Wedding rehearsal

Rehearsal:
1. The act of practicing in preparation for a public performance.
2. A session of practice for a performance, as of a play.
3. A detailed enumeration or repetition: "a long rehearsal of his woes"

Steven and Lisa have been rehearsing marriage for the last several years. This evening they finally got to rehearse their wedding. They carefully kept the script a semi-secret since it contained a lot of the dry humor that Lisa and Steve are famous for.
In spite of a day that was much warmer than everyone expected and the impressive setting of the Holiston United Methodist church building, the bride Lisa and her maid of honor Kristi were cool as cucumbers in their summer dresses.

In fact, everyone was pretty cool about the whole rehearsal thing. It became obvious fairly quickly that this ceremony was not going to be stiffly formal. In fact it looked like it had been arranged to be as comfortable as it was meaningful to all the involved parties. The first part would consist of the minister walking into the sanctuary with the groom and best man in tow. It sort of looked like he had been giving them a good talking to.

After the bridesmaid, grandparents, mothers, and father of the groom had come down the aisle to join in the festivities Larry, the father of the bride, with his daughter the bride on his arm, marched down the aisle as serious as he could be while humming "Pomp & Circumstance". "Wrong tune, Dad!" muttered Lisa.

For a non-drinking crowd, everyone did their best to keep things light hearted.

Whenever it came to important parts such as the minister's advice to the couple or their mutual pledge of faith to each other, all the rest of us heard was blah, blah, blah, etc. and so forth. No reason to ruin a good script and the element of surprise in what was to be a good humored ceremony. But we could tell by the wedding couple's body language that neither was being pressured into this relationship.


Finally, when we had gone through the whole process three times (the third time at warp speed), everyone retired to Beckham Grill - a fine dining tradition in Pasadena and just a short drive west on Walnut from the Church.


There we were joined by family and friends for a relaxing rehearsal dinner. Entrees of Prime Rib of Beef, Broiled Chicken Breast, or Grilled Salmon seemed to satisfy almost all the attendees. (One couple had the misfortune of missing their flight and Lee managed to pick up some stomach ailment.) The piece de resistance of the evening was the Raspberry English Trifle. A wonderful end to a wonderful evening.