Mawwige

What's up, kids! I know, it's been ages. But I've been muuy busy. My brother got married, see, and I was making a dress for the wedding because I found this fabulous grey pseudo-wool for super-cheap, on account of it being an 'unknown fiber' and me only guessing about it being pseudo-wool. So I've spent most of my spare seconds of the past week or so plugging away at this dress, leaving fabric shards and thread clippings ALL over the house (Joel, bless his heart, vacuumed yesterday, and then told me I wasn't allowed to do any more sewing, it being hard on both our carpet and my sanity). The dress ended up being lumpy-bumpy all up one side, and in repeated efforts to smooth it out I ended up making it super-mad-tight, and then I affixed the straps a little crooked so that my side-boob spilled all out from the one armpit. I know. You are so horribly crushed that my camera is, how you say, le broke, and I can't get the pictures off of it to show you. You are all dying to see my lumpy grey elephant body, and my side-boob.

Ok, so the dress was made and on Friday morning and I headed off to catch the Greyhound, and I can feel in my bones that this post is going to be a long one so I'll save for later the stories of how the Greyhound's been successively screwing me over, and how I finally beat them at their own game, only sort of. Suffice it to say that I survived the trip to Burnaby, and my sister survived our shoe-shopping adventure even though I'm a picky bitch, and I survived the fact that the world's sassiest pair of shoes only comes in sizes six and eight-and-a-half (for the record, I am a seven).

I made Boo come to the rehearsal with me, because I had to be there because I was reading Scripture in the ceremony (OH my nerves), but I knew I'd be bored silly without her, and we both 'practiced' our heels and then regretted it the next day when we went to slide them on and they fit nicely onto the little grooves and blisters they'd carved the day before. Life and learn.

They made us sit in the back of the church while the rehearsal was going on, because we were being 'disruptive,' and then my mom confiscated my camera because I was supposed to be taking candid pictures of the rehearsal, but all I ended up with was this gem of my sister going wall-eyed. Who knew?

The morning of the wedding dawned horrible and snowy, and so Joel had to bring my grandparents in from Abbotsford, jaws-of-life-ing Irene into the back seat of our little two-door. Joel and I cut quite a dashing figure, he in his well-seasoned wedding suit, and me in my grey wool sausage-casing. My dad's been eating salads for a week to fit back into his wedding suit, and my mom looked like Audrey Hepburn in Breafast at Tiffany's. Bekah wore a dress and heels for the first time since grade school (and the 'heels' she wore then were more what you call 'platforms') and Darren found a suit long enough for his body. As I suppose is appropriate, Matt looked better than any of us, all shiny tux and silver tie.

Again, as is probably appropriate, everyone else's carefully-curled hair and hastily-shined shoes faded into the background when Gillian swept into the room on her father's arm. Oh mercy, I'm getting all misty-eyed just writing this. Looking suddenly very grown-up instead of like my brother's adorable girlfriend, she strode up to take her place by his side. Luckily for her, she and her maid of honor and my brother all had kleenex secreted about their persons. Luckily for me and every woman within a fifty-foot radius, we had our hankies and our sleeves and whatever, it isn't our wedding anyways so go ahead and use your scarf.

So, highlights of the night...my crazy Catholic neighbor called my uncle's fiancee by his ex-wife's name TO HER FACE! Shocking! My mom introduced her mother-of-the-groom speech as 'being brought to you courtesy of the alcohol,' and then went on to admit that, being Mennonite through and through, she struggled between abstinance and a good deal (i.e. the free booze). HA! Tipsy-mom is hilarious-mom. My crazy Catholic neighbor's gorgeous daughter showed up in a flowy 70's muumuu, my cousin and her stunt-man-dentist boyfriend escaped the clutches of their needy dog-child to make an appearance, and the steak was amazing.

And then, as the night was drawing to a close, the crowd clinked their glasses for one last kiss. Instead of sucking faces like they'd been doing, Matt kissed Gillian quickly and sweetly on the lips before pulling her to him, hugging her and grinning like the lucky idiot he knows he is.