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Hey, Kathleen—I didn't know you read my journal, or I had forgotten. Congratulations again!

It was a lovely day for a wedding; clear and warm in San Francisco. I won't do a detailed description of the wedding, but a couple of things off the top of my head, in no particular order:

• The view from the top of the Westin St. Francis was very nice, especially the fog-shrouded Golden Gate Bride.
• I loved the moment at the beginning of the ceremony when Kathleen's father (I think?) walked her up the aisle, and the officiant asked something like "Who presents this woman to be married?" and her father said, "She presents herself!"
• The usual thoughts about weddings as theatre; on the one hand, there's only one performance, so you gotta get it right on opening night; but on the other hand, it's a mighty forgiving crowd, and if there are any flaws in the presentation nobody will mind much. (Not that there were any particular flaws in the presentation in this particular case; just a general thought.) (And yes, of course weddings are many other things besides being theatre; this comment is relevant only to one small aspect of weddings.)
• They had possibly the coolest table decorations ever at the reception: a bag of wooden building blocks at each table. Various tables produced some excellent towers and other constructions. One table did particularly well; we thought it was because they had kids at the table, and someone at my table said something like, "We scoff at their jejune notions of architecture." But it turned out there was actually a professional architect at that table. Anyway, at our table Simon F. made some really remarkable structures, things that a less steady hand would never have been able to make work. Various people got photos; it's conceivable I may post some at some point. At the end of the reception, we got to take the blocks home with us. The only problem with the blocks idea was the danger that a tower would fall over and damage the china or glasses on the table, but as far as I could tell, none of the structural collapses damaged anything.
• The name tags to put at place settings were also cool: each one listed the chain of people and places through which the name tag's owner was connected to the bride or groom. I was thoroughly tickled to see that most of the people at my table had tags that went: "Kathleen • Bryn Mawr • Swarthmore • Jed • [person's name]." Apparently Kathleen met most of them at a party at my place many years ago. I was also amused that the one other person at my table who I actually went to school with had a different connection. (The tangle of connections there is too complicated to go into.) I'm always intrigued by chains of connections, and by which connections seem worth listing in such a chain. I tried for a little while years ago to figure out a semi-formal system for categorizing the two different long chains of connections between me and Mary Anne when we first met, but had a hard time justifying why some seemed worth listing and others didn't. Anyway, it was a neat idea for name tags.
• I was amused in light of my posting from last night to see that three of the currently pregnant women I know were at the wedding, though only two of them know each other.
• Kathleen's college friends have a thing about mooses; Kathleen's brother (?) had a cute little stuffed moose at the wedding that he wore sometimes in his breast pocket (I heard) and sometimes on his hat. A friend who couldn't make it to the wedding sent along some lovely moose haiku (part of the tradition), including one about antlers fitting under a veil. But you probably had to be there.
• Lest I forget the whole point of today's event: Congratulations again, Kathleen and Terence! Way cool.