Nicole & Mark's Wedding

The Bride & Groom!

Saturday was a beautiful day for a wedding! I had to make last minute outfit changes though, since the dress I had picked out (to wear with some KILLER pumps) was too light and summery for the day and I would have frozen my butt off. I need to build another outfit around these shoes though, because believe me when I tell you they.are.awesome.

Nicole & Mark got married at Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago:

Gorgeous, right? It was even more spectacular on the inside. I thought it was kind of tacky to take pictures on the inside. I did it anyway, but they didn't really come out well. Random bit of trivia here, it is the highest point on the U of C campus, as stipulated in good old JDR's will. The ceremony was lovely and afterwards, we all congregated outside and took a big group picture (the photogs held up a camera over us all and took the picture that way. I would love to see how it turns out!).

The reception was in Schererville, IN, marking my 3rd official forray into Indiana (the first one was sort of a drive-thru thing, on my first choir tour as a junior in high school, so I don't know if that really counts). And... yeah, it's not really that exciting. We found out that there IS more than corn in Indiana - there are also TIRES. Lots and lots and lots of tire stores in Highland/Schererville. Like, a whole bunch of them grouped in a fairly small stretch of road. What's with all of the tires, Indiana?

The reception was lots of fun. There was even a photo booth where the guests could put on cute and funny hats and things and pose. The machine gave two copies - one for the group to keep and the other one to put in a memory book for the bride & groom. What a fun idea! Heidi, the reason we all know Nicole in the first place, was actually not able to attend (she was at a different wedding in a whole other state!) but she was with us in spirit and we drew her in to our first round of photo booth pictures (I'll try and post all of them - they will supposedly be on the photographer's website sometime this week)

We actually were seated with a guy (and his wife) who grew up in Morton Grove! He used to live down the street from Beth, he went to Park View like us (and had Mrs. Messerschmidt) and went to Niles West like us and he was all happy to be able to talk to people who knew where Morton Grove was (we generally say "You know Skokie? It's right near there." When I am somewhere out of state, I just say I'm from Chicago, because close enough, yes?). He's now a fancy teacher at U of C med school and we asked him what subject and he said gastroenterology... you all probably don't know what that is... and we all just laughed, because all of us actually have our own gastroenterologists (sadly. Damn, we're OLD).

The food was great and there was plenty of it. There was a dance floor and we all danced together AND Beth and I became the creators of the four person slow dance, because we crashed Jane & Brian's romantic slow dance to "I can't help falling in love with you." The photographers spotted us glomming onto them and started snapping away. It was hi-larious - before you all think we are terrible friends, we let Jane and Brian have the next slow dance to themselves. We almost went and danced with Nicole and Mark... I'm not sure why we didn't. That makes it into my all time top 3 dancing experiences. The first was getting down to Crocodile Rock with my mom at my cousin Mike's wedding (so.much.fun!) and my first Gala - it was towards the end of the night and the party was winding down. All of the staff members, myself included, had been working the event, and we finally had a moment to ourselves. The band was still playing, and so we just let loose and started dancing in a big group. It was loads of fun - until we noticed we were being watched by our board treasurer. He's such a cool guy though, he was just laughing at us.

Anyway, we sassed it up in the photo booth some more and decided to head on home. It was a great evening, and I could not be happier for Nicole & Mark! Congratulations (or possibly Best Wishes), guys!

Then (Rock Boat 2003)

(and now - September 4, 2010)