Carla y Michael's Wedding

Carla's wedding was Sunday afternoon.  It marked the closest wedding I have even been to, as the synagogue was about 2-3miles from my house.  In spite of that, I ran a tiny bit late (though I made it with plenty of time to spare before the gig started).  I grabbed one of the couple's custom-printed yarmulkes and sat down.

At the ceremony, I sat near Jess, an acquaintance from high school who I hadn't seen or spoken to since I graduated.  This would be a recurring theme, as I ran into some other friends of Carla's that I hadn't seen for some time. 

Michael's family's huppah was spectacular, and Carla had an amazingly beautiful wedding dress on.  I can say this because If I notice that kind of thing, it must have really stood out; after a while, the dresses start to blur together...but not this one.  After the ceremony, they served some really good food and some impressively high-end liquor for the duration of the reception and meal.  I'd never seen Grey Goose and Belvedere served at a wedding open bar before for that long a time - and they had lots of leftover booze to boot. 

This was a very traditional Jewish wedding, complete with the prayers, songs and the old-school Jew dances.  I didn't think Carla would consent to getting the chair treeatment, but I should have known better.  Apparently, the small wedding party were taking dance lessons -- and Carla's parents were MACHINES.  They were swing dancing, and commanded the respect, attention and laughter of everyone in the room when they took the floor together.  Carla's dad had always seemed like a stern, stereortypical dad archetype.  So watching him drop to one knee as Carla's mom passed over him, then lifing her up and swinging her around was pretty amazing. 

I spent most of the reception talking with Brent (high school, a year younger, his class president and one-half of our pudding wrestling tag team the Super-Powers); Dan (ran track, also Carla's year from our high school); and assorted friends of Michael's.

The reception wound down at around 6 or so.  I helped  Carla's dad load the leftover food and booze into some cars, and we went to the local Doubletree in Rockville to meeet up with the bride, groom and guests.  i met Michael's parents, and hung out with Paula, Dan, Kevin and Caetlin.  At around 9, I braved the downpour outside, went home and crashed. 

Before Carla went upstairs and I left, we embraced and in vintage Cabana form I said, "I hear something important may have happened to you today, so congratulations on whatever that was."

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