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I know you all missed my wedding review series from the summer of 2021. Never fear, it's back.
Why did I choose to bring it back, you might ask? Let me set the scene.
It's 9:30 AM and I wake up with my head smashed into my pillow. My neck aches. My ribcage is sore. I can't move my legs. My entire trapezius muscle is aching. My face hurts. It's the day after Cade and Ellie's wedding, and I'm really wondering how my ribcage is sore.
I would say that the day was "one to remember/one for the books," but that's too cliche. It was one of the best weddings I've ever been to. Let me tell you why.
Ellie and I met my freshman year at USF in honors. I always thought she was the coolest person ever. I met Cade my sophomore year at USF, when Ellie and I were RAs on campus. I didn't really get to talk to him until orientation of my junior year, but when I did, I realized he was the funniest person ever.*
What happens when the coolest person ever gets married to the funniest person ever? Magic.
Mariah and I left The Metament at 9:30 AM, dresses, cake, and garbage bags in hand, to drive to the venue. This was where the bridesmaids would be getting ready. After driving safely over and depositing the cake and snagging some bagels, we set to work on our hair. The other bridesmaids, Cade's sister Camryn and Ellie's sister Emma, were there working on their hair and makeup too. Personal attendant Maggie and day of coordinator Naomi popped in and out to make sure everything was going according to plan.
Ellie, too, was getting her hair done. The stylist pulled her long, layered and center-parted hair away from her face in an elegant romantic style that incorporated some leaf-shaped jewel pieces. Her makeup was a full of rich colors, including a brown eyeshadow as a liner and a delicate gloss. It wouldn't strike me until later that what Emma said in her matron of honor speech was absolutely true: Ellie is an embodiment of home and comfort. While some of us opted for more of a glam look, Ellie chose a soft and inviting look that fit her perfectly.
Mariah and I both have notorious amounts of hair, so we were busy for the next hour chatting, listening to music, and styling. I chose a looser 70s curl, while Mariah was insistent upon spirals for her silky dark hair that doesn't hold curl well. If Ellie was nervous or uncomfortable, she didn't show it. She mentioned sleeping poorly the night before, and Hope Downey's "Satan is in my bowels today" memoir from her own wedding day suddenly became a relatable quote. But Ellie took her time to check in with all of us and make sure we had everything we needed.
After putting the final touches on our looks and taking too many mirror pics, we headed to McKennan Park for the party photos. Photographer Bri Cowan was a master at keeping the party both orderly and loose while she worked. Cade had a plethora of college-aged ushers and Emma and her husband Angel had two little kids, Anna and Mateo, so this wasn't an easy feat. Yet despite the size of the party, we followed instructions surprisingly well.
Both Cade and Ellie were comfortable with each other and in front of the camera, and the photos seemed to go fast. First we congregated underneath the bandshell for individual shots with the bride and groom, and then took some in the grass. The immediate family went on to take more pics at the sunken gardens section of the park while the rest of us headed to First Reformed Church to get ready for the ceremony.
As the ushers did their work out front of the church, the party congregated in the back and enjoyed a chill hour of socialization and playing with the kids in a room behind the sanctuary. I found a piano in the room and Mateo sat with me to bang the keys discordantly while I attempted to remember some chords.
With a text from Naomi, we were off to the front of the church, and the ceremony went off without a hitch. Highlights for me include watching Cade's face while Ellie walked the aisle, and then when she said her vows. Watching him tear up to her entrance was sentimental, but I liked watching him gaze at her with a noble yet gentle expression as she committed herself and her life to him indefinitely.
It was nice, also, to see an audience full of people that loved Cade and Ellie. I spent a lengthy portion of the ceremony looking at the congregation and making thought provoking eye-contact with Millie as the pastor quoted "it is not good for man to be alone."**
The special music was beautiful and the communion unity service was touching as well, even as Mariah and I struggled to keep from giggling due to our propensity to find everything funny. Mariah has gone on record to say that "it was by the grace of God that Cade was blocking my view of Millie." Indeed, Millie had something to offer in response: "I was eye level with Cade's butt the entire ceremony."***
The transition from ceremony to reception was smooth, and the room was buzzing with the sounds of an engaging social hour when we showed up. Cade and Ellie chose to have a open bar and a lush charcuterie board, and the guests continually raved about the catering by Chef Jeni. After commenting on the cheese selection to an incandescent Ellie, she looked at me and said, "Yeah, this is a nice wedding." I agreed enthusiastically.
The bridal party entrances were also a hit. We walked in to Fly As Me by Silk Sonic (though Angel and Emma suggested changing it to Dragonball Durag at the last minute, to the party's delight). Mariah and Angel performed a bull and matador routine, and Ellie's brother Duncan and I galloped sideways along the wall with crab claws. Mariah said later that you could tell what kind of dance the wedding would have by the personalities of the party. She was right, and this is something I especially appreciated about the group. In my experience, bridal parties tend to be a little stiff, but Cade and Ellie's pairs meshed well and we had a lot of fun with each other.
