Wedding

Xy & I went to Sean & Dawn’s wedding. (Sean is Xy’s partner teacher, and they have a great working relationship. I’m grateful to him even though I hardly know him personally.) I love weddings, and this was a great one, and interesting in a number of respects.

The ceremony was held at St. Peter Claver Church, a black Catholic church in the 6th ward. The church is an old-fashioned cathedral from 1852, built in the European tradition, but decked out with lots of African decorations, including Kwanzaa banners. I was a little surprised when the priest turned out to be a white man, but I gathered that he’d been serving there for twenty-five years or so. There were only a handful of white folks present; being a minority in such social situations is an experience which I always find intriguing and instructive. It was quite possibly the biggest wedding I’ve ever attended; certainly the wedding party was huge — there were six groomsmen, two best men, six bridesmaids, a maid of honor and a matron of honor, plus flowergirls, ringbearers, and so on.

It was a religious ceremony, which lead me to reflect again on where I agree and disagree with the church. For example, I don’t agree with the notion that a wife should be subject to her husband, but I feel that, in some sense, two people can become as one. It feels funny to do critical filtering in such a context, but I guess that’s the lot of thinking people in a pluralistic society. In any event, I generally had warm fuzzy feelings of love and a renewed sense of commitment to Xy. I’m the sentimental one, so I was way surprised when she expressed the same. Cool.

The wedding party was so large that, in addition to a traditional stretch limo, they also had a limousine bus. And of course a police escort.

The reception was uptown, at the Fine Arts Center. Great food, several open bars, a rockin’ DJ — this was a party. And there seemed to be hundeds of people there.

Unfortunately, my damn knee has been bothering me again (the right one, which I twisted on Dec. 12th) so I wasn’t able to bust a move on the dance floor.

I didn’t take a camera to the wedding. I would have liked to take a picture to remember it by, but I felt awkward enough hobbling around on my game leg without juggling a camera too. But when we got home, since we were dressed up, we took this picture.

It’s a little overexposed, but note the freshly repainted hallway!