Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

The Gryphon and I

On Saturday, The Gryphon and I attended the wedding of a friend from my Penn State days. She's closer to my sister's age than mine, and I used to hang out with her when I'd go visit my sister in State College after I'd graduated. But actually, I'd met her first, so I suppose I've technically been her friend for longer.

I'd only met the groom once, at my sister's wedding, and my impressions of him there were that he was exactly what everyone said: a gentle, kindhearted guy with a playful sense of humor that matched the bride's. What's more, they look great together and seem to be well-suited for each other on all fronts. She met him after she moved back home to New Jersey following graduation and took a professional job there.

The wedding was in Northern New Jersey, which according to Mapquest was a two and a half hour drive. But I don't trust Mapquest times, so I wanted us to give ourselves at least three to three and a half hours.

We had dropped off my dog, Una, at the pet sitter's the night before, so all we had to do was get ready, get dressed in our wedding outfits, get breakfast at the local diner, and get on the road. As it was, we left a little later than I'd hoped, but I was optimistic.

We took an alternate route from Mapquest. The Gryphon suggested going up the New Jersey Turnpike because it offered rest areas and was a larger highway than the road that Mapquest put us on. We were afraid that we'd get stuck behind Saturday traffic if we were on a smaller road.

Everything was going fine until we got off the highway and, for the last several miles, got stuck in weekend traffic on a commercial strip. We were just crawling along, but there was nothing we could do. Fortunately, the directions were good, so we didn't get lost. We pulled into the parking lot with just about 10 minutes to spare, and as we sat in our car sharing a sandwich we'd bought on the way down, we watched the bride, her bridesmaids and her mother arrive in a limo.

We finished the sandwich, The Gryphon donned his tie and jacket, and we dashed inside. On the bride's side, near the front, we saw my sister and her husband, and we slipped up the side aisle to join them. Of course, I had to use the restroom first, so my sister's husband showed me where it was. On the way, we passed the photographer, taking pre-ceremony pics of the groom and his groomsmen.

Soon after we returned, the procession began. My sister was nervous, I could tell. She was going to be reading a poem by Pablo Neruda. She'd called me the previous week for some tips, and I gave her a little tutorial on poetry reading.

She needn't have worried. When it was her time to perform, she did an excellent job. I gave her a thumbs up as she returned to her seat.

The bride and groom were dashing. The bridesmaids dresses, if possible, were even simpler than the dress I'd worn for my sister's wedding. The color was celeron, but it was a deeper green than the color my sister had worn for The Artist's wedding two years ago.

I took a shot of the bride's niece, who was standing up and holding onto the back of the pew, and in the background you can see the color of the bridesmaid dresses.

There ceremony was interesting in that it was performed in both English and Spanish, for the benefit of both families. The bride's family are Irish-American and the groom's family Hispanic-American. Two pastors conducted the ceremony, and in most cases they read exactly the same thing.

The only exception was that they had each written their own individual sermon. The English-speaking pastor gave a sermon about the importance of the type of love that Jesus emphasized, the kind where you sacrifice for the other person. I asked the groom the next day to summarize the Spanish-speaking pastor's sermon, and it turns out that he addressed very similar issues, about the importance of sacrificing for the other person. He, however, made more use of humor, and the Spanish-speaking guests laughed in the appropriate places as he spoke.

Interestingly, the bride did her vows in English and the groom did his in Spanish. I thought it was a very sweet way to include everyone in the ceremony.

Afterwards, we went through the receiving line at the back of the church and then received a set of bells on a pale green ribbon by the ushers. They were for ringing the bride and groom out of the church on the way to the reception. While we were standing around, people were rattling them incessantly. The noise would come and go in waves as people grew tired of rattling them and then started up again.

It wasn't until we were standing outside that I got a good look at what the other women were wearing. Now, my sister had warned me that this wedding was going to be most formal than most others I'd attended, but I guess I misinterpreted her. I thought she was simply cautioning me to wear something that was a bit more sophisticated than the flowered sundresses I'd worn to other weddings. I'm not certain if that's what I would have worn anyway, to be honest, my taste having changed.

I'd bought myself a white skirt suit with a light green top, but as I looked around, it was almost like we were at the annual black tie optional event at my dad's medical convention. I began to feel out of place, as if I'd worn a business suit to a prom. The worst part was, I had a dress that would have been perfect if I'd only have known: the black Michael Kors dress I wore to the black tie optional event. I guess I should have asked my sister exactly what she meant by more formal.

Now, my sister had waited until the last moment to find something, and she paired a black skirt with a black V-neck top with some sparkle to it and some flirty sleeves. She looked great. In fact, she and the other reader, who read the Neruda poem in Spanish, were wearing almost exactly the same outfit.

But people were friendly and talking to me, so I didn't think much of it. When the bride and groom came out, we rang our bells and then, at the photographer's urging, gathered around them for a group picture.

The reception was supposed to start in about an hour, so The Gryphon and I drove to the hotel and checked in. We found out that, for the very reasonable group rate we'd received, it was a very nice place. It was a Best Western, so it wasn't glitzy, but the room was big with all the usual hotel amenities, and the lobby was modern and filled with light.

Once settled in, we grabbed our directions for the reception and headed out. We didn't have any problems finding it, after a false start in a residential neighborhood where some a street sign was pointing the wrong direction. Arriving at the tennis club where the reception was being held, we managed to find a parking space, even though some people had decided to park in the grass.

We followed the other wedding guests inside. The Gryphon and I looked for a place to set our present and only saw one other one at a side table, so we placed ours there. Turns out it's a tradition in this part of New Jersey to just give the couple a card and money, so most of the guests had left their envelopes in a basket near a framed copy of the program which everyone was signing.

