The Wedding Pt 1

Weddings...
A lot can be said about them.
A new beginning, the end of freedom, hope springs eternal.... pick your favorite.
K and I went to a wedding of one of her family members.
Now, there are weddings where you elope and tell no one, those where there are a few special guests, ones where the families come and then there are once in a lifetime shin digs that defy, well, explanation.
I am going to try, in several posts I am sure, to describe this one.
Where ever to begin?
A man and a woman came together to be joined in holy wed lock.
It was a Jewish/Catholic shared ceremony. That was a first to me.
I was raised in Leave it to Beaver Land where minorities were so rare........
SO the string quartet played Pachabel, exquisitely as the 9 groomsmen and 5 brides maids walked the aisle. Than the groomy and then the Bride with loving father to hand her off, er, give her hand.
The invocations in Yiddish and American English took place. I have never heard that much Yiddish. But the Rabbi, when speaking American, sounded a little like a bad Al Pachino imitation.
The groom stomped on a glass, we all yelled "Mazel tav!"
The quartet played "All You Need is Love" as the newly weds and the wedding party exited.
Much milling about and a bee line for the open bar ensued, like slow cattle to a free flowing river.
There were two feeding stations for noshing, one was veggies and salami and cheese and crackers and such. The other had an Oriental food bar, a fillet mignon and turkey breast carving station, an Italian pasta bar and seafoods. There was one bar open for shrimp, only shrimp.
Then, over an hour and a half since the nuptials x 2, the main meal was announced...
We all went into a huge ass ornate room with a band playing so loud, you had to yell to your seating mate to be heard. We searched for and found our table. I have always wondered at how they do the seating at a wedding. The pattern at this one was familial, cousins with cousins, immediate family with immediate family.
They announced the parents of the happy couple and then, in a manner any stadium announcer would have envied, they announced the Bride and Groom.
Then it got weird-er.

C