Ben and Lise’s Seattle Wedding (6/25/06)
Wedding Part 1 (Saturday)
Saturday morning was breakfast in two parts: the nice cafe again, plus a good burger place across the street. Even Noah, who has long abstained from burgers, had a burger, and Stu splurged on the frozen shake “mix” (really just nice chocolate ice cream) as breakfast dessert. By midday, the groomsmen and I had to report to the rehearsal lunch, back in Ballard, and this involved a lot of jumping in and out of the convertible.
Above
left, Bernie attempts to leap in; above middle, about two seconds afterward,
he decides to abort; above right, after a couple other do-overs, he finally
lands in the car--facing backwards, on the other side than where he started.
Noah, of course, was just glad he waited on the sidelines meanwhile!
At left, upon arriving at the rehearsal, Ben, Robert, and Lise's brother Alex pose for a photo.
Despite
problems assembling the huppah (below right), and jumping on and off of couches
(below left), the rehearsal and Salumi sandwiches went well, and we were now
free to attend to the afternoon’s pressing activity: making sure groomsman
Bernie had a white shirt to wear to the wedding and making sure groom Ben
was entertained and relaxed.
Below, after the rehearsal is over, I managed to get some not-quite-complete shots of the male and female wedding parties sitting on opposite sides of the room.
After
a lot of walking around in the 89-degree weather, and shuffling people in
and out of cars, and shuttling some people to the Fred Meyer and others to
a bar, we finally all ended up at Ben and Lise’s favorite Freemont bar,
complete with Bernie’s white shirt, an odd fascination with Fred Meyer
(described to me as “a grocery store that sells dress shirts and more”),
and a belief that everyone in Seattle is insane when it comes to gauging walking
distances. We were repeatedly assured that place X “is really close,
just a short walk” from place Y, though this “short walk”
inevitably turned out to be a 10-15 minute drive up and down hills and around
the city. And no, there did not appear to be far shorter walking routes—these
places were far apart, and we are all city dwellers who walk and take public
transportation routinely.
Over beer and water and bar food and pool and conversation, depending on who you were, precisely, then, the afternoon passed away, until it was time for dinner (clearly much of the weekend revolved around meals). We settled on a big-bowl Mongolian BBQ restaurant in the university district, and had a filling, fun, boisterous meal with Noah, Bernie, Stu, Joel, Katie, and Lise’s friend Debbie (the only Seattlean to join us that night). After dinner, Debbie directed us to Little Coney’s, an ice cream place out on a pier with a nice view of the sunset. We had great fun following her down some large, loopy hills, and then there were races and photo sessions on the pier and an interrogation of two poor guys just trying to launch their boat. We continued talking over Tim’s dill pickle potato chips and wine back in the hotel, at least until Robert started falling asleep in Bernie and Stu’s room and I dragged him off to bed.
Below, two group shots on the pier. For some reason, the boys are doing an odd Charlie's Angels pose that has Robert looking perky, Noah contemplative, Stu prayerful, Joel determined, and Bernie hidden.
