Wedding Weekend

We got home last night from a whirlwind wedding weekend which was all kinds of spectacular.  It felt like we were going non stop for several days straight, so the events of the weekend are a bit of a blur.  But this much I know for certain - my sister is now Kelly Archer (how weird is that!) and we had one heck of a party at the reception!

After arriving in NC late Thursday night and grabbing a quick bite to eat with Furn, the Whitehills and their dogs, we made our way to Greensboro.  Friday was filled with finishing some last minute errands for the big day, setting up the venue, and working out the details at the rehearsal.

It bears mentioning that Tracy served as the coordinator for the wedding.  It’s a role she hadn’t officially filled at a wedding until this weekend.  But man, she has to be in the running for Coordinator Rookie of the Year.  She may have just entered the 3rd trimester, but you’d never know it the way she was buzzing around the Carolina Theater, calmly delegating and organizing, the whole time with her uniquely Tracy smile and “whoop whoop”.  She must have made an impression - one of the two teenagers who played the violin in the ceremony told his mom after the rehearsal, “I like Tracy…she’s spunky.” Spunky, and effective.

After the rehearsal we made our way to the rehearsal dinner which was held at Ganache and featured a delightful feast of hors d’ouevres, main course, and delectable desserts.  Kelly and Andrew presented their wedding party with thoughtful and meaningful gifts and a great time was had by all on the eve of the big day.

The wedding and reception was held at the historic Carolina Theatre in downtown Greensboro.  It was a perfectly unique venue and just one of many subtle bits of creativity which marked the occasion.  The ornate architecture and awesome acoustics made the Theatre a top notch setting for the sharing of vows, but the most memorable part had to be the old-time marquis which noted the stars of the wedding show.

The wedding ceremony was delightful - relatively short (but not too short), and certainly sweet.  Watching Kelly walk down the aisle was a memory I’ll not soon forget.  She looked beautiful in her dress and boasted a smile which lit up the room.  I had a few flashbacks during the 30 seconds or so that it took for her and Dad to get to the stage.  It was hard to believe this was the same little girl I grew up with all those years - what a special moment.

The ceremony and reception features a few creative surprises which were a fitting representation of the personality of the bride.  The highlight of the ceremony was the surprise entrance by a sextet of a cappella singers from the Greensboro Tar Heel Chorus who provided a live version of “Can You Feel the Love Tonight” for the audience.  During the reception, Kelly and Dad shocked the crowd during the middle of the father/daughter dance by breaking away from a traditional slow dance into a choreographed “Evolution of Dance”-esque performance to the Black Eyed Peas “Let’s Get it Started”.  Words can’t do justice to the entertainment value of the dance - luckily we captured it all on the trusty Flip and will be posting later this week.

The spontaneous dance surely did get the party started, as the dance floor remained rocking for the rest of the evening.  Our good family friends Bruce and Jackie Wynocker, along with their son Matt and his wife Shelly, made their way down from Pennsylvania for the wedding.  Bruce brought a bunch of extra ties to the wedding in homage to an old memory from the 80’s.  As legend has it, my parents had a party at their house which ended up with all the men wearing ties on their heads.  As the wedding night carried on into the later hours, we brought back the “tie on the head” and found that the look still works in 2009.

It works so well, in fact, that just about every male in the room had joined the fraternity by night’s end.

As the newlyweds left the building, there was no doubt that love was in the air in abundance.  All that was left as their car pulled away was a room full of sweaty dudes with ties on their heads and their corresponding better halves wondering what in the world was going on.  In other words, it was a picture of one whale of a fun night.