27-VI-2010.
Ender went to his parent's house (there's never a shorter expression for that, can't say "kod svojih" - „at self's“) for the night Ender overnighted at his parents'*, so we would meet at the wedding and he wouldn't occasionally bump into the bride in her wedding gown before time.
We arrived at the beach with a few minutes to spare. One of Ender's friends almost went to the first beach, and then he recognized our car and my beard ("and I saw that Matrix with that beard in the rear view mirror - I know that beard!") so he followed us all the way through Sandbridge.
Then I led the bride over the dune to the beach, and the marriage commissioner (commissar), a huge guy with a fat lining of a jowl, kept reading from his texts, all about love, roses and responsibilities. Eleese kept jumping around Ender, blissfully unaware of what's going on, and of his toes too. On the pics it looks as if she was dancing.
And so Nina and Ender got married.
The ceremony was done in about 20 minutes - Nina and I started the walk at 7:54, the big family photo in the end was at 8:12, but it seemed to have lasted forever, and the commissar sweated out five shirts worth for the duration. Go made 144 shots with her eos40.
Then we moved to the inland side of the dune to have a snack. She made, earlier, lots of kvašenice from that "french" bread, good thinking, it would get too hard as soon as it dries. Gary was first very reluctant to try them, almost fearful of what those strange things may do to him, but then he ate six. We stayed there for no more than one hour total, it was getting opressively hot, the light breeze from the sea not quite climbing over the dune. Nice try, not even close to enough.
Then we all went home to cool down - the dinner was at Ender's parents' place in the afternoon. Just cooled it off - had coffee in the patio (west side, so still in the shade)
At the party, then, some time around five, there were lots of Philipinos, then us, and a few friends - their kum (and whoever was the 2nd witness), one of Lena's Rebeccas with her fluffy dog, Maksim from Nina's job (guy from Ukraine, married here). His wife and daughter posed for a picture, and honestly that was the ugliest scene of the year. They promptly showed the official fake smile, both - and the kid looks less than three years old. Looks wrong on an adult, looks just bad on a kid. In unison, it's disgusting.
The cake was... disappointing, though we did eat worse, but had the decency to be small. The rite of cutting it was, OTOH, good fun, and we (i.e. family, including the groom) had good fun, made a few funny shots. Fayes looked lost, didn't know what to do, here was an unscripted event not under her directions, she somehow lost the reins, and we let ther in that condition for a few minutes, while it was still fun. Then handed the reins back, thanks, this was fun.
The cuisine was proper philippino, good and plentiful. There was not much of a music score, unless we count playing "Rock band" (with Lena singing :). Didn't smoke inside, so we went out to the swelter, the usual 99% humidity. Made bunches of good photos of the event, specially the three sisters together - who knows when the next reunion will be. Rein joined us for a couple of smoke breaks, even though he's not a smoker, just to have a chat and get away from the noise a bit. He showed us his stash. He's retired, but moonlights as the storage chief, where he's mostly an instructor for a bunch of semiusable guys, who have various kinds of brain obstacles acquired in action, so he's kind of reteaching them old tricks and just making sure they don't do much damage. The technical rules often classify various machine parts as junk, and he dutifully writes them off and brings home... Didn't take us to see the garage, we know it from the many photos.
Made the last shot around 20:20, and we (Go, Lena and we two) drove home soon afterwards. The newlyweds arrived perhaps an hour later, it was definitely not an all-night party.
Eight years later I learned that the happy couple had to ask Fayes to stage the party. She didn't offer it by herself. WTF - she's always staging parties for no special reason, and now when she has one, they have to ask her?
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* the consilium at burundi decided that „prenoćio kod svojih“ can be better (and shorter) said like this. January 2022.
Mentions: burundi, Eleese Aquila (Eleese), Ender Aquila (Ender), eos40, Gary Dalton, Gorana Sredljević (Go), Jelena Sredljević (Lena), kum, kvašenice, Nevena Sredljević (Nina), Reinaldo Aquila (Rein), Rosanda Aquilla (Fayes), in serbian