Wedding

On my first day of ninth grade, my English teacher introduced herself to us by saying she'd just gotten married over the summer, and explained the phenomenon that is Not Remembering Your Wedding by saying, "I remember there were strawberries..." With that in mind, I woke up on the day of my own wedding (now over a month ago) promising myself that I'd remember as much of it as I could. Even so, what I've ended up with is more like a bullet point list of moments than a complete memory. So now I'll do my best to preserve and share those moments - better late than never, right?

* Just after 6 a.m., I was in the shower in my parents' room at the Biltmore. The water pressure was far from stellar, and I very consciously thought, "Lui is going to hate this when he gets up in a few hours." That, for me, was the defining moment, the reassurance that I was doing the right thing, because if I know him that well... For the rest of the morning, when people commented on how calm I seemed, I told that story. Upon hearing it, Lui's sister got really happy and gave me a hug.

* In the car on the way to Auntie Sandy's house, with one more girl than there were seatbelts, my dad took backroads to give all my friends the tour of the houses his father had built.

* My cousin Mark, who works the graveyard shift in Stop & Shop, had gotten seven white balloons and tied them to the mailbox of his parents' house, to let people know that someone who lived there (oh, close enough) was getting married that day. He'd actually told me about this plan when he'd first picked us up from the airport ten days before, and when I asked about the tradition, since I'd never heard of it before, he said, "I dunno, that's what they did for my wedding. I'm just trying to be nice."

* While Lindy was doing hair in the kitchen, Suzy found a My Super Sweet 16 marathon on TV for all the girls to watch. I left the room for the sake of my braincells, and came back to find Suzy enthusiastically watching the program, while Amanda and Pigeon had fallen asleep on the couch in a half-spooning-half-beetle position. They looked like those peas-in-a-pod babies from an Anne Geddes piece. I have pictures.

* Lindy's ankle was hurting, so she asked if anyone had any painkillers. Auntie Sandy produced a virtual pharmacy of prescription drugs (C-List, wish you were here...), then, after Lindy said she'd take a Valium - just one, thanks - announced that she just "takes 'em like they're candy."

* My cousin Little Gary called my dad to ask if he could bring his girlfriend to the wedding (Seriously? You ask the morning of?). My brother's gay best friend hadn't shown up the night before like he was supposed to, but just in case, I got Barbie to call said gay best friend's mom to make sure he wasn't coming - how I remembered that number, I don't know. He wasn't, so we told Little Gary there was space. Then his girlfriend got hit by a car crossing the street to the Biltmore - she was okay, but obviously did not come to the wedding after all.

*Sunshine, who had been finalizing her speech at the last minute, asked if she could use Auntie Sandy's computer to type it up and print it. I had to explain that Auntie Sandy doesn't have a computer, and told her to go next door to my grandmother's house and ask Auntie Jan if she could use hers.

* Six-year-old Elena found Auntie Sandy's house slippers (hot pink flip-flops with big fake flowers on them) and paraded around the house in them.

* Somewhere in the midst of all this, I ended up with a full set of hot rollers in my hair. When the rollers first came out, the girls all followed me around the house hooting that I looked like a country music star.

* The florist showed up with the bouquets, which were huge. The photographers showed up. We realized we were running behind.

* My cousin Jill's daughters, Riley, 5, and Morgan, 3, came by to get their flowers and showed us their "These Boots Are Made For Walking" dance from their most recent recital. It was like the cutest thing ever, as they sang and stomped in their little white dresses. Lindy stopped doing my makeup so I could watch, and the photographers took pictures.

* It took four of us to open the can that my Corona pants came in (wild lounge pants have become a running joke in my family, and I planned on wearing some under my dress when Lui went for the garter). The photographer's assistant took a picture of this struggle.

* As I was getting dressed, the girls all encouraged the photographer's assistant to take pictures of me all dolled up in my lingerie. I really wanted those pictures, of course, but didn't have time to pause and pose, so am not sure whether she ended up snapping any or not.

* Sunshine laced up my dress while Suzy put in my earrings.

* The guys had left some hip-hop station on in the limo bus, and the photographer's assistant became our hero when she got up to change the station, eventually finding The Eurithmics's "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)".

* We were 20 minutes late to the church, but did a quick huddle and cheered "10:30!" before going in. Monica grabbed my arm and attention long enough to say, "I love you, Elle." I didn't say it back because I would've cried.

* Rich rolled out the aisle runner for me, but only halfway because (I imagine) the priest had been giving everyone shit about how we were running behind. Still, he made an adorable pageboy. I felt like a starlet walking down the aisle, with familiar faces blending into paparazzi behind their cameras. I couldn't see Lui, who'd been instructed to stand off to the side, until I was almost at the altar.

* Lui's hands were less sweaty than they'd been at the rehearsal, but he did repeatedly confess that he was shaking. We managed to keep at least a pinky linked throughout the entire ceremony, and whispered n'importe quoi to each other during the boring bits. Margot, Emma, and Dougan all did an amazing job. The priest's sermon was bland and impersonal, and he didn't even look at us when talking to us. It was weird.

* W winked at me as Lui and I were on our way up the aisle. I mouthed "hi" and gave him one of my best smiles. He would then spend the rest of the day quietly out of the way, so as not to upset anyone. I approached him at the end of the night to thank him for coming and give him a hug, and I found out later he'd approached and congratulated Lui at some point when I wasn't around.

* We got lost trying to walk around the church so we could come back out after the congregation, and ended up hopping fences, then eventually got Father Rehab to let us back in. We then asked two little old ladies on their way in for confession to grab Dawn for us. The bubble wands were ridiculously impossible to get out of the bottle, but some of the girls had worked out that they could turn the wand upside-down and have better luck re-dipping. Lui also showed me his shoes, which had "HELP" and "ME" printed on the bottoms, but it took me a good 20 minutes to realize that people had seen that as we were kneeling at the altar.

