We attended the wedding of close friends a few days ago. These are friends we made years ago when we all decided that car-pooling was a good environmental thing to do, even though we did live a few miles from each other at the time. One thing I learned about carpooling is that you get to know each other quite well when spending time in a car for about 30 minutes both morning and evening. And we grew close.
Their daughter's wedding was a bit different than most weddings I have attended. It was not unusual that it was at a countryside farm converted to a wedding venue.
This was not a grand extravagant affair. While both sets of parents could have spent more money, they honored their children's desire to keep the wedding "comfortable." There were between 100 and 200 guests and we were told to dress "comfortably" since the ceremony was outside. The breezes were coolish and sometimes strong unfortunately. But that was not what made the wedding a bit unique.
Both couples families are Chinese American and thus 80% of the guests were Asian. The other 20% consisted of European American, African American and a few Latin Americans thrown in to keep it balanced. Nope, no one came directly from China or other places in that part of the world. But it seemed to be a mini-UN with some in exotic dress.
During the ceremony I sat next to an ex-Marine and his wife who worked for the Federal Government in the Environmental Satellite Data program. During the reception I sat next to a gentleman, newly retired, who wrote policy for the Federal Government on computer security, and no, I did not ask him about the Hillary Clinton issue, but did sympathize with his former challenge. He was glad to be retired. He said it was hard to appease the 300 people to whom he reported. I said he was in charge of writing poetry and he agreed. I think he would have rather written computer code.
The wedding party were all pretty successful in their professional careers.
Among the members of the wedding party above are a doctor, an environmental lawyer, a computer programmer for a start-up company and a neurosurgeon. These are just the ones that I either knew or talked to!
The reception was held in an old dairy barn with the bar on the first floor and the eating in the hay loft! Charmingly low key.
While the food had lost much of its appeal by the time it was carried up the stairs to the drafty venue, the conversation and wine were terrific. The tributes were touching and I actually was crying by the time the bride gave a little speech. The nieces and nephews of the bride read their tributes on their cell phone, which I guess is the new way to do this! My old eyes would find this small screen electronic notepad somewhat stressful.
Finally, my tie-in to the title. One of the female guests arrived with a crutch having broken her foot a day and half before at Stanford University checking her daughter into school. Since weddings involve lots of standing, she was brave. The husband of one of the sisters of the bride and seated at our dinner table had arrived with a cane. He had fallen that very morning and sprained his ankle severely. Since his brother-in-law, a Puerto Rican, was also an emergency room doctor and the sister-in-law a pediatrician, he was surrounded by good advice, which he said consisted of "Take a few ibuprofen, get a stiff drink and we will review this again in the morning." I guess they had both seen so much worse that this was a no-brainer. He did not seem to be in any pain.
This was a wonderful break from my daily boring life.
