Bonding with Dennis and Rob

At the rehearsal din­ner I was lucky enough to meet Dennis, Aaron’s old­er cousin from Edinburgh, Scotland, and we imme­di­ate­ly hit it off. Some peo­ple don’t so much talk with you as at you, where­as talk­ing to oth­ers can be like drag­ging a stick through the mud, but for us it was the per­fect bal­ance. The art of con­ver­sa­tion is dead, we agreed, and find­ing each oth­er was like two Masonic broth­ers from dif­fer­ent lodges meet­ing for the first time.

Pat lat­er told me that, on arriv­ing, he did­n’t say hi to me for fear of inter­rupt­ing us. Our faces were so intense, focused on each oth­er, he said. Dennis and I exchanged con­tact info, and he offered me a place to stay if I ever went to Scotland. Normally, I’d brush off such an invi­ta­tion as a glib pleas­antry, if it weren’t for the fact that he repeat­ed it five or six times over both nights. In return, I offered him a place to stay if he ever want­ed to give Nana and Popa (whom he calls June and Vic) a break. It’s fun­ny, I nev­er knew their names until then.

I also had a good talk with Rob while Aaron and Chris were out­side smok­ing cig­ars that night (which turned into the morn­ing) before the wed­ding. We bond­ed over our love of Aaron, and I got to probe Rob, who’s deep enough for an entire entry I’ll be post­ing soon.

This is the Story of Aaron and Karen

Before I gave my speech, I showed this video as a way for every­one, but most impor­tant­ly Aaron and Karen, to know how the groom’s side felt. Notice the keg-can of Heineken in Trolley’s shots.

I learned a lot about being an inter­view­er, about ask­ing the right ques­tions, about try­ing not to laugh at fun­ny sto­ries. You can hear in the way I ask Jay (yel­low shirt), “In what way?”, that my cheeks are tight­ened in a big smile. I also real­ized that I should­n’t fin­ish oth­er peo­ples thoughts, which is a bad habit of mine. The inter­view­er should­n’t present any bias.

Everyone told me after­ward that they were touched by how Aaron spoke from the heart. The inter­est­ing thing is that peo­ple were laugh­ing at parts I did­n’t expect them to laugh at. In my speech too. I don’t write to be fun­ny; I can’t be a fun­ny per­son why I try. It hap­pens rather acci­den­tal­ly.

The speech did go well. I like how peo­ple start­ed say­ing, “Woo hoo!” and “Cheers to that!” for the toast. If you lis­ten close­ly after I give my thanks, there’s one per­son who claps well before any­one else, and I’ll for­ev­er be won­der­ing who it was and why they were clap­ping with such vig­or.

The cer­e­mo­ny was short and sweet, though it was a lit­tle cold. The Prince Charlie jack­et does­n’t breathe, so the grooms­men were warm for most of it. I felt bad for the brides­maids though, who wore back­less, sleeve­less dress­es.

I caught up with Nick and Alison, whom I hope to see for a few pho­to projects down in that area at some point dur­ing the sum­mer (I wish I was able to bring my cam­era to the wed­ding though). I got to know Steph a lit­tle bet­ter, and you could tell from the way she talks that she real­ly cares about Trolley, which was impor­tant for me to find out. Hanging out with Jay was a blast too; he’s a real­ly fun, easy-going guy, and I can total­ly see why he’s such good friends with Aaron. Pat did some robot­ics for us to the Scottish dance music, and I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to intro­duce him to Dennis, hop­ing that both con­ver­sa­tion­al­ists would hit it off.

We danced, we min­gled, we ate, we laughed. Weddings always offer great oppor­tu­ni­ties for such things. What oth­er chance would I have to wear some­thing as fun as the Scottish regalia (although Dennis explained to me that Ontario and Canada have their own tar­tans, and that I’d have the right to wear one if I want­ed).

A good time was had by all.