* I found Neuf, a random friend-of-a-friend-of-my-brother's, who through a strange turn of events is now our roommate, crying outside the church. "It's the most beautiful wedding I've ever been to," she said, and I gave her a hug. There are pictures of this too.

* We took a horse-taxi from the church to the Biltmore, and on the way, everyone we passed called out "Congratulations!", except for some hippies sitting on the side of the road, who instead yelled, "Free the horses! Animal abuse!"

* The limo bus had taken the entire wedding party to the wrong park, but got to us eventually, and we managed to get all the pictures we wanted, including the ones of me & Elena in white dresses and hot pink Converse high-tops.

* Scott and Steven, the two fabulous gays in charge of catering at the Biltmore, met us with champagne at the door to the hotel. We then went up to our private cocktail reception, where I immediately grabbed a glass of the sangria I'd requested. All the girls started freaking out about red-wine-white-dress, but I didn't care as I double-fisted my delicious sangria and my champagne while they bustled my dress. It was the only real drinking I would do all night.

* The wedding party all decided to do something creative with their entrances. I wish we'd been able to see it. I know some were dancing, others were drinking, others were wearing funny sunglasses...

* The DJ (my Uncle Gary) played the wrong music for the slideshow. Even though he screwed up a lot of the night, after throwing away my & Dawn's carefully crafted schedule and telling me, "You're on my time now, sweetheart," I was most upset about the slideshow music.

* Our first dance went perfectly. And by perfectly I mean that I caught my train on my heel early on, thus undoing the entire bustle, so that I spent the first half of the dance trying not to trip, then gave up and picked up the train, and we danced through all of it, never missing a step. I was so frickin' pleased. My dad later admitted to Evan, whose parents had been our dance instructors in LA, that the only time he cried all day was during that dance; and Barbie, the one-time biggest critic of having a "choreographed number", asked if we could teach it to her for her upcoming wedding in October.

* I blew two-handed kisses at everyone who gave a speech, and thought this was very cute and bride-like of me.

* Emi, the maker of these fabulous new reusable bags re-sewed my bustle tableside.

* Sunshine and Suzy came to the bathroom with me and held my skirt so I could pee.

* We enlisted B to be our bouncer so we could eat something - people had been approaching us during the first two courses, and we wanted to actually eat our main dish. There was a little too much pepper on my vegetarian selection (we'd never tried it). Lui made me pause and look around at the 110 people, all of whom seemed to be having a genuinely good time, and marvel that they were all there for us.

* Uncle Gary played a stupid song to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell" while we cut the cake, but it gave us time to put on a bit of a show. We didn't smash cake in each other's face, but Lui did let me put a little frosting on his nose, and I did grab his ass during the "The Bride Kisses the Groom" verse. The photographers got pictures of that too.

* I finally almost cried while I was dancing with my dad. Then while Lui was dancing with his mom, Suzy, Sunshine and I ran down the back stairs to get me into my Corona pants. They went over pretty well, except that Lui pretended he'd been in on it all along, which was stupid.

* Monica had told me to aim for her with the bouquet, and I did. I had no control over where Lui was throwing the garter though, so Evan ended up getting to feel up Monica's leg. He was cool about it though, and those of us who knew them both thought it was funny.

* Suzy and Sunshine helped me change into my Marilyn Monroe "dancing dress", and surprising Lui with it went exactly as planned - except that my parents missed it because they were out paying the impatient photobooth guy for the extra hour we requested.

* Lui & I went to take another set of photobooth pictures, only to have my brother Joey (who was totally whoring the thing, trying to get pictures with everyone under 30) open the curtain and say, "You first, then you". I believe our exact words were, "Get the fuck out."

* C-List stopped me on my way back to the ballroom to take a few pictures, including the now-requisite Casual Anonymous Sex picture where we flash our biceps. B saw this and said, "You've got guns!", grabbing my arm and being generally impressed.

* Uncle Gary was insisting we had to cut the Money Dance at the request of the Biltmore staff, so I asked Steven and Scott about this, and they told him off for the second time. Libertine pushed her way through the crowd to dance with me first. Pigeon taped four quarters to my breast. Little Gary approached me while I was dancing with one of my brothers to ask whether I knew the words to "Paradise by the Dashboard Lights", then got his dad to play it, got a mic, and sang with me & Amanda. It was totally not wedding-appropriate, and made my Money Dance end early, but it was some of the best fun I had all day.

* Just after 10:30 (we'd been running late all day), there was this great medieval-style send-off, with everyone following us to the elevators. Sunshine snapped a picture just as the elevator door was closing. I hope it came out well.

* The bridal suite was awesome, a great mix between classy and trashy, with lots of inside jokes. I was especially pleased with the coloring books, since I'd been hoping Monica would give me some as a shower gift and she hadn't. I vowed to color a picture for her, which I did early the next morning (I lied and dated it 7/7 though).

* Sex was awkward and, of course, painful. But we adopted that good old mantra, the Christians' answer to people's protests about no sex before marriage: "If it doesn't work the first time, we'll do it again!" (Now, six weeks later, we're still working on perfecting it, but there have been some good moments, mostly on the honeymoon, since I'll admit we've been way too busy since then to be having a lot of sex.)

* I could hear voices in the hall and wanted to go out in my lingerie to find my friends so I could kiss-and-tell about how "he broke my vagina!" But Lui convinced me not to, and I was happy to tell them all the next morning. We were passed out by 1.