rehearsal | rehearsal dinner | before the ceremony| ceremony | reception | day after the wedding
Saturday, May 26
The
morning of the wedding, we went down to the hotel’s breakfast buffet at
9am. Bentley and his family came in about half an hour later. Bentley was wearing
a Mets cap, we noticed, to show his loyalty to his soon-to-be father-in-law's
favorite team (he's in the background of this picture). As it was rainy and
dark and chilly out, everyone tried to find indoor activities to do before the
late-afternoon wedding. So, after breakfast, Bentley, his brothers, and some
of his friends went to the hotel sports center to have a racketball tournament;
this was cut short when Bentley’s friend Chris hit himself in the head
with his racket and started bleeding. Chris was fine, after all, but no one
else felt like playing vigorous sports anymore that day.
Meanwhile, the aunts retired to the inside porch of the Biddle House, adjoining our hotel wing, to read their books. My parents and Robert and I decided to go to Kykuit, the Rockefeller House, just a few minutes away from the hotel, to tour the house and grounds. Before our tour started, the weather was starting to clear up: it was drizzling only slightly, periodically, and the sky was less grey. We stopped briefly for gyros for lunch, and got back to the hotel around 2pm to get showered and dressed for the wedding.
We got to the James House at 3:15, while the photographer was shooting Maria and Bentley, first alone(at right), then with the wedding party and then with the immediate families (see some of the professionally posed photos on our photo album page). Lots of stuff was happening meanwhile--my father had to jimmy the glass dooors to the veranda, to make them open all the way so that the bride and the wedding party could fit through them. And Steve kept getting calls on his cell phone about things at his church--he eventually went underneath the tent to talk on the phone, since he was in everyone's way. Here he is rejoicing that he's finally done with all his calls. While we were hanging around watching the photographer at work and the caterers set up, Robert took this neat self-portrait (below) of the two of us in the main hallway (later the dance floor) of the James House.
At 5pm, the bridesmaids retired upstairs to keep Maria and Bentley company, while the groomsmen began seating people in earnest. By this point, the sky was positively starting to show some blue in it, and everyone was much relieved. We relaxed upstairs, Maria and Bentley sitting arm-in-arm on a couch with the bridesmaids around them, until Maria’s father Steve came up to say they were ready for us all. We headed down the stairs and lined up in the hall. Bouquets in hand, cautions about not tripping down the stairs and hilly grass in mind, we attached ourselves to our respective groomsman’s arm.
