Wedding Pics, Part 3: Wedding Day

I hate to disappoint you, but because I was the officiant at the wedding, I couldn't take pictures during the ceremony, so I don't have the actual wedding pics to show off in this batch. My deepest apologies. This batch is, however, almost all the photos I took on October 17, Sean and Jeff's wedding day. Sean and Jeff have promised to send me a slew of professional-level images from the wedding itself. The following images, meanwhile, are a sample of what was going on both before and after the wedding.

We had been asked to assemble in the main building before heading out for our "rustic" and our "formal" photo shoots with Rodney the pro photographer. Below, the first seven images in this series are from about the time we were getting ready for the formal shoot, which—unlike the rustic shoot—was to be done with our wedding duds on. Sean and Jeff had chosen purple as their theme, so we were all given corsages to match.

This first pic, below, is a selfie of me and my better-looking brother David:

officiant and best man

David was Sean's best man. Jeff's best man was his father Jim, who is quite a character. You'll see pictures of Jim shortly.

Me and David again, below. Jim took this shot, which came out a bit blurry. Not Jim's fault: I have a finicky camera, and when lighting conditions are even a tiny bit less than ideal, the camera acquires a mind of its own and—I think—deliberately ruins the shot.

Kevin and David (blurry—sorry)

Below, a great shot of Jim, soon to be Sean's father-in-law. Jim's resemblance to Jeff is uncanny. Sean, as you see, elected to keep his damn stubble for the wedding.

Jim and Stubbles

Next, all three brothers. I can't help it if Sean looks high. And I really wish I could have had traditional Korean shoes to go along with the hanbok.

It's aaaalllllll gooooood.

Here's a shot, below, of Jim's side of the family. Top row, L to R: Jeff and Jim (father). Next row, L to R: Lauren (Jeff's niece, Jim's granddaughter), Linda (Jeff's mom), Christy (Jeff's sister, Lauren's mom), and James (Christy's husband, Lauren's dad). Front and center: our flower girl: Ansley, Lauren's kid sister.

the brood

One of Sean's many Komerican friends, Danielle, ambushed me and David while we two brothers were having a moment. Perceiving the moment-ness of that moment, Danielle asked us to "Hold that pose!" while she commandeered my phone camera and took a few shots. In both this shot and the next, David and I are staring pensively into the distance, either pondering Sean's future or wondering when we can discreetly scratch our nether regions without womenfolk present. Click to enlarge.

Danielle claimed that she liked the following shot because it's in silhouette. I think this was her polite way of saying David and I were just too butt-ugly to reveal our faces. You can click to enlarge this photo as well.

Below, you finally get a glimpse of the intrepid (and sometimes very pushy!) Rodney, the pro photographer who had been hired to take pics all day long. Rodney led us through the rustic and formal shoots, then he spent the rest of the day catching, for lack of a better word, moments. I'll be curious to see what humorous moments he caught.

Oh, yes: I should note, too, that the Rodney photo below marks the first photo after the wedding ceremony had ended. I took this pic—you can see me in the mirror—while in Jeff and Sean's suite, right after Rodney had photographed me signing the wedding license (one of my duties as the officiant).

And here he is, the man himself:

Rodney gets respect.

We now skip forward an hour or two to dinner. I regret not having taken any shots of the food, which was fabulous. The kitchen staff at the Guest House at Lost River has much to be proud of; it was easily one of the most memorable meals I've ever had. That's saying something, especially since this was a catered meal for the better part of a hundred people. (Quality often suffers when you're trying to feed a horde.) The dinner was (1) braised beef short rib done in boeuf bourguignon style; (2) "country" chicken cordon bleu, which had the bacon wrapped around the outside; (3) locally grown mashed potatoes; (4) oven-roasted Brussels sprouts, which were quite, quite good; (5) an amazingly rich and flavorful three-cheese ravioli.

I sat at the head table with the wedding party. Sean and Jeff were with us for a while before they went on their meet-and-greet rounds. The audience gently and repeatedly clinked their forks against their glasses in a gesture I didn't recognize. David whispered that the insistent clinking was meant to exhort the couple to kiss. "Ah," said I. In the meantime, I did my best to turn little Lauren and Ashley, Jeff's nieces, into naughty girls. I got them both to eat their headgear for the camera, as you'll see in the images below. First Lauren:

Lauren begins to devour her tiara.

Ansley followed her big sister's example:

If one tiara tastes good, then surely, the other does, too.

Skinny little Ansley was proud of how much food she'd managed to eat. "See? Three watermelons!" she said, aglow with accomplishment. I nodded gravely and respectfully. She eventually polished off her chicken nuggets and most of her fries.

Below, a photo of David giving me an insincere smile because he really, really doesn't want to be photographed.

fake

After some time had passed, the moment came when the best men had to rise, call everyone to attention, then give rousing speeches about the happy couple. Here's a photo of David reading his funny speech off his iPhone. David toggled the screen wrong near the end of his speech, losing his place right as he got to the final paragraph. The audience had a good laugh, but David managed to wing it the rest of the way.

David says his piece.

Below, a pic of Jeff's nieces, sis, and mom:

L to R: Ansley, Christy, Lauren (hidden), Linda... I enjoyed all the floating candles, which were also a decoration used during the wedding

This is Jeff's brother-in-law James, looking a bit solemn. I noticed that James hadn't finished his food. I was very tempted to ask him to hand his plate over to me, but he and I had only just met, so there was no call for me to reveal my John Belushi side quite yet.

Chief Petty Officer James Hackney

Jeff's father, Jim, watches David do his spiel:

Jim Freeman, benevolent patriarch

Below, Jim gives his own best-man speech. David was worried because Jim's speech was so much shorter—not even two minutes. David's speech, by contrast, covered years and years of Sean's life, so David had to wonder whether he'd bored the audience. I told David he'd done fine; the audience laughed a lot during his spiel, which means that David's listeners were both attentive and engaged in what he was saying. Both speeches went perfectly.

Jim speaks his piece.

Fast-forward another hour or so, and we're in a different part of the resort for the cake-cutting ceremony. I took the following two shots in very low light; the final shot in this series was taken by someone else, presumably before the lighting had shifted to dark and romantic.

cake cutting

Jeff feeds his beau—my bro—a piece of cake:

Sean ingests

Finally, a shot of the cake—in good lighting, so you can see its true colors—before it was cruelly sacrificed for the sake of our bacchanal:

true cake

And that's all the photos I have up to, and just beyond, the wedding. I have a couple more pics from the following day—the day we had to check out and leave the resort. They're just pics of my hanbok hanging up on a nail, the corsage still in place. The remaining photos from my trip show the goings-on at Mike's house, then at David's house, but I think I've already blogged some of those. So this batch of photos, here, is probably the last major batch of wedding pics I'll be displaying... until Sean and Jeff send me a batch of professional wedding pics.