Maria Got Married

After everything that's been going on recently, I finally have the chance to write about the details.

On Wednesday I had an interview in Brooklyn. As these things go, it went fine, although the teacher who would be replaced may or may not be leaving and they're interviewing several people so that they could have a pool of applicants from which to choose, so I'm not really getting my hopes up. Which is actually fine, because Brighton Beach is really all the way down there, and the daily commute would be a stretch, even for me. (As a side note: Brighton Beach is very nifty and I would like to go back to explore it a bit more.)

Wednesday evening Maria and Stephen came over - such was that I finally got to meet the elusive Stephen, who was (much to my relief) a nice guy (it's much easier when your friends date nice people). Maria had been telling Stephen about our little Indian restaurant, and this had piqued Stephen's interest.

On Thursday I had to do some mildly irritating errands, which mostly consisted of my trying to get a few answers from the teacher certification department at Stony Brook University, but I decided it would probably be much easier to handle this in person, so off I went. And I was right - I was told to complete form I hadn't known I needed, and it turned out that the person who told me about this form had actually told me to complete the incorrect form, so he printed out the right form for me. As often happens it took 20 minutes to get the information, and much, much longer to travel to get this information.

On Saturday, preparations for Maria and Stephen's wedding began. All the bridesmaids met at Maria's grandmother's house, and for the rest of the day we put together wedding favors, folded programs, rehearsed the ceremony, and generally got ourselves organized.

Sunday itself was the wedding. Chris and I picked up another bridesmaid and her boyfriend, who had opted to stay overnight at a local hotel, and were at the grandmother's house by 9 a.m. Maria arrived a bit later, at which point we ran around taking care of the details. Amrita and I helped Maria into her dress; Amrita helped her with her makeup; flowers were cut; and items needed for the reception were piled into cars (thanks to the men). Chris and I stuck a beautifully-gowned Maria into the back of our car and delivered to her Planting Fields Arboretum, where the ceremony would be held. Maria walked down the aisle to Maeve's "One I Love"; and the ceremony (at which I officiated) lasted only about 15 minutes. Most of Maria's friends (myself included) were friends from the Writing Center, so except for any dates that were brought, everyone knew everyone else. The family was left at the Arboretum and the rest of us headed on over to the reception hall - which was the upstairs of Umberto's, to set up. It was only slight mayhem, but everything got set up. I've had Umberto's pizza before, but all around the food was (almost to my surprise and Chris') excellent all around. I had an absolutely lovely time, and I'm pleased that I got to officiate at the ceremony (in an unofficial capacity; Maria and Stephen are both Druids/Elementalists; in order to make their marriage really legal one needed to be an ordained minister, which obviously I am not) and be a witness to their legal ceremony - which is something only the best man (Stephen's grandfather), Maria's mother, and I got to be a part of.