A Lovely Day

We went to an absolutely lovely wedding today down in Seattle.  It was the wedding of a friend of Kevin's, a car guy.  We had no idea if it was going to be a semi-formal or casual wedding and it was a lovely mixture of both.

It was at a private Catholic school, in the courtyard, outside of the chapel.  The weather was perfect.  I wish I took more pictures but I hate that new development in weddings: audience members taking pictures instead of being in the moment.

But here is one I took while waiting for the ceremony to begin:

The groom has been married before and has two young daughters.  They were bridesmaids with special matching dresses different than everyone elses.  As they came down the aisle, the groom stepped down, kneeled, and met them with a hug and kiss. I heard someone behind us say "The wedding just started and I'm already crying."

The bride arrived in a 57 Chev that the father of the groom drag races.  It was an absolutely perfect touch.

The ceremony's reading of scripture was actually a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit, which I found an interesting choice.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he knew that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it. 

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

( I know, right?  I'm still unsure about the use of that)

My favorite part though?  After the announcement of husband and wife and the first kiss, Kevin leans over and says "Ours was better."

A lovely day, indeed.