Sarah & Joe's Wedding

So Sarah & Joe got married last weekend, at a beautiful outdoor ceremony in Corvallis, Oregon. The wedding & reception were at a pretty big bed & breakfast location not too far from the U of O Beaver's football stadium -- in fact there was a game during the wedding (against the Idaho Bengals). Both team's colors are orange & black, which made it difficult to tell the die-hard Oregon fans from the die-hard Idaho fans, although I don't think there were really that many Idaho fans present...but the Beaver rooters sure made up for it. Corvallis is a seriously dedicated college town.

Anyway, Sarah & Joe. Representing the California branch of the wedding guests were myself, Pat & Dawn, Vangie, & Jason (or "Jay"). Everybody except me drove up to Oregon on Thursday night, arriving Friday afternoon; I flew up on Friday to Portland and drove down (about 90 miles) from there. We ended up arriving at the hotel at almost the same time anyway. Jay & I shared a room adjoining Pat, Dawn & Vangie; mostly when we were awake & in the hotel (which wasn't much) we were drinking or playing cards (probably should read "drinking and playing cards").

Friday night Sarah's mom hosted a picnic dinner after the rehearsal, and most of the wedding guests were invited. Joe cooked, so we were treated to perfectly grilled tri-tip, chicken, and ribs, along with potato & macaroni salad and other unimportant non-meat items of excellent quality but minimal interest (to me, at any rate). We got a chance to meet some of Sarah & Joe's family and friends; mostly those who we hadn't already met in California, and to catch up with the ones we had met before. After the dinner (and a brief game of "3 to 13" in the hotel room) the guys went out for some poker playing; appropriately enough, Joe won the pot. Good job Joe!

Saturday we slept in a little bit; it was oh, 9:30 or so by the time we were up & around, and clean enough to go to the lobby for the breakfast buffet. From there it was just a matter of finding something to keep us occupied until 4PM (or really, until 2PM when we needed to start primping). What to do? Wine tasting! Turns out the Willamette Valley (pronounced "will AM et"; most definitely NOT pronounced "will uhm ET", as I learned) is the hub of an exploding viticultural region. There were two wineries within about 20 minutes of our hotel so off we went. Here we are sampling the Pinot Gris at the Airly winery:

I should note here that my seemingly proprietary embrace of Vangie is purely platonic. She is an incredible sweetheart; cute, smart and talented to boot, but very much single & very much not my companion except in the friendly sense. (This disclaimer is entirely for Vangie's protection).

After the wine tasting excursion & donning of the formal wear, we headed for the wedding. Here's the Hanson Country Inn, at least from the backside garden where the wedding & reception were setup:

This is what we all looked like after we were showered, shaved, (where appropriate) and otherwise cleaned up:

Jay was really rockin' that new suit, and even though I look all grabby with Vangie again really it wasn't like that. Anyway, then came the wedding, here's Sarah & Joe exchanging vows:

They kept it simple, about a 15 minute ceremony and a nice long party afterwards. Here's Vangie & Dawn dancing (there was a DJ with some impressively big speakers, and since the entire B &B was booked for the wedding we didn't have to worry about noise at all):

The wedding cake was a delicious thing with 4 flavors (a different one in each tier). I only tried the chocolate & champagne flavors but they were delicious!
Finally the time came for the bride & groom to leave, showered in bird seed:after which we walked back to our hotel (see, we were safe, no drinking & driving) and rewarded our cleverness with more drinks, followed by cards in our jammies...
The garter on my sleeve is, indeed, the bride's garter, which I didn't so much catch as sort of pick up by default ... and Vangie got the tossed bouquet, which you can also see here. We've agreed that if we each find somebody to marry within the year we'll have a double ceremony in Corvallis; it's so easy to agree to something that (at least in my case) has no chance of happening anyway....

Sunday morning we woke up, brunched & headed out -- Dawn & Pat in their car, and Vangie, Jay & I to Portland to catch a plane back. (By the way the Portland airport is a very nice place, much nicer than either San Francisco or San Jose). Sarah & Joe are now in Hawaii honeymooning but should be back Saturday (I will be in Germany by then).

Sarah has been working on this wedding for many months, and it came off very nicely (at least from what I could tell; I don't know what last-minute panics may have occurred). We California attendees had a great time and were surprisingly still friendly after a full weekend jammed in together.

Thanks Sarah & Joe, and congratulations!