Flip Flop Wedding Cake
8:40 a.m. - 2003-09-14


After a week of hair-raising nameruns, I rushed home on Friday to get ready for the wedding. We got over to the hotel right on time and went into the courtyard. It was completely in the shade, thank goodness, because the temperature was in the nineties. At around lunch time that day, I had been sitting at my desk in the office when he called me up and said he had heard the ceremony was going to be outside, and should he go to the oriental goods store and get us some fans?? This was an excellent idea, so by the time I hit the wedding I had a fan that coordinated with my outfit, and so did Melissa, plus an extra one for EG, should she need it. Definitely a day in which my husband wins points for thoughtfulness, since it turns out I probably would have expired without the fan.

We sat around for a bit chatting and then the wedding started. Ebeth looked as pretty as I have ever seen her, and all went smoothly, except you couldn't hear much, the acoustics being bad, plus the occasional Bart train going by didn't help. When we at last went into the dining room, the AC was very good. Melissa was relegated to a table across the room, but we were lucky and were seated with Bev and Vic, and Randy and Therese, plus two empty seats for the photographers. Our table was right in front of the small wall-side table with the wedding cake on it. It was a smallish three-layer cake simply decorated with pointelles in groups of three. Very simple and elegant, with one of the multicolor flower bouquets on top. I thought the color scheme of the whole wedding was very nice, from the deep red trim on the wedding gown to the goldy/beige raw silk bridemaids' dresses and multicolor fall-toned bouquets.

I really liked the people at our table, so used the opportunity to ask Randy how he met his bride. They told me they were both on a cruise to Norway, each alone on the cruise. She went up on the deck in the moonlight to look at the stars, and it was colder than she thought it would be, so she stood there at the rail shivering when a man's coat was placed on her shoulders. Later Melissa told me she didn't know Randy had it in him to be so romantic...

Ebeth and Jacob cut the cake with her Dad's Navy sword, and they fed each other pieces of cake, with J only dabbing a bit of frosting on her nose, so THAT was all right. They went off to the center of the room to dance and throw the bouquet, but I was watching the cake cutting, because I like that. The head waiter-guy slipped a large spat server under the top layer to lift it for cutting, but put too much effort into it, and the layer flew up, flipped over and smashed to the table. All the five or six waiters who were standing around had made a grab for it so the entire circumference of the cake was studded with smooshed holes. I gasped and my hand involuntarily flew up to my face, and just then the head waiter caught my eye and we both laughed. With desperate precision, the waiters grouped themselves around the table so no one (but me) could see, and they cut that wrecked cake into slices and slapped it onto the waiting plates and were serving it in no time. We decided to forego the cake. I, of course, kept this story to myself so as not to put a damper on the wedding. One of the highlights of the evening was watching Bev and Vic dance with their great ballroom technique, and also seeing how happy E and J were. Saw them in an off moment making out in the dark courtyard.

Yesterday we went to the bead stores in Sacramento and Placerville, and a fun time was had by all, but had to go to Craig and Sue's for the after-party, and I was mondo tired, so don't really remember much about it that was interesting. Now it is time for church.