It’s only a bit more than a month late, but I’m finally grabbing the time to recap my trip to MN for Ann & Erik’s wedding, which was wonderful. Mark and I got to the Twin Cities on Thursday, took the shuttle from the airport to the hotel, and then proceeded to be lazy and not really do anything until we went downstairs and had dinner in their restaurant. I did manage to get in touch with another, non-wedding-related friend from Grinnell in the area, so we ventured out after dinner on the hotel’s hourly shuttle to the Mall of America, since it was a place both parties could get to without a car. It was very nice to be able to finally meet E. in person, since she’s mostly been an online friend until this point, although it turns out that Mark had met her before. Anyway, we had fun wandering around there, being horrified by the sheer number of stores selling useless things, admiring the Lego store large-scale models, and having mediocre food.
The next day, Mark and I managed to get in touch with all the various other people in our group who were going to be sharing the rental costs of a minivan. We didn’t get a hugely early start, because Matt & Heather had ridiculous flight delays the night before as they tried to simply get from Michigan to Minnesota, so they were very tired. Eventually, though, we (me & Mark, Matt & Heather, and also our friend Kris) took the hotel shuttle back to the airport, wended our way through a series of very confusing directional signs, a couple of escalators, and a tram, and finally managed to pick up a very swanky minivan with all the electronic thingies a person could possibly want. (We had much fun with the automatic door opener on the key chain all weekend.) On the way back to the hotel, we stopped for lunch, and also to get present wrapping supplies.
Then it was truly back to the hotel to drop off Matt and Mark to go entertain themselves, get together presents for Ann, find our other friend Pam, who had just gotten in from Oregon, and then get all of us girls back in the van to go meet Ann for pre-wedding tea. Tea was in the style of 
British high tea, in that it involved lots of delicious food in deceptive portions, but without us being particularly dressed up. Heather, Pam, Kris, and I had each ordered Ann part of a full tea set, including a tea pot, cream and sugar bowls, and 4 cup-and-saucer sets, in white with a pretty pattern of green leaves. We ate so much, I thought I would explode.
There was more food to be had pretty much right away, though, because immediately following our tea was the pre-wedding picnic at a park by the river. (When we got there, I realized it was the one that Ann had taken me to when I had a long layover in MN during one of my flights back to the US from Japan. I have many fond memories of that park now.) Pam went directly there with Ann, while Heather, Kris, and I returned to the hotel to fetch Mark & Matt. When we got to the park, it was discovered that Mark and Erik were wearing shirts with eerily similar messages. (Erik’s shirt: Red Cross, “Free Cookies!”; Mark’s shirt: “Come to the dark side, we have cookies. -V[ader]“) You may draw your own conclusions.
Oddly similar
There we socialized for several hours with even more Grinnell people (Pam’s husband, Todd; our friend Anna and her boy, the other Matt), some of Erik’s crew from high school, and of course all of the bride and groom’s relatives. All the parents were handily identified by their nicely embroidered cook’s aprons, each indicating their role (MOG, FOG, MOB, FOB). There was, as mentioned, lots of food, and of course, in an event involving Erik, lots of pie. Mmmm, pie.
The next day was the wedding, and we left a good deal earlier than we needed to in an effort not to be late, since it was the same weekend as Macalester’s graduation, and said college is within walking distance of the Meeting House. That turