Dan & Kerrie’s Wedding

So what have I been up to that led to me blogging only once in all of April? Well, for one thing, I was busy learning some piano music for Dan & Kerrie’s wedding, which was Saturday! They asked me to learn “Canon in D” for the processional, “Wedding March” for the recessional (they wanted to keep it pretty traditional in those respects), and then several other hymns and praise choruses for prelude music. It took a lot of time, mostly “Canon in D.” That had me nervous enough that I’d usually take most any “free time” that I had in the evenings in April to go practice it for an hour or so.
By last week “Canon in D” still wasn’t to the point that I’d hoped it would be (perfection), so I was stressing out about it. I was maybe even stressing out about it so much that it could’ve contributed to me coming down with a sore throat and cold late last week (the cold came on full strength Saturday morning, just in time for the ceremony). I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to play “Canon in D” perfectly, because I knew that Dan had been dreaming for years of hearing that song as his bride came down the aisle, and I didn’t want any mistake of mine to distract people’s attention from Kerrie as she walked down the aisle. Along with that, I figured that if nobody noticed my playing, then I would know that I had done a good job. 🙂
Anyway, part 2 of Dan’s bachelor party was Thursday night at Daryl’s place. It was pretty low-key, we just hung out and chatted, told some embarrassing stories about Dan, then the married guys who were there gave some advice to him about marriage, and then we all prayed for him. It was definitely much lower-key than part 1 of the bachelor party two Saturdays ago, when Daryl and one other groomsman took Dan skydiving! That caused quite a stir, and got Kerrie somewhat upset at Daryl. In fact, Daryl didn’t even show his face to Kerrie from then until the wedding rehearsal on Friday night, hehe.
The rehearsal was on Friday night, and didn’t last very long. Basically just one run-through, and then they changed how some stuff was going to happen (and thus what I’d have to play at the beginning, and for how long), but they didn’t do another run-through to give me and everyone else a chance to make sure we knew exactly how it’d go. Oh well, it was really warm in the chapel anyway, and so everyone was eager to get outside again and get to dinner. That was at the Allen Street Grill, and it was the first time I’d ever been there, even though I’ve lived here for almost five years now. Excellent food. It was a fun to be a part of that and celebrate with the rest of the wedding party. I was definitely getting sicker and could feel the onset of the cold coming that evening, though.
The actual wedding was on Saturday morning at Eisenhower Chapel on campus. It’s pretty small, and only seats about 125. It was quite warm in there even before 10am, it felt like it was over 80 degrees. It just didn’t cool off overnight. I didn’t need to start playing prelude music until 10am (ceremony started at 10:30), but I wanted to get there plenty early to have more time to practice on that particular piano in that space. Because I was rather out of it due to my cold that I’d come down with, I forgot that I’d taken my music up to my apartment the night before, so when I parked on campus, only then did I realize I didn’t have it in my car with me. Fortunately there was plenty of time to drive back to my apartment and get it, but it cost me 20 minutes of practice time, only leaving me with 20 minutes. But hey, it all worked out. The piano playing went just fine, even with a few flubs during “Canon in D.” At least I was able to keep going and didn’t have to go back and restart a phrase or anything. One of the places I messed up was when Kerrie appeared at the back of the church. Tracy (one of the bridesmaids) said it seemed totally natural since everyone had a collective gasp (a good kind of gasp) when they saw her there in her wedding dress, so it seemed like I had the same reaction (even though I couldn’t see her at that point). 🙂 And nobody else claimed to have noticed my mistakes. Go figure, all the attention was on Kerrie. 😉 I think I overestimated the distracting effect that a couple minor mistakes would have in that situation, but in any case, I’m glad it all went well overall. The ceremony was short and sweet, a whole 15-20 minutes or so. In fact, I think it took longer for Dan & Kerrie to dismiss each row individually than it did for the whole rest of the ceremony. Dan & Kerrie wrote their own vows, and instead of the pastor reciting a phrase and them repeating it, they had their vows written on pieces of paper and simply read them to each other. And of course they both shed some tears during that part. Some people said that several people in attendance, and even some kids, started crying too. The wedding went off without a hitch, and now they’re married! [I obviously didn’t get any photos of the ceremony itself, because it would’ve been tacky for me to snap some pictures from my perch at the piano up front. I only had a good view of Dan and the groomsmen from where I was anyway.]
The reception was at the Days Inn downtown. Because of the early wedding, the reception featured brunch food, like crepes, yogurt/granola, eggs/sausage, potatoes, and even an omelette station with two chefs making omelettes made-to-order. I’ve definitely never been at a reception with brunch food before, but I’ve never been to a morning wedding either. There also wasn’t any alcohol apart from the champagne flutes for toasting, so it didn’t turn into a dance party or anything. There was also a live jazz trio instead of a deejay, which I actually enjoyed. Dan studies honeybees (he’s an entomology grad student), and Kerrie loves songbirds, so the reception theme was “the birds and the bees,” with the favors being small jars of honey labeled for their wedding with “Thanks for bee-ing here!” Despite being rather miserable with my cold, I had a great time hanging out with the other meteo people that were invited/could make it: Caren and Shannon & Jerry came down from New York; Chris & Amber drove up from North Carolina; and Jon & Steph flew in from California. Unfortunately Dave & Anke and Daniel & Katie couldn’t make it, but they both have very small children that make traveling difficult, so they had a very valid excuse. Anyway, the reception was all over by 3pm, when Dan & Kerrie had a last dance to James Taylor’s “Mexico” — they chose that song because their honeymoon is in Cancún. With the whole afternoon ahead of me, I went home and laid down to rest a bit — I was exhausted!

It was a great wedding, and I’m really glad I had the opportunity to be a part of it. I’m really happy for Dan & Kerrie, they really are great together. I’m also glad to have a chance to relax a bit and stop worrying about “Canon in D.” 🙂 The next wedding is coming up in under four weeks, but I’m strangely not nervous about that one, even though it’s in Lambeau Field. Maybe the nerves will come when the date approaches (or at least for the rehearsal and/or ceremony itself), but if I learned a lesson here, it’s that I shouldn’t let myself stress out as much as I did. It’s good to strive to do something to the absolute best of one’s ability, but there are certain situations when a couple small mistakes simply won’t be noticed, so it’s not worth it to agonize over them. That can be applied to many areas of life, not just music/piano, that’s for sure.