Wedding Day, December 12, 2008

Wedding Morning, Dec. 12, 2008

After some much needed rest, people started rising around 8:00. I made lattes, Kate made fruit and yogurt, Jim whipped up eggs, and Kathy made toast. (Good job, Kathy).

Kathy reminded me of the bet we had made 25 years ago when I was best man at Jim’s wedding: I would get married before she would have a kid. I lost out by 11 years.

For the day of the “big event”, things we’re relatively calm. Kate was absolutely bubbling — so happy. She shared something about this morning was the being the beginning of the Winter Solstice season, with the full moon rising. It is a “season of rebirth, moving forward, and a time of moving past those things that you have been unable to move past before.” (Appropriate for us: 13 years of being together, and never tying the knot.) Kate was listening to and singing a song “Dance, dance, wherever you may be….”.

Everyone showered. Got dressed. I gathered up cameras (an extra one as a backup). Kate had a nice black dress, and I wore my tux with black tie. We hopped in the car about 10:45 to go to the courthouse in downtown Oakland. At that point, I asked Kate, “which building are we going to?” Kate: “I don’t know.” Actually, she guessed right.

What a system. You check in at the front desk. A woman took us over to a computer screen, where we put in our own information for the marriage license. Get a number. Wait five minutes to be called to another desk, sit down, answer a couple of questions, write a check. Go back to the lobby and wait 5 minutes for the “commissioner” (justice of the peace). During that time, lots of people in the lobby were smiling at us and wishing us well. (Stupid guy question: It was nice, but what is it about weddings that has this effect on people?)

A bearded man in a ceremonial robe, saw us in our formal clothes, walked up to us and said, “hi, I’m Joe.” Joe took us up to the “wedding room” on the second floor, a simple room with a couple of pews / benches and a podium. He stood at the podium. We stood facing each other a few feet away. Up to that point we had all been joking, laughing and giggling. But at that moment, it started to hit home. I made it through about half the vows, staring at Kate. Then I flubbed a line and had to repeat it. Then I started getting choked up. Same thing happened with Kate. Smooth sailing to begin with. A couple of tears. And before we knew it, we were pronounced “husband and wife.” We took a few more pictures, picked up our license, and were out of there in less than 45 minutes door-to-door. No stress. No fuss. No muss. Kate’s comment: “This is the way to go.”

(We both recognize that we have a lot of friends and family who will be disappointed they could not participate. We feel kind of sad about that, but hope you will understand. I’m seriously allergic to hoopla and attention. This was really part of our mobilizing to move to South Africa, and we felt we needed to get it done before we left. So we did it. We’re doing our best to document it, and we’re doing a celebration with both families in the Northwest over the holidays.)

After the wedding, we drove down to Lake Merritt, and took pictures. We decided to have lunch at a tapas place, Cesar. Got a bottle of cava, and had a nice lunch. We went back home, changed clothes, went for a little hike in the neighborhood, and got ready for our dinner that evening.

We went into San Francisco, had a drink at a bar called Lava, and set out for our early dinner at Bacar. It would have helped if I had the right address. After walking around for five minutes, we found it. We had an awesome, nearly 4-hour dinner. Kathy, our vegetarian, patiently sat there while the meat eaters rhapsodized about their grilled rib-eye steaks (rubbed with duck fat), lamb, mussels, etc. A great night!