532: nikki + tim

This weekend, we took our first trip with Maya, who survived a dog-paw to the face while breastfeeding in a car wash, to the wilds of Wisconsin, where we witnessed one of my dearest friends from high school get married. It was a wonderful opportunity to see more from that circle of friends (and many offspring and spouses and parents; we took up three tables, just the five of us and our accessories), though we only lasted into a few of those thumping wedding dance songs. I wish we had chances to see one another more.

399: so many things are ridiculous

Not legalizing gay marriage is clearly one of them.

352: BJ + Lynn got married

Rehearsal dinner at Water Street Brewery.

I had to keep my hands busy. As a person who no longer drinks alcohol or smokes or any of those other deliciously naughty things, I had to keep my hands busy somehow, and there's only so much water one can drink before bursting like a balloon. Plus, I wanted to show off my beautiful Uniform Studio scarf!

There were two cakes: banana with chocolate and mine, which I loved, marble with raspberry filling. Yum.

The couple before what Wisconsinites call "The Grand March," which comes just after dinner and leads the wedding party to the dance floor. We did a grand entrance at our wedding, which led us to our dinner table, which our non-dancing friends were probably a bit glad for. Why are their mouths like that? Because they have plastic fangs in there. :)

This is the Luxemburg-Casco crew (see the L-C they are supposedly making with their hands)--all friends from high school. There's something about friends who date back to those years, the ways in which you can change and grow (and regress, in some cases) and still adore one another because you have those layers of memory to support it all. It's nice to know you have someone on your side no matter what. This, by the way, is Ryan's high school crew. In a strange twist of serendipity, one of my high school crew also happens to be friends with the couple (her husband was room mates with BJ), so I had a little of that high school nostalgia too.

There was a dance-off to see who would win funniest contest. After Jeff did some break-dancing, he won.


We had the cake top as part of brunch; the bakery is making the couple a new cake for their one year anniversary.

And those are just a few glimpses at the Halloween wedding we attended near Milwaukee this past weekend. I can say that Ryan and I seem to be getting pathetically old--we were some of the first to leave of our friends, and we fell asleep watching a haunted gingerbread house competition on the food network.

269: a narrative of chris + michelle's wedding

(Post subtitle: In Which My Best Friend Gets Really Drunk and Plays a Starring Role)

(Subtitle to subtitle: And Steals My Writing Notebook and Writes a Lewd Prose Poem, Which She Reads Aloud to Her Much Embarrassed Husband)

Last Saturday Ryan and I headed up to Duluth for Chris and Michelle's wedding. To and from, on the three plus hour drive, we listened to Chris's podcasts of Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me (not to be confused with the groom Chris, this Chris has been my friend since high school). The wedding: indoors, on the steps outside the Moorish Room at Greysolon Plaza, our hotel room just across the bricked street. The wedding itself was sweet: the bride cried, the officiate was warm and sincere, the cake topper was fitting. Kelly had the evening away from Christian, and instead of strapping the cell phone to her ear, calling every three and a half minutes to check on him and her mother, she opted to check one last time, and then not let any champagne go to waste. Fortunately, she switched over to water halfway through, but not before she had a dance off with another bridesmaid and asked a few awkwardly personal questions of another guest.

Tomorrow: photos of Duluth's shore from the next morning.

Also: for those of you who know a little something about photography... I tend to love natural light, which is part of why I have yet to learn anything about the flash. But, especially with the U of MN's department events, which I am sometimes requested to take photos of, I need to learn how to adapt to indoor lighting. For now, I've simply shot in the low light, which leads to this awful yellow cast. Any tips? My flash stutters as it attempts to auto-focus, so perhaps manually focusing so I don't blind people? Ryan got me a fancy flash for Christmas, and I've only used it minimally.

And along the lines of photography: I think I started heavily uploading photos onto my blog about two years ago, and I can see a shift in the way I perceive things, both the written word and behind the lens. While these shots need a lot of work, and one day I'll learn one of those photo editing programs for touch ups (I still like the idea of the photos being more "organic"--more "out of the can"), I am enjoying the new framings of things, learning how to draw the eye not by the perfectly centered, fill-up-the-frame type shots, but in other ways too. And learning to use the blur to work in your favor, to shift the focus onto facial expressions of one, etc. (Ex: the one of Michelle + Kelly during the dollar dance.) I've got so much to learn, and I'm enjoying this self-taught process. Observe others, shift. I do think there's a photography class in my not-so-distant future, however.

And more photos of the wedding in this Flickr photoset.

And one last thing: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MERYL!