SumoGodzilla Wedding, Part 2: Everyone needs a Night of Discovery

Immediately following the ceremony, L&C went and took some more photos, while everyone else mingled and the catering staff moved all the chairs inside so people could sit down. Lissa had done a seating chart (rather than escort cards) and everyone managed to figure out where they were supposed to sit. The centerpieces consisted of a potted orchid and a jar of chocolate-covered mint patties, and each table (0-10) had a photo of Lissa and Curtis at that age. I think people had fun going from table to table looking at the photos; they put a lot of work into that project!

So now, I explain the sumo-godzilla thing. Several years ago, L&C found one of those plywood painted face cutout things, and took a photo of themselves - Curtis as the sumo wrestler and Lissa as Godzilla. During wedding planning, they decided to structure the wedding around this theme (with some orchids thrown in for good measure) and lots of the little details involved sumo and godzilla - the ties, the sumo cufflinks, the cake toppers. (Yes, that is a small piece of paper towel taped to Godzilla's head.) The intro to their wedding website featured an animation of Sumo fighting Godzilla that Dan put together for them. And they recreated the sumo-godzilla photo cutout thing (cardboard, not plywood, handpainted by Lissa), and used it as the backdrop for their DIY photo guestbook (also starring a new polaroid product that spits out a photo taken by a digital camera), so guests took photos as Sumo or Godzilla and pasted them in the guestbook along with their signatures. And speaking of the guestbook, I mentioned that Dan handmade it, and by that I meant that he REALLY handmade it - all of the paper was made by Dan, and it was hand-bound, the cover was made, the letterpress was done, and the drawings inside were done by Dan. I think it turned out really nicely.




I digress. So while L&C were taking "We just got married" photos with each other, people started to take sumogodzilla photos, and mingle, and drink wine and beer and other refreshing beverages. I got a chance to talk more with my Dad's-side-of-family relatives and hug some people I'd last seen at our wedding (granted, it was only 5 months ago, but I hardly ever see them). I posed for more photos. By that time it was REALLY hot outside unless you were in the shade, so people mostly stuck to the shady spots or hung out indoors to wait. Horse's ovaries were passed. More mingling happened. Simon, as the emcee, got the music going and asked everyone to be seated when the caterers started putting out lunch, and I chatted with my mom's-side relatives with whom we were seated, waving at Leah and Simon the next table over.

There was eating, and there was visiting, and little girls and cute babies playing on the floor, and there was prosecco (or sparkling cider) poured into champagne flutes, and Laurel and Sam toasted the bride and groom. Then, they cut the cake, and they danced their first dance for a minute, then invited others up to join them. I danced in my heeled brown sandals for the first time since I hurt my leg, and for a while it was OK. The best part of the dancing, aside from dancing with my husband, was the (now) traditional set of movements to the Proclaimers' I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles), and this time more people joined in. And at one point, I had to fix Lissa's hair because it started to come undone. Don't ask me why she looks so horrified.

Lissa had asked us to keep the dancing going, which we tried to do, but it was so hot. I had to escape outside for a few minutes, while cake was cut and passed out, and when I came back in there were no more slices or plates or a knife for cutting, so I had to find someone in the kitchen to cut more. Harumph, I said to that. But the cake was exceptionally good, so it was worth the hassle. Then, those of us in the bridal party were whisked up to the highest part of the park (Inspiration Point) to take a few more group shots, and when we got back the party was over. The place where the wedding was held has two events a day on summer weekends, so everyone was booted out at 3 PM.



After everything was packed and loaded up, Dan drove us (plus some stuff) down to Leah and Simon's, who followed with some of the potted orchids (they volunteered to take care of them while L&C were on the honeymoon) and the remains of the full sheet cake. We put it in their extra fridge, where it juuuuust fit, and everyone relaxed for a while and took off their fancy clothes. I took a brief nap. Then, it was time to load back up and head for the afterparty, held at a neighborhood pool/poohouse in Orinda. At the party we saw a slideshow created by Curtis's dad, we ate pizza, we drank sangria, Dan swam in the pool, and I marveled at how utterly exhausted I was. It was kind of ridiculous. My energy was gone, and everyone else at the party seemed to have unlimited amounts of the stuff, even the little kids and the pregnant lady. Laurel and her friends came up with a drink they named the Night of Discovery*, consisting of blueberry vodka and sprite, I think. It was a little sweet for me.



Apparently, after we left, there was a (root beer) keg stand and a cake fight, but I was long asleep by that point. And Lissa and Curtis headed off to a fancy hotel (a gift from Laurel and Jackie) for their night of discovery.*



* One of Curtis's coworkers spent the nearly two years of their engagement telling him about the wedding night and what it would entail. He called it the "night of discovery." Curtis initially thought he was joking, but apparently he was dead serious (and also didn't know L&C had lived together for their entire relationship). So after Curtis told us about it, people spent the entire wedding week/weekend teasing them about it.

Thanks to Dan, Leah, and Laurel for the photos

Sumo-Godzilla Wedding, part 1: or, how I gained a second brother in one year

August 2nd dawned dark and early.

