The Wedding!

The wedding was scheduled to start at 4:00 pm - it was wonderful to be able to wake up at a decent hour and have a relaxed morning. I've been to weddings where the girls are up before 6:00 am to start getting ready and it makes for an extremely long day. David even had time to play with our Wii for a while before leaving with Adam and Jonathan to get ready at the wedding site.

One of my favourite things about the day was watching the photographers work. It was like magic to see the photographers capturing so many moments I would have captured. I only picked up a camera a couple of times during the day; so nice to just relax and let somebody else take care of it! I've been the photographer at ten weddings in the past ten years and I've only attended two or three weddings where I wasn't the photographer. As much as I love doing photography, it felt so good to not carry around a camera! I only took three or four of the photos below; the rest were shot by our friend, Alison. The pro shots will be released soon, but for now, here are some casual family photos for those who are curious.

The weather forecast a few weeks ago was for snow to fall, but the sun ended up shining brightly and the sky was clear. A beautiful day for a wedding! The length of the wall where the ceremony was held was lined with windows overlooking a valley with mountains in the distance. The natural light filtering in was beautiful. The ceremony and reception were both held at the Diamond Alumni Centre at Simon Fraser University on Burnaby Mountain.

Me and Lisa in the car on our way to the wedding.

The wedding was mostly problem-free, but the day wouldn't be complete without a Piechnik adventure occurring.

Jonathan obliged by almost passing out during the ceremony. Twice.

Within a few minutes of the guys taking their places, I glanced over at Jonathan and figured he would probably drop so I barely took my eyes off him. I could see his knees were locked and the room was quite warm and his eyes were "zoning out" to an invisible spot in the distance instead of staying focused on what was happening. I was sitting in the front row in the far right seat so he was directly in my line of vision. After about five minutes of standing still he started going pale and about ten or fifteen minutes into the ceremony he turned green, swayed, and his eyes rolled. Lisa and I called out to Adam at the same time and Jonathan was guided to the stairs. I grabbed him a glass of water and sat with him for a few minutes to make sure he was okay. After a while Adam motioned for Jonathan to rejoin him and within five minutes his lips had turned gray and his eyes soon rolled as he swayed again. I motioned to Adam and he grabbed Jonathan's arm and I told Jonathan to just sit on the stairs again. Poor kid. Thankfully he bounced back quickly and was okay for the rest of the day.

Jonathan recuperating and viewing the ceremony from a safer position.

Keri and her beautiful bouquet.

Flowers were arranged by Andrea, a friend of our family. She does amazing work and arranged the flowers for the 30th anniversary party we threw for my parents a couple of years ago. I love how she uses a wide variety of textures and colours in her arrangments while still keeping the theme colour dominant.

The Piechnik family with the newest branch of our family tree.
(L-R Jonathan, Lisa, Sherri, David, Keri, Frank, Me, Adam)

Keri's dad decorated the car.

David brought cigars for the groomsmen and the photographers had a great time capturing the manly tradition. My parents are okay with Jonathan participating on special occasions... sort of.

Jonathan being one of the guys.

The reception was a lot of fun, and I'm not just saying that because I was the Master of Ceremonies. My cousin even said it was the funniest wedding she's been to. David and Keri helped arrange the speakers for the main toasts, which ended up giving lots of laughs, and they asked me to arrange for some surprise speeches and not tell them any of the other details for the reception. It was a bit strange to plan the evening without telling them what would happen, but I think it was a good idea and made it more fun for them. Made me a bit nervous ahead of time because the pressure was on me to make sure the night would keep people interested. The maid of honour, Becky, helped by choosing two people to surprise Keri with speeches and I chose two people to surprise David. The speeches were hilarious beyond my expectations - lots of childhood stories were dug up and the two of them were mocked unmercifully... exactly what they asked for.

David and Keri really wanted to make sure people at the reception didn't get bored so I tried to get a bit creative with how things were done. I filled a jar with Hershey Hugs and Kisses, shot a picture of David and Keri holding the jar a few days before the wedding, and placed a copy of the photo on each table. Each table had to submit a guess for how many Hugs and Kisses were in the jar and the winning table received the jar and got to go first for the buffet. Each table went for dinner in descending order so the worst guess went last.

Actual number of Kisses and Hugs: 234
Best guess: 221
Worst guess: 365

For the dessert buffet I decided to give tables an opportunity to jump the order decided by the guessing game so I started an auction to raise money for David and Keri to use on their honeymoon. I found buyers for the first three tables; the winning bid to be the first table to get dessert was $150, second table won with a bid of $100, and third table paid $50.

Adam's toast to the groom was a highlight of the reception for many people - absolutely hysterical. One of the things he mocked was a song David used to perform at Christmas when he was a kid. When he was little, David couldn't say the letter "r", making the song even more adorable. Our extended family still teases him about it every Christmas. Adam sang the opening lines in a kid's voice during his speech and later in the evening one of David's childhood friends stopped by every table and collected over $350 to bribe David to sing the whole song.

The opening lyrics are:

I'm gonna wrap up myself for Christmas,
and tie me with a big red bow;
that's what I'm giving to Jesus,
it's a present He'll like I know.

David singing "his song" as an adorable little cutie at the age of seven.

David singing "his song" as a married man at the age of twenty-four.

David and Keri are both artists who love quirky music and their choice for their first dance was perfect. If they had chosen something stereotypically romantic it just wouldn't have been "them" - laughter is more their style than sweet smiles. They danced to Honey Pie by the Beatles. If you want to listen to the song, click here and fast-forward to 0:37 (they skipped the intro).

First dance.

The original five Piechnik kids doing the Can-Can at the end of the evening.

The six Piechnik kids.
Welcome to the family, Keri! I have a little sister now!

Finding a dress for the wedding took a while, as regular blog readers know, but I finally found one on sale for £35 - my kind of price! (Most of the dress photos posted on my blog cost £125.) I wanted to find something that was at least a little bit unique and this one fit the bill - I love the rosettes covering the skirt portion and it just feels fun! It definitely needed heels so I went for a four-inch pair and they ended up being surprisingly comfortable, though my feet were killing me by the end of the evening. Legs weren't intended to be in that position for hours on end, but the female mind is able to convince itself that the pain is worth it... until hour six when the balls of my feet were yelping in agony and the shoes finally came off in favour of going barefoot.

The winning dress.

This shot was supposed to show the bow...
Lisa joined in and the shot took an unexpected turn.

When I was looking for shoes I was asked if I was shopping for a particular event. When I said they were for a wedding and I was the MC I had a saleswoman gasp and say, "Wow - I couldn't do that, I'd just throw up!" I actually had a lot of fun being the MC and it didn't make me nervous - partly because I've hosted events before, partly because I'm a detail person so I knew what I was going to do, and partly because the audience was made up of family and friends and I knew I could handle bantering with them.

The happy and tired Mr. and Mrs. Piechnik!
Congratulations!