Saturday morning was a madhouse, of couse, with Elizabeth, the caterer,
gathering all the foodstuffs and equipment to schlep over to the
German-American Club, the scene of the nuptials.  Keys's sister Susan
helped, as did Elizabeth's friend Jamie, who came up from Titusville (in
the Cape Canaveral area) to help.

Keys and I remained at home until Elizabeth called with her list of things
she had forgotten.  Once we had the rest of the goodies in hand, and all
that we needed (chief among them the digital camera, of course), we were on
our way.

The German-American club, founded in 1907 (I wondered briefly as we entered
the building what difficulties they had faced during World Wars I & II), is
in a two-story building in an exclusive neighborhood in Jacksonville, right
on the Ortega River.  The interior:  you walk into an entryway or foyer,
with a large ladies' dressing room/bathroom on the left and the entry to
the bar, and the main hall, on the right.  The kitchen is off the bar, to
the right.  The main hall opens out on the left.  It's all wood paneling,
and the main hall is quite reminiscent of an ancient mead hall, complete
with coats of arms along the side walls.  One coat of arms is for
Baden-Wurttemburg, the German state which was the origin place of Karl's
immigrant ancestor, Johann Jacob Meyers.  Yes, leave it to me to know the
genealogy of the groom!  (From his sister).  And at last we have some
genealogical variety in the family!  

At the opposite end of the hall from the entry, it's all glass facing out
onto the Ortega River.  Near that end was an arbor which Marti herself had
decorated with purple tulle ribbon and flowers.  She also made her bouquet,
and the bouquets carried by the mothers of bride and groom, and the
boutonnieres for the best man (Karl's brother Rob) and the father of the
bride (father of the groom is deceased.  He was President of the
German-American Club in 1972 or thereabouts; Karl pointed out to me his
father's name on the plaque listing past presidents).


I delivered the missing items to Elizabeth in the kitchen, where she and
Jamie and a young man who was helping out (a friend of Karl and Marti's)
were all busy to the max.  Later I made the mistake of going back into the
kitchen and asking if I could help, and finding myself making char siu bao
but not very well.  Also, I was more tired than I thought I was after three
days of preparations at home, sometimes lasting into 3 a.m. . . .  So I
finked out and went back to being the mother of the bride, but not before
seeing the helping young man burn up my Saladmaster stainless steel Dutch
oven, which was being used as a boiler for the steamer in which buns were
steaming.  The miracle, the next day, was that Elizabeth was able to
actually clean the pan of the char, and it appears to have survived without
permanent damage!

The ceremony was civil rather than religious, Marti and Karl neither one of
them being church-affiliated.  Most of us have come to the conclusion that,
while we believe in some Supreme Being or power, we don't believe in
organized religion.  So here we have a couple of pantheists, for lack of a
better term, being united in marriage by a Jewish real estate lawyer at the
German-American Club.  Wheee!  Win Gartner, the officiating lawyer, has a
standard service which can be modified by the happy couple, which is very
very nice.  It emphasizes love and respect and partnership, and is quite
romantic, actually.  And he looked like he was having the best fun of all.

There was a DJ, complete with sound system and all, which he was running
off an Apple laptop computer.  He had the program that Marti and Karl had
selected -- the wedding music itself was Enya, with Marti processing in to
the strains of "Hope Has a Place in a Lover's Heart."  Karl went in first,
followed by Rob, the best man, and the flower girl, Angela, the little 1/4
Korean girl that Keys and I are "stand-in" grandparents for on her father's
side.  She's very Asian looking and just lovely.  Then Marti came up to
begin her procession. She had Keys and me standing at the entrance to the
main hall, and she came in between us and we both walked her down the
aisle.  She said she wasn't doing this bit of just the father walking her
down the aisle, because she does have TWO parents.  Heeheehee.

After walking her down the aisle, Keys and I took our reserved chairs right
up front, with Susan (Keys's sister, remember?) and the groom's mother and
other relatives.  The only thing to mar proceedings at this point was that
the air conditioning unit was too loud, and I wish the caretaker (who with
his wife lives on the property and was present throughout) had thought to
turn it off just for the ceremony.

And we had fun afterwards.  At one point, the DJ played the tune "Sinora"
(or however you spell it), the old Harry Belafonte calypso tune that was
used in another version, I think, in the film "Beetlejuice."  Marti got up
and started a Conga line, and I jumped in, too.  It was fun, but exhausting.

The cake, which Elizabeth also made, was beautiful and also delicious.  It
was on pedestals and columns.  Very fancy.  She did a really excellent job
with that.

And it's taken me three days to recover.  My feet still hurt, but I've been
having problems with them.  I'm finally beginning to feel not so tired.
Sunday I wasn't worth a bean, but we did go have brunch with Karl and Marti
at Cracker Barrel in Orange Park.  The happy couple are now in
Williamsburg, Virginia, staying in a B&B in one of the old homes in the
colonial area.  

Veloci--back to abnormal--raptor


--- Rachel's Little NET2FIDO Gate v 0.9.9.8 Alpha