Actually, it's kind of hard to tell when you're in the Bay Area in the summer, because it's nearly always overcast that early in the morning. How early, you ask? After nearly 5 hours of sleep I rolled out of bed at 6:30, tiptoed down the stairs, brushed my teeth, checked my email and updated my Facebook status, and attempted to leave Leah and Simon's house in order to drive to my sister's in time to do her hair. Except the screen door wouldn't open, so I had to wake Simon up. Boo.

So I got to Lissa's house around 7:15 and everyone was awake, or as awake as most of them can be at that time of the day (none of them are morning people). As I said, it was overcast, so there was still some dismay over the possibility of the wedding being cold rather than warm. Staying in their house were L&C, Laurel and her friend Lindsay, and Jackie, the awesomest ER nurse evah, and so as you might imagine, things were a little crazy. Someone put the Princess Bride on the TV, and someone handed me a caffinated sody pop when I asked for one, and there was a parade of showers and people pouring coffee and I plugged in the curling iron and started on Lissa's hair. Because her hair is even thicker than mine, I knew it would take a while to get it all curled so I could start to style it, so I had Lissa sitting in a chair in a daze by about 7:40 as everyone else fluttered around.

Due to some practice earlier in the week, I knew exactly how I'd be doing Lissa's hair, so once it was curled it didn't take long. I sprayed the heck out of it and hoped it would hold with only small bobby pins - in our family, with our thick hair, we usually need the big ones, but the amount of hair that was pinned wasn't especially big, so I was hoping it would hold OK. I shoved in the two pearl hairpins that had belonged to my maternal grandmother to help camoflage some of the bobby pins, and Lissa's hair was ready to go. I sat in the kitchen to do my makeup, hand mirror propped against a box on the table so I could see, because the bathroom mirror and living room mirror were full of primping ladies.

At various times throughout the morning, a parade of people stopped by the house to assist in transporting things like all the wine and beer and prosecco, the champagne flutes, the 15 potted orchids, the elements for the table settings, and a large cardboard cutout with Godzilla and a Sumo wrestler on it (more on that later). My mom arrived and was put to work ironing shirts and wraps. I put on my bm dress (a little tight in the boobs, but fit OK otherwise) and did something very simple with my hair, and stopped in the middle of something to apply Lissa's eyeliner when requested (tightlining using a dark brown eyeshadow, which I think looks much nicer than a pencil) after Jackie and Laurel had done the rest of her makeup. Jackie filed my obscenely long nails down in a square shape and I gave myself the quickest French manicure ever, and immediately smudged it when helping Jackie to tie her dress. Someone put makeup on Curtis (don't ask me why, but there is photographic evidence). The groomsmen who hadn't been at the rehearsal dinner came over to get their ties (silkscreened with sumo wrestlers) and one of them had a large hole in the back of his pants, which I fixed with about 6 safety pins. And suddenly we all had to leave, and so we piled into three cars, Lissa with her dress, veil, purse (with vows) in hand, and headed up to the Brazil Room in Tilden Park.

I didn't know where I was going, since I'd never driven up there from the part of the East Bay where L&C live, and the drive was far more challenging than I expected - lots of twists and turns on super narrow streets undergoing construction, trying to follow someone who knew where he was going but wanted to drive way faster than I did. On the drive up, it became clear that the fog was going to burn off completely, and then someone realized that the tie for the remaining groomsman might have been left at their house, so Lissa switched cars and Curtis drove home to get the offending piece of formalwear. We made it to the location in time for Lissa to get her dress on before the photographers arrived (10 AM), and people immediately went into action, arranging centerpieces on the tables, setting up SumoGodzilla and the camera and the guestbook that Dan made them, helping Lissa with her dress and getting her veil in the right spot, and visiting with each other. I managed to find everyone on whom I needed to pin flowers (8 men, 6 women) and eventually the last bridesmaid (Curtis's sister) arrived so we each picked a BM bouquet (each one was different, and all had elements similar to Lissa's bouquet). I ended up with the one I liked best, and I think everyone's bouquets went best with their dresses, even though I didn't plan it that way.

More guests arrived as we started taking formal photos, and it got brighter and hotter as the morning went on. The fog had burned off completely, so it was actually much more comfortable indoors than outside where we were taking photos. Leah and Simon arrived with the PA system and Dan just in the nick of time, as he was supposed to be in some of the photos. More people arrived. It got hotter. People started to seat themselves on the shady side of the ceremony space. Nobody seated themselves on the sunny side except people who'd thought ahead and brought umbrellas to shade themselves. And then it was time for us to gather inside and discuss the order in which we'd be walking out, since we hadn't had any sort of rehearsal the day before. Dan escorting Mom, officiant, flower girls, every other groomsman and bridesmaid, and then Lissa and Curtis walking arm in arm up to the front of the group to say their vows.




So that's what we did. Some of us grinned. Some of us cried. Some of us did both (me! though I managed not to let any tears actually fall out of my eyes). And then, suddenly, after all this time, they were married.

It was time to party.

photos by Dan, Leah, someone with Lissa's camera, and Laurel