Wedding Thoughts

As I've alluded to in numerous recent posts, Molly and I got married on Saturday December 20th. The ceremony was extremely small, limited to immediate family, a single set of extended relatives each, and a few friends who are close enough to be considered family, DNA aside. In my case it was a little more intimate than I might have wanted, since my mom and my grandparents had to cancel at the last minute due to health problems. But everyone's healthy now, and we have video and tons and tons of pictures.

I'm not sure about Molly, but I was a stress monster pretty much until I got to the altar. It was just the usual wedding crap, compounded by the fact that getting my family together is like herding cats. But once I saw that everything was actually proceeding according to plan I relaxed considerably. I think the moment that it all came together was when John and Julie showed up. They were the last to arrive and I was worried about getting married without them (they weren't late, I was just paranoid), and I was elated when Ian signalled to me that they had arrived.

After the ceremony we all had dinner at Spanish Bay, where the Elliott and Holohan camps got to mingle a little more. There were lots a speeches and surprise gifts, and my impromptu closer was only slightly disabled by champagne. Dinner was fabulous and it was great to see everyone making fast friends. Before dinner we made some quick calls to the absent parent and grandparents, who were happy enough for us not to be too upset about having missed the ceremony. Disappointed, of course, but not devastated.

After dinner we headed straight to the Airport Hyatt (with a slight side trip to Alameda) to sleep for a few hours before our 7:00 a.m. flight to Zurich. Hitting four European cities in ten days (five cities if you count our wrong-station layover in Paris) is the exact opposite of relaxing, but we managed to take things as easy as possible while still squeezing in as many sights and food searches as we deemed appropriate. Rather than providing a play-by-play of the trip I'd prefer to let the pictures speak for themselves. I will say this, however: Everybody smokes in Europe. And they do it everywhere. After ten days of choking and wheezing I have a new appreciation for California's draconian smoking laws.

So now we're in the states, we're adopting two cats, and we're starting our life as an actual married couple. As soon as our marriage certificate arrives Molly will begin the process of legally changing her name. I know I should have some profound feelings about this, but I'm really just happy. I don't know when I've been more optimistic.