Day 183/365 Speaking of Vortexes

Sorry for the lack of posting lately -I've been involved in a major moving/sorting/cleaning/shifting project involving two or three thousand books, and a dire shortage of bookcases.

BUT- this afternoon, I performed an emergency removal of a plastic bookcase (standard walmart issue) that had literally collapsed under the weight of books. On the bottom shelf there was a green plastic tote that I thought was empty. Turned out it was full of a lot of family items I'd misplaced, so the day after Christmas turned into a sortof Christmas sequel.

Among the photos were these 22 year old relics from our Renaissance Festival wedding. Not too long ago, a couple online friends mentioned they'd like to see them, so now the rest of you have to suffer too.

Worse, some of my readers were there the first time, so you get to suffer a second time.

Most of these pics are from guests, but the genie here did the professional pictures. It's hard to tell, but he had a blond mohawk and a more than passing resemblance to a sheik. In real life he's a professional photographer, custom jewelry designer and works with healing stones.

The troubadour supplied the 'middle ages' renditions of the songs we chose (which included a couple Beatles tunes). He's a master at what he does.

The Blue Lion Tavern, scene of the crime. Our guests included my corporate life friends, friends from high school (you know who you are), a couple bikers from the club we were riding with then, and of course, the relatives.

Mac the Mugmaker, also conveniently a Unitarian minister, and a Scotsman to boot. He let us re-write the vows. My deletion of the whole "obey" thing saved my dad from rolling in the aisles laughing uncontrollably.

The reception music. Not the Beatles, but you work with what you get.

My mom and dad, fresh from the Middle Ages. They had a blast. This would be the time to explain that at the RenFest, if we booked a wedding, everyone in the wedding had to be authentically dressed. After deciding if we wanted to be married as nobility, merchant or peasant class, we were issued guidelines for our class (merchant). Nobility involved velvets and furs and with the wedding in August, this wasn't an option. No one ever chooses peasant (not much you can do with sackcloth and ashes).

So merchants we were. This involve 100% cotton, no velvets, no furs, no tall hats.

The reception staff. When they weren't at our wedding, they were performing as jugglers and court jesters. Years later, they were still tossing things at us when we visited the festival.

The reception. We never saw it or any of the food. The genie had us corralled to do pictures, and by the time we made the reception the food was gone. What's funny is that we have several pictures of the food, but don't recognize any of the people eating it.

Meeting King Henry and Queen Caroline. Our first time meeting royalty, and yes, I curtsied. After a royal party with fire jugglers, dancers with boa constrictors and sword tossers, Their Highnesses invited us to ride in their parade.

On the elephant. My husband's son is perched in front on the ears, and we are hanging on the back. I love elephants. Up close and personal, they are hairy, itchy and shamelessly beg constantly for peanuts.

And then there were the bellydancers jingling and shimmying all along the parade, somehow avoiding the elephant feet.

The obligatory ring/hands photo, except ours is on a medieval sword, with my one-of-a-kind ring designed by Neal Nye, jeweler to Her Majesty The Queen, and my husband's corresponding ring with our family coat-of-arms. He took my name, and the heraldry came with it.

And finally the official wedding party photo, taken by our genie-sheik. Each dress has 33 yards of cotton. That's almost an entire bolt of material.

Try manuevering that in a port-a-potty, in August.