A wedding

Michael and I got to go out to his co-worker, Cullen's wedding on Sat. the 17th. Russ and Kim KINDLY came from San Antonio to watch the kids for the day for us. I was SO grateful. The wedding was at 2pm at St. Mary's Cathedral in downtown Austin.

Neither Michael nor I had attended a Catholic wedding ceremony before and we are always interested in how different denominations do things. This, in contrast to other faiths weddings we had attended, was more ritualistic with some kneeling by the audience at times, and many mumbled phrases spoken by those attending after the priest would say this or that. The priest also sang various things to his own tune. The couple kneeled quite a bit out in front of us, and though we were back quite a few rows, I could see that on the bottom of her left foot in sparkly green glitter was "I" and on the other foot "do." Then Michael said to his boss behind us, "Is he wearing Air Jordans?" To which I thought was crazy, but come to find out--he WAS. Because he is a collector of all Air Jordan shoes (I guess he has them all) so he wore all black ones on his wedding day.

After the hour long ceremony, we walked a block to the Austin Club. I was very excited about the dinner and dancing part. We sat at a table with Michael's co-workers and it was really fun to hear stories and get to know the people (and their wives) that Michael spends his days with. I surprisingly felt comfortable, as I'd just purchased a new maternity dress the night before. I've been intimidated by mainly his boss and wife as he's an "Orthopedic Surgeon" and she is...well, his wife. They've got plenty of $$$ and I don't know why this should intimidate me, but it does/did. Also the fact that it was only the 2nd time meeting them, and the first was quite brief. We heard stories of their yearly trips to Telluride (where once their daughters' tongue got stuck to the frozen railing and her twin sister yanked it off leaving part of her tongue stuck on that railing), they are very down to earth, easy people to talk to. His wife even said she had just looked at my website and wanted me to do their portraits. We'll see--that would REALLY intimidate me, but I told Michael I'm up for the challenge. I like a good challenge.
(notice the Air Jordan Grooms Cake)
There was a buffet of food and even though the dinner plates were salad plates, we took a few of them and filled 'em up. I enjoyed the jalepenio bacon wrapped poppers and heard the story of another co-worker (from another) that he had eaten one a few years ago and accidentally swalled the toothpick--and later had to have it surgically removed.

Michael and I sipped on our waters while everyone else had wine, etc. But they already know Michael enough to know he doesn't drink, so no questions were asked. They even asked how a Mormon wedding was different than the one we saw today and he got to explain just a little (over loud dance music). We ended up not even dancing because at first, no one was on the dance floor...then it was just fast songs (which Michael doesn't dance to, and I didn't have any girlfriends to dance with) then my legs were just killing me, so we didn't. Oh well.

I liked to watch the photographer throughout the night... Since I used to photograph local weddings in various churches and halls around town, it was fun to relax and watch another work it. I smiled to myself as I had a lot of the same gear...even down to the lightsphere diffuser on top by Gary Fong. I even mentioned to him that I had the same one and we exchanged quick pleasantries as he shot pictures of the cake. He knows Cullen from when they bothed worked on UT's sports staff, he as the photgrapher for the teams, and Cullen as an Athletic Trainer. His name is Steve Moakley for anyone who cares. The Asian singing Catholic virgin (he told us during the ceremony) priest is just to his left here.

Here are Michael and I all gussied up on our date...his hair looks extra short b/c he just buzzed it that day. He usually does it once a week.

Here is a bit of a belly shot of me, taken by Michael. Tall boots to hide the bulging veins underneath them. Oh, my legs hurt by the end of this evening.
We got home in time to chat with Russy and Kim and the kids before the kids went to bed and R&K drove back to SA.