The event started out with a cocktail hour. There was a trio of musicians playing in one room, servers walking around with hors d'oeuvres and an open bar. Tables were set out everyone, some at standing height and some with chairs. There were some lovely centerpieces. The rooms were gorgeous, lots of white woodwork and windows.

My sister and her husband, The Gryphon and I, ended up talking with two old friends of the bride, whom my sister had met previously. We chatted and took pictures of things like each other and the centerpieces and cake.

At one point, a server accidentally dumped a number of mushroom tarts on our table, but we assured him we wouldn't tell anyone. They were delicious.

At some point, somebody started directing the flow into the reception area. At this point was when the evening took a turn for me. We ran into somebody my sister had met at the bridal shower, a very tall, dark-skinned woman who reminded me a bit of Venus Williams, except even taller. Like Venus as a super hero, maybe.

Elli had met her at the bridal shower and was just about to introduce me. She was saying, "This is my sister" but hadn't gotten to the word "sister" yet when Super Venus jumped in and said, "I was going to say, your mom..."

I jumped in before she could finish the sentence and said, "I'm her older sister."

Super Venus kind of covered for herself and said, "Oh, your mom must look a lot like you two."

We said yes, she sort of does. Of course, in my mind I was certain that she'd mistaken me for my sister's mom. The only reason I could imagine was the way I was dressed. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the only women attending the dress in skirt suits were above 50 years old. All of the younger women were wearing semiformal or formal dresses. In fact, one 20-something who sat briefly at our table before moving announced to us that she was wearing her prom dress, which she'd been keeping in her closet for another excuse to wear it.

I don't know why this had such a devastating effect on me, except that, as I explained later to The Gryphon, I'd spent so much of my life sticking out for the wrong reasons that, now that I look good, it was depressing to once more be the one who doesn't fit in.

Of course, it didn't help that I was drinking. When I'm drinking, common sense goes out the window, and when I get on a self-pity jag, I all but self-destruct. The only thing that kept me going were The Gryphon's constant efforts to get me to smile. He really is a sweet guy, and I'm lucky to have him.

And then, too, there was music and dancing. The D.J. was the sort of D.J. who did all the typical wedding stuff, which my sister was careful to avoid at her wedding last year. He announced the bridal party, led the room in several dances: the bride and groom alone, the bride and her father, the groom and his mother, all the couples, all the married couples.

Later in the evening, he got more obnoxious, like playing the Electric Slide and then berating the wedding guests for not knowing how to dance to it.

The father gave a toast, saying embarrassing things about the bride and making her blush. But they waited until much later in the evening to have the best man and maid of honor give their toasts. I got a picture of the happy couple while they were at their table. They were receiving a constant stream of guests doing the same thing.

The buffet had a great selection: chicken and seafood, pasta and veggies. It was hard to choose what to get. There was a bit of a traffic jam because it wasn't clear which direction you were supposed to go, and until they straightened it out people were going both ways and sort of colliding.

At one point, someone at the table asked The Gryphon and I how long we'd been married. I told her that we'd been together for almost three years but hadn't set a date yet to get married. We've talked about it, and we know it's something we both want, but we're not yet officially engaged. I stood up with the rest of the single women for the bouquet toss and was happy to see I wasn't the oldest one in that group.

After we ate, my sister and I got up to shake our groove thing. The photographer took oodles of pictures of us, probably mostly of my sister, who does a lot of great poses when she's dancing.

He joined me on the dance floor for a few slow songs and even danced to some fast tunes, such as the song "Shout." I'd never seen him get down like that. It was a lot of fun. I joked with him that no matter how old people thought I was, they thought he was older. This was an allusion to his gray hair, which started showing itself when he was in college.

The DJ alternated between pop and rock songs from the '80s and '90s and Spanish pop songs. It was funny, because during the Spanish pop songs, everybody danced, but as soon as, say, a Bon Jovi song came on, the older people bolted for the tables and all us 20- and 30-somethings started head banging, especially the bride, who does a great air guitar. I wish I had it on videotape. Then again, life's usually better in memory than it is in photography.

I even danced for awhile with Super Venus and some of her friends. Super Venus liked to lead dance steps, and she would call out, say, "Beyonce" and lead us in the bouncy moves Beyonce is known for. I felt a lot better than I had earlier in the night, and internally, I forgave her for the real or imagined slight regarding my age.

When the reception finally died down, The Gryphon and I agreed to lead my sister and her husband back to the hotel. But the signage was bad on the way back, and we missed the highway and had to do an illegal U-turn. Fortunately, we had no further difficulties on the way home.

My sister wasn't yet ready to call it a night, so we agreed to change and then meet in the hotel bar for some more drinks. Without talking about it, we all four changed into somewhat more casual versions of our wedding outfits. I threw on jeans and a black top and kept the white jacket. The Gryphon wore jeans with his purple dress shirt, removing the tie. My sister's husband threw on a white T-shirt with his dress coat, and my sister paired her black V-neck top with a pair of red satin pants.

We had a couple rounds and talked about the wedding. Next to us, a couple middle-aged guys were singing loudly to the jukebox, serenading a woman about 10 years younger than them who seemed to know them. My sister and her husband put money in for seven songs, but even though we stayed until last call, they never got to hear them.

We all said goodnight and agreed to meet the next morning for breakfast in the hotel.

More from the weekend:

May 23, 2006 - Red Bank Revisited

June 7, 2006 - More Recent Pics

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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