these are not my walls

I know it's been a while, but get ready: it's a picture-heavy (I had to upgrade my flickr account to accommodate them all!) post about our weekend adventures!



We went to a wedding in Victoria this weekend, and brought along our good friend (and yours!), Natalie. She's legally not-quite-a-blond, too:



(Note the snazzily in-focus telephone!)

We drove:



We made poor Natalie sit in the back seat of our tiny, tiny Echo, but she swore there was plenty of room.

Have you ever seen those TV ads with the refrain "Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now!"? Welcome to Natalie's world:



The ferry staff member who walked by as I was standing with my camera pointed at the bathroom door looked a little disturbed, but didn't say anything to me. I guess they didn't cover stalkers in the training by Transport Canada.

You may notice that we are all dressed in our regular clothes. We figured our dressy clothes would get squished in the 5-hour journey from Victoria to Burnaby (a distance of about 45 km, I think. Ah, the romance of island living...), so we rolled up to the church parking lot still needing to change.

Luckily for us, someone had foolishly left the front doors to the adjacent school open:



So we crept inside, found the gym, and went to the change room:



Look how clean it is! Look at Natalie's fancy dress! Look at my adorable husband!:



Thanks, Holy Cross School!:



Then we hung out in the church foyer, while all of us used the bathroom (separately - it was a church!) and checked out the other guests. Apparently it's now okay to flash shoulder, thigh and boobie in church: you heard it here first!

The church had this very cool skylight thing at the front, so that the people at the front of the church - usually the priest, I assume, but in this case the wedding party - are bathed in light:



God's smiling on this wedding, yo!

Incidentally, I attended as a friend of the bride, Jazz, but I also went to law school with the groom and one of his few good men. Small world!

The bridesmaids had one of those things that you think is mythical, until you actually see it for yourself: a re-wearable bridesmaid dress!





The flower girl and ring bearer (who, as far as I can see, were added more for comedic effect than their actual job skillz, since neither appeared to have any flowers or rings) were freakin' adorable, though someone wasn't taking his role very seriously:



He eventually sat down in the aisle, so the groom had to make sure the show went on:



Then came the bride! And her parents!



(Side note: I apologize for the quality of these pictures. I was far from the only person jumping around like a fool with a camera, so I had to snap what I could, when I could. Also, I'm kind of a shitty-ass photographer. Keep this warning in mind as you peruse the next few pictures...)

They came closer:



And then they passed us by:



How awesome is that dress? I love when people wear wedding dresses that are interesting for the people behind to look at.

The couple, bathed in the Holy Sunlight, was introduced to the art of bondage by the priest:



Or, you know, something. Listen, I don't know much about Catholic ceremonies, and I can't swear that the priest was speaking English throughout the entire ceremony, so...he did something involving tying their hands together. I thought handfasting was a pagan marriage ritual, though? Whatever. I just looked at Jazz and Greg, who looked gorgeously happy.

Okay, I also watched the girl in front of me, who was having a hard time keeping herself from cracking up every time the priest talked. Mawage. It brought us togever.

Then they took care of the legal business:



Check out the photographer and the videographer in this shot. They had two of each! These people are serious about capturing memories!

Then they kissed:



With, I'm sure, just the right amount of church tongue.

The priest didn't invite the groom to kiss the bride, and I'm not sure if that's a Catholic thing? Or if this priest just doesn't do it? Or if he forgot? (He did have to keep checking his book to see the next steps, so it's possible.) Or maybe he did invite them to kiss, and it just sounded to gibberish to me. Anyway, they exhibited, we voyeured, all was well.

Then they left:



So happy! So beautiful! So...wait, is Greg also wearing lipstick? I think that might just be my camera. Yeah, that's it.

Then official photos started outside:



Natalie kept jabbing me with her elbow to take pictures, because she'd forgotten her camera:





Guess who has babies on the mind? I'll give you a hint: it's not me.

We were all very, very thirsty, so we left the church and decided to stop for drinks at the first place we found. Natalie got a little extra treat:



Then we went to my sister's house, to drop off the car. They weren't there, because they were off at the Folk Festival, so we also set up my sister's birthday present from us:



They're heading off on a year-long RV jaunt in the fall, and Erica's been taking piano lessons, so we thought she might like to continue. I don't know if she can pull off Alex's rockstar moves yet, though.

Then we took the bus to go pick up our wedding presents and then head to the reception site:



Natalie calls that her Barbie barrister bag, for what I hope are obvious reasons. For those of us who didn't grow up under rocks. I have about 50 pictures of her rummaging in that bag. I covet it.

I am not very good at self-portraits:



Either that, or I'm very self-centred.

I got us a little lost on the way to the store where we'd all ordered our presents for pick-up, so Natalie's boobs and I waited around for another bus:



I had no difficulties picking up my gift, due to the many phone calls I'd made to a lovely Australian and/or New Zealandish (er? esque?) store clerk (many in number because their damn computer system went down and neither of us could access the registry.) Natalie, on the other hand, had ordered hers online and they, of course, shipped it to the wrong location. So we waited around while they found more of what she bought, and gift-wrapped it:



Natalie almost bought a completely useless doodad that makes ice cream stacks, but in the end decided to practice some restraint. Phew!

