Always a bridesmaid, never a...hey wait...I wasn't even a bridesmaid!!

But that's ok...I was the allocated pianist. That word makes me nervous...let's say allocated performer instead.

For those of you who don't know, which probably isn't anybody reading this since I think I've told everybody, their mother and their cat, my brother got married this past May 19. (I must apologize for the tardiness of this post...it's been a work in progress ever since as you will discover it is very, very long...) He got married to the lovely Larissa, and honestly I couldn't be happier with anybody he picked to marry. She just makes me want to hug her every time I see her. Or head butt her shoulder Homer-Simpson fashion...I'm not quite sure why. "*Stampy starts butting another elephant* You see Bart, just like humans, some animals are just jerks. *Homer starts head butting animal guy* Mr. Simpson, stop it. Stop it, Mr. Simpson. Please, Mr. Simpson...stop."

They decided to do a different timeline for their wedding day which actually turned out to be quite ingenius. This was the order:

• wedding pictures
• family dinner
• ceremony
• cocktail reception
• some speeches
• getting funky (dance)
• cake
• more dancing
• more cake
• dancing WITH cake
• me taking a picture of someone's butt when they weren't suspecting it

Yes, this was the official iternary.

It was smart to do this because without a big dinner that nobody really needs, they were free to invite more guests and didn't have to think "but if we invite them that's another $60!!" etc...thus they were free to invite anybody they wanted so we could settle into one big fun happy party.

The day started out a bit rainy and a bit chilly, so naturally we were all concerned about the outdoor wedding pictures. But Larissa prayed and got her miracle; the sun poked it's head out and the pictures turned out beautifully.

Larissa turns her face to the sun and enjoys her miracle

The Wedding Party

Alex and Levi, neice and nephew of the bride made the cutest flower girl and ring bearer!

Brother, sister, and a new sister-in-law. GUESS WHICH ONE I AM!!

Next on the agenda was the dinner. It was the first meal I'd ever had with alcohol in it. As you can tell, the dinner was very exciting:

Levi tuckered out on his father's lap

With all the celebrations one could easily forget: they haven't been married yet! So off we went to the ceremony. I kept a close eye on Larissa to ensure she didn't have any cold feet episodes...after awhile she got very sick of me constantly trying to keep her feet warm and handcuffing her to myself with a child leash. Now if that isn't love for your brother, I don't know what is! You're welcome man.

My nerves were starting to kick in before the ceremony and all the typical mental flash pictures of me starting to sing and croaking or walking up to the piano and falling flat on my face started to carasel through my mind. My nerves were soon eased by another distraction; Larissa's nephew completely stole the show. Once the little guy made it on stage, he completely forgot where he was supposed to go and just stood there. Once his mother got up there she took his hand and stood with him, and it was at this point that he thought it to be humorous to start stomping on the stage. It made a resounding echo you see, which added an interesting backdrop to their vows to each other lol. No amount of mother and aunt standing on his feet could make him stop, nor could my mutterings of "I'm going to kill that kid, I'm going to kill that kid...BUT HE'S JUST TOO DARN CUTE!" Hey, if Larissa didn't mind (as I'm sure she didn't because she was laughing at it too and loves him very much) why should I?

I fell in love with the music they played for the processional. It was taken from The Chronicles Of Narnia soundtrack and is a really gorgeous song. The rest of the wedding flowed relatively smoothly aside from Levi's antics. I teared up during the vows and could only think about how perfect this match was. My performance went off ok...my voice cracked on the first note but I think I recovered ok lol. No horrible flaws...we're all our own worst critics so I won't say anything more.

Me tickling the ivories and singing...Darren and Larissa picked a cute but not mushy song by K's Choice called Favorite Adventure for me to perform during the signing of the registry.
I feel like my mom by wanting to yell "STOP SLOUCHING! SIT UP WOMAN!"

After the ceremony came the reception, which was held in a lovely room at the Hamilton Art Gallery. Before the fun began, we had to get all the boring stuff out of the way; speeches ensued, there was a wonderful disorganized scurrying to get the guestbook signed, and a small goat was sacrificed. You know, the usual Christian customs. Speeches were actually well done; short and to the point, as it should be. Larissa's cousin even did a FABULOUS take off of the priest in The Princess Bride: "Marewiage. Marewiage is wha bwings us...togethaw...toooday." Also, Alex and Levi sung the snuggle puppy song. For the video of that, click here. And you can't have a wedding without wedding games, so we had the shoe game; various questions get read off (for example, who is more likely to leave their towel on the bathroom floor?) and while facing back to back the couple answers by putting either their own or their partners shoe in the air. Most of them were the same, but one or two were disagreed on.

Performing with some help from mom
"Oooo ooooo...snuggle puppy of mine...the way I feel about you is especially fine..."

Darren is more likely to leave his towel on the bathroom floor.

After all that, it was time to get funky! And eat cake...but mostly get funky.

A hideous picture that I debated if I should even post of me getting funka ala Elaine Dance

My best buddy Diana was my date. (Not gay...) Also needed a better pic after the hideous one.

Brother throwing the garter to the anxious crowd of single guys...who, after this picture was taken, stood and stared at it on the ground. Evidentally, unlike the single girls, men don't want to be the next to get married.

Larissa's sister made this cake and with the help of West Jet flew it in from Edmonton. Don't ask me how. It had "I love you" written in all different languages on it and was soooo delicious. (That's saying a lot for me since I don't normally like chocolate cake)

This cat started to peek in during speeches (the room we were in was all glass windows). When I showed Larissa this picture later she exclaimed "LOOK DARREN, IT'S OUR WEDDING CAT!" Only Darren and Larissa could have an official wedding cat...

Possibly my favourite of all the wedding pictures...Larissa was (jokingly) outraged at what someone said and I JUST happened to catch her expression (complete with unchewed cake in her mouth) as it happened. Hey, there's enough pretty pictures of her on here to compensate, haha.

Mmmm...food...oh cute dancing couple too. Mmm...food...

Larissa's thoughts: "I'm soooo glad Darren shaved today..."

After the ceremony there was a franctic episode involving a certrain bride's missing purse with certain very important tickets and passports that were needed for a certain honeymoon being taken in about five hours. After cancelling all credit cards and driving to St. Catharines to get personal ID so they could hopefully still take their trip, the purse was found, hours before the flight, and all ended up well.

Hopefully in the not too distant future I will be posting about mini-Darren and mini-Larissas.

In conclusion to this insanely long post...it was a good day. We love Larissa and have fully welcomed her into our family. She keeps Darren in check so we don't have to. I wish them lots of happiness.

And they lived happily ever after...except for Larissa who was forced to watch episode after episode of Babylon 5.

(For more wedding pictures, check out Darren's flickr photos and Larrisa's blog I might post more later cause there were some good ones I didn't get to upload yet)