Eric and Shayna’s wedding
Eric and Shayna finally took the plunge last weekend, getting married at the Belamar Hotel in Manhattan Beach. I was fortunate enough to be one of Eric’s groomsmen, so I had VIP access to the entire process and all the events leading up to the big moment. I treated it as a dry run for my own wedding. After the madness of last weekend, we’ve got a tough act to follow.
The pre-wedding events got started on the Thursday prior to the ceremony. There was a rehearsal event in the afternoon we missed because we were taking our engagement photos out and about in Redondo Beach. We wouldn’t have double booked the day if we had known when it was happening though. A special shout out to Eric for giving his side of the wedding party the schedule for the week at about 6pm on the Tuesday before the wedding. We were able to make the rehearsal dinner though and had a great time with friends and members of both families. Friday was a little mellower. Eric had a BBQ at his house for his friends and family that evening. We went through our college yearbook and told old stories.
Saturday was the big day. We made a quick stop at Best Buy to get a new digital camera (Violet broke our old one, although she denies it). We went with a Sony Cybershot DSC-W290. It had great reviews, and it was an upgraded version of the old Cybershot we had, so we already had an extra battery and extra memory cards that were compatible. That made the difference and we were sold.
We got to the hotel around 1pm and hung out with Eric, Jerry, Dan, Namita, Ramon, and Grace for a while, killing time. We ordered some pizza, had a few drinks, and waited for the bride and her party to arrive before getting ready. When they finally did arrive, Eric put on his dress pants and shoes just in time for Ramon to drop a Diet Coke that exploded, spitting soda out across the entire room. Eric is lucky he was wearing black. We cleaned up the mess and waited for the Groom’s gift to arrive. Shayna sent over Irish car bombs for all of us. After the shots, we brought Jerry over, dressed in a Darth Vader mask, to deliver the bride’s gift. Eric and Shayna had taken some pictures at Dodger stadium, one being a shot of Eric down on one knee proposing. He framed it, and was able to get Vin Scully to sign it.
Once the gifts were exchanged, time started to fly by. Eric’s parents came up, and then they headed down to start taking pictures. We followed shortly after to be a part of the pictures. There was a bit of downtime between pictures and ceremony, so we went back up to the room for a bit. When it was time, we got to take a cool passage through the basement so that we could come out through the back of the courtyard. It felt like walking through the halls before a game. Before anyone knew it, we were walking out and things were underway.
The ceremony was awesome, both because it was personal and because it was short. Shayna’s grandmother and Eric’s sister performed the ceremony, which added a great family touch. Shayna dropped the ring, and Eric was able to coolly find it while simultaneously throwing in a honeymoon joke. The whole thing couldn’t have been longer than 20 minutes. They were announced, they http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_wedding#Breaking_the_glass broke the glass and then sauntered down the aisle.
The photographer got a really cool shot of the entire crowd looking up from a balcony, which I can’t wait to see. There were more pictures, some appetizers, and finally, it was time to get the party started. Shayna’s boss is a crazy guy who’s a lot of fun and he was the MC for the night. He introduced the wedding party and bride and groom like a starting lineup, with height, hometown, and how long we’ve known the bride or groom. We lined up on each side of the dance floor and high-fived each other as we ran in. It was awesome. After that, the first dance, performed live by Eric’s brother-in-law. Then, more of the traditional: father-daughter dance, son-mother dance, some great speeches by Shayna’s dad, Eric’s dad, Jerry, and Lindy, and a good steak dinner.
The slideshow played at dinner, and I was really happy with the crowd reaction. It took a lot of time to create, especially since I had to shake off the editing dust, but I’m glad that Eric and Shayna loved it, and that the crowd enjoyed it so much. I’m going to put it online soon, so everyone can see it. After dinner, the music and dancing started. The DJ played a good mix, and completely sold us. Shayna had recommended him for our wedding, and we weren’t sure, but after that night, we’re gonna talk. The traditional bouquet throw happened, but Eric did a little something different instead of a garter throw. As http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_Roll_(Gary_Glitter_song) Rock and Roll Part 2</a> (du du da da da da da, HEY!) played, servers brought out tequila shots and limes for all the guys. Everyone took the shot at once. Violet and Namita even got a great picture of them taking the shot with Eric’s dad.
From there, the night started to get blurry. The bride and groom cut the cake on the dance floor so as to not stop the flow of the party. Violet, Phil, Ramon, Namita, and I decided to do a group rendition of http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaqYgWc8-vs “>“Elephant Love Medley in the photo/video booth they had set up outside. This seemed like a great idea at the time, but the booth only recorded in 30 second increments, so we had to keep stopping, going, stopping and then finally gave up after about 5 minutes. I can’t wait to see that video.
The official reception ended at 10pm. The hotel let it go a little later, until about 10:45, but there was an after party in the upstairs bar. Since it was restricted to a small wedding by the location, they had invited many more friends to join everyone at the after party, so we met up with Victor and some others in the bar. After more screaming, more shots, some arguing about economics with Victor for fun (I didn’t even wholly agree with what I was saying, but it was fun to play drunken devil’s advocate), it was 1am and time for the bar to close. Nobody was ready to leave yet though, so they had to turn the lights on to start getting people to head out. Unfortunately for them (and fortunately for everyone else), bringing the lights on gave Nam and I the bright idea to perform our greatest rendition ever of “Elephant Love Medley”. This didn’t go so well because we couldn’t remember the lyrics, and I started singing more quietly because there was an angry security guard glaring at us. The guards finally got fed up and started yelling for everyone to get going. We left the bar, and crashed.
The next morning was painful. It was tough to stand, and small movements made me dizzy. We stopped by the morning brunch, where I got some much needed food and liquids before heading back home. It was an amazing celebration, an awesome party, and I’m excited for the both of them.