I normally dislike the pretense of wedding games and routinely find them draining. But Cade and Ellie started off the dinner hour with a unique activity: releasing the tables by asking them to guess a popular song. It was a challenge, as the tables were playing against each other. DJ Matt, who led the game, had a charismatic personality (and, as Mariah and I suspected, a deep secret****) and the game went well. My homegirl Becca won the first song, which was "Dancing Queen" by ABBA, and the rest of the guests played with fervor until the last table.
Even though the bridal party was done eating before the rest of the guests, it didn't feel like we were waiting around. The room was still abuzz with the sounds of people eating, drinking, and enjoying. We played a few more games with the assistance of Matt: the shoe game and a quick bridal party scavenger hunt. The latter had me running into the men's bathroom twice for a singular sheet of toilet paper, in effect leaving the dowel and roll on the floor with the first trip, and intruding upon three unsuspecting urinators in the second visit. The girls won the scavenger hunt.
After the games came the three traditional dances: bride and groom, bride and father, groom and mother. Cade and Ellie chose a groovy song called Loved By You for their first dance, and it was my favorite of the three dances. They held each other loosely by the hips and talked, swayed, and laughed. After the other dances, the party hit the floor to Jump Around by House of Pain and Matt tasked us with getting people up on the floor.
We did, and the floor stayed full for a solid hour. If you couldn't tell by the opening of this blog post, I danced so wildly that Ellie thanked me at the end of the night for "going so hard on the dance floor" and Camryn insisted I was not safe to drive home. With my strained vocal chords, I told her that drinking and hype dancing are not mutually exclusive. Many of us outdid ourselves: Mariah got her ponytail stuck to the point of wanting to cut it out with a scissors and Elijah sweat through the seat of his dress pants.
The dance was an amazing mixture of energies: USF people, Cade's high school friends, Emma and Angel's friends, and post-grad friends. The song selection covered lots of different tastes as well, Matt let us dance to everything from Fergalicious to Mo Bamba to Breaking Free, from Jewelz to Somebody to Love to Footloose and The Wobble to September. That would be 2000s pop, rap, musical theatre, hip hop, 80s rock, line dance, and disco. Additionally, if you're looking for some good new music, check out Cade's spotify.
A great thing about the dance, too, was the energy on the floor. Unlike a lot of weddings that I've been to, the bride and groom danced with us for the majority of the time. Cade and Ellie are both spirited dancers and in general very vibey people, so I wasn't surprised. But having them out there with us gave us even more reason to congregate. There were many times that we all gathered around the two of them and created a mass of jumping, whooping, twerking people.
Cade and Ellie's guests came to the wedding ready to celebrate and they were so present on the dance floor. Unlike some other weddings I've been to, alcohol was available and enjoyed without being a necessity, which is something I greatly appreciated. Everyone was truly there to bust a bAve.*****
In the past, I've ended my wedding blogs with a short review:
wedding: cade + ellie
supportive party and family: 9/10
venue: 7/10
décor: 8/10
weather: 12/10
flirt factor: off the charts
schedule: 10/10
food: 9/10
dance: 10/10
overall beauty: did u even see ellie
ratings were decided by a council of myself, Millie, Mariah, and Naomi, as we hovered around a broken Alexa, attempting to play a trivia game.
footnotes
I realized he was the funniest person ever.*
One of my favorite Cade quotes: "Cho Chang? Is she the little boy with the red hair? Ron Weasels? everything I know about Harry Potter came from one rollercoaster ride.”
"it is not good for man to be alone."**
This quote is taken from Genesis 2:18 and was used by the pastor in the context of Cade and Ellie being together. As Mariah pointed out in the car later, this verse was taken from the garden of eden, a reality in which we no longer live--a reality that was pre-Jesus. Additionally, and perhaps more alarming is thinking of what greater message the pastor was telling every unmarried person in attendance that day.
"I was eye level with Cade's butt the entire ceremony."***
Millie would like it to be noted that she was not, in fact, staring at Cade's butt the entire ceremony, but rather that it was the object betwixt her and Mariah.
DJ Matt, who led the game, had a charismatic personality, and, as Mariah and I suspected, a deep secret****
Some of our suspicions for this secret include the following: illiteracy; criminal activity in 14 counties regarding illegal beaver breeding; an obsession for closet inflatables; adultery; a repressed dream to emulate Justin Timberlake; an affinity for fedoras; and a hidden satyr identity.
Everyone was truly there to bust a bAve.*****
The context for this terminology begins with the knowledge that a popular Sioux Falls bar entitled Pave and commonly pronounced "payve" was actually intended to be pronounced "pee ave" after the street it was built on: Phillips Avenue. Thus, to bust a bAve at pAve (pronounced, to bust a bee ave at pee ave) means....
Well, I think I've done enough explaining already.
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