Nothing funny about feldspar

Plagioclase and I went to a wedding recently — the daughter of one of his cousins. She’s a bit older and the last of her cohort to get married. The wedding itself was fine — she got married in the same church her mother and grandmother did, and the pastor was funny (if a bit rehearsed, but gosh, she probably does a hundred weddings a year), and it all went off ok, quick and to the point.

Then came the reception. We were staying in the same hotel, which was a good thing as Plagioclase’s mother has very low “social” endurance. Now, we have been to weddings and receptions before, but it’s been a few years (you go to all your friends’ weddings, then you wait and go to all their kids’ weddings). Things have certainly changed. Every time the bride, groom or one of the wedding party entered the room for some “event” the DJ announced them as though they were coming on stage to accept an Oscar. And there were plenty of events: the promenade of the honorees; the interminable toasts from the Dad of the Bride, the Mom of the Groom, the Best Man and the Best Woman; the slide show of the bride and the groom and their lives up to this point… and that was all before dinner was served.

And we had assigned seats, so all the bride’s guests were on one side and the groom’s were on the other. It probably would have ended up that way anyway, but we had no opportunity for chance meetings because they were 80 feet away across the centrally-located dance floor (it might as well have been the Ambassador Bridge).

Anyway, you probably get the point. It was pretty boring (and way too structured!) as far as wedding receptions go. I don’t think it’s just because we’re not particularly close to the cousin; there were plenty of other members of the family for us to gossip chat with. Perhaps I just don’t “get” modern receptions. Or maybe it was just all that schlocky ’60s and ’70s pop they were playing.