-inducing self. The Empress went for her standard simple, smart, and haughty look. spondee wore this sundress that showed of her figure quite nicely. I complained to her once that every time I looked up, she was crossing the area towards me, bouncing quite pleasantly, and carbonating my hormones.wissavix was, as usual, the very soul of smart coordination, down to her red and purple Fluevogs. supersniffles wore a lavender minidress, while kshandra went for the hippie look, with a purple top and a very nice tie-die-ish skirt.I was determined to not start karaoke without Alex. He and Jefferson showed back up after changing, around 2:30pm or so. I'd already started getting a fair number of slips at that point. Alex was being shy, so I eventually told him he was singing, and presented him with a selection of four slips, three of which were mediocre, and the fourth of which was Hands to Heaven. Worked like a charm.
So after the gyrations, I started doing karaoke at 3:00pm. From that point, it was like a night at the bar, except, well, it was daylight, and we actually had a large rotation. In the end I had a total of 40 individual singers, about half of whom just got one song. Alex kept getting requests, so the poor boy had to sing 4 times. One's heart bleeds, ya know?
The initial plan had been to end at 6:00pm, but there were people wanting to sing, so in the end I ran until about 7:15pm before changing back to normal clothes, and starting to tear down. The last of the others left around 8:30pm. I had the truck loaded and was out of there at about 8:45pm.
That wasn't the end of it, however. I needed my car back. Which meant driving up the 9 to Skyline, Skyline to Gist, down a mile of unmarked road to my parents' house, getting the car out of the garage, transferring most of the gear, putting the tables away, and parking the truck. As last time, I don't think my parents noticed. I have no idea how, but neither of them came outside to say "Hi."
Then down to the 17, and eventually civilization.
During the entire trip from the park, I was battling a minor headache, which was pissing me off. I don't like the thought of getting a headache every damn time I shift my sleep schedule a bit, and spend some time in heat and light. I identified the problem as sinus pressure, and started doing what I could to tell the damn thing to relax. The oddest part of which was that two vertebrae in my neck popped...
But I got the thing to relax and drain a bit, and proceeded on to the nausea part of the equation. By the time I was heading down the hill, my head hurt less, but my stomach was doing flip-flops. I debated just going home, but had a couple of moments of actually feeling OK just before the 280 turn-off, and so headed for
chargerboy's house. By the time I got there (about 10:00pm?), I had less of a headache, a little less nausea, and was starting to fall asleep. I gave up and asked for a couple of Advil.I don't remember a huge amount of the evening from there. I talked to a few people, had a few rewarmed King eggrolls, and eventually fell asleep while talking to someone on the couch. I woke up enough a few times to notice (each time) that the number of people in the room had changed, and then finally got conscious enough at 2:00am to get up, say my goodbyes, and go home to sleep in my own bed.
And that's about it. I woke up today to find
timenchanter actually in the apartment and awake, which was nice, then started in on this novella as he headed off to visit his brother's family. 