Gifts in hand, we toodled on down to Granvilled Island, where the reception site was located:



Rock on, sistah.

Despite the wait at gift store, we were a little early, and thirsty (again!) and SOMEONE had to pee, so we stopped at a coffee shop:



Look, more rummaging!

Then we headed on over to the reception site, where I won my bet with Natalie (even though she swears she didn't take the bet) when we discovered that, at the site, there was a standing reception in the lobby area and we couldn't sit down at the tables yet. Listen, a standing reception is nice, and it was beautifully decorated:



And the free liquor was particularly nice. But, to be honest, by that point my feet would have appreciated a little sit-down. (I'd bought new shoes, and while gorgeous and comfortable, by 9 hours in they were...less so. It was totally my fault. I know this. The reception was beautiful. Carry on.)

Hey, you know what wasn't my fault? When this guy:



(And I do mean this guy:)



came running from across the mingling area to swipe food - the only food that had made it through those ravenous hordes and over to our less-populated area - literally out from under Natalie's hand!

We did, however, meet some of the lovely people who would be sharing our table:



That, by the way, is the girl who was cracking up in front of me at the church. BUST-ed!

Then, just when we were starting to get worried (because her phone was off, and she'd said on Friday that she wasn't going to make it to the ceremony because she didn't want to cough all the way through it), geoKelly and Steve showed up!



(Her dress was almost as boobalicious as Natalie's, but I appear not to have framed this shot well...sorry!)

Then I spilled some wine on Natalie's dress, 'cause I'm fun like that at parties:



The spilling was really more of a joint effort. I was gesticulating, as I am wont to do, and Natalie was drinking in my dance space. The rest, as they say, is history.

She got herself more wine, and all was well.

Then, we got to go into the actual reception area!



Look at that! Isn't that crazy glamorous?? I totally brought down the class level of that joint.

We were at lucky table 23:



which Natalie thoughtfully dressed to match:



Like all the best weddings, there were assigned seats:



(check out my mad personal security skillz, yo! You can't stalk me now, internets!)

And just to make your mouth water:



There were two more lovely, though slightly shier, people at our table:



Turns out, Natalie knows her from work! Not face-to-face knows her, but they've emailed back and forth. Small world!

The ceiling of the space was fantastic:



And they had it set up so that the only natural light coming in was from two huge windows behind the head table:



Awesome for visual effects, shitty for pictures. Actually, there's probably some really simple way to make that light give you awesome pictures that I just don't know.

As you can tell from this picture, we were at the we-love-you-but-someone-has-to-sit-here-and-we-know-you'll-understand-and-not-take-it-personally-and-not-bitch-at-us-for-the-next-50-years-about-how-you-weren't-close-enough-to-the-head-table-at-our-wedding table. It was right next to the table where the late night feast was eventually laid out, so we weren't complainin'.

As the evening unfolded, food came:



(Natalie got the chicken)



(I got the fish. Alex ordered the chicken and ended up with the lamb, but I don't think he had any complaints. :P)

Dessert came:



(I know that the phyllo-wrapped banana maybe looks a little dodgy, but it tasted delish!)

And Greg visited!



I wasn't there when he visited, so Natalie took the picture. You can tell, because it's a decent picture.

There were lovely speeches throughout dinner, and towards the end Jazz and Greg got up to thank everyone. It was a great, heart-felt speech, and they both got choked up. I tried to take a picture, but this was as good as I got:



You have to imagine it like this:



Then there were cakes!



They cut the big green cake and ate it:



Check out that awesome poker cake!



It was made by a friend of theirs, and the other cake was made by a professional. I assume it was a friend of Jazz's, because she's totally winning.



Then it was the time on the sprockets when they danced!



Check out that awesome dress again!

We had problems tracking Jazz down to talk to her during the evening - with a gazillion people to talk to, you can totally understand why - and then we figured it out:



She totally deked us out by changing into her cheongsam! Do you know how hard it is to find someone when you're looking for big white froufy and you should be looking for sleek red glamour??

We finally tracked Jazz and Greg down together, plus random dude, juuuuuuust in time to say goodbye:



For those interested, here is a close-up of Jazz's hair:



Isn't it gorgeous? Jazz works in the industry, by the way, and all of the vendors at the wedding were people she'd worked with before. Awesome, huh?

Alex and I went back to Erica's house, visited for a bit, then slept. Then we woke up BEFORE EACH AND EVERY ONE OF THE MCKAY CHILDREN, because someone called us before 8 a.m. Even though we'd all agreed the night before that we didn't want to be on any kind of schedule for heading back. Hmph.

We woke the kids up to spend some time with them before we left (teases! We're such teases!), then headed back out. With breakfast.



And I took what is obviously the best picture of Alex and I EVAH!



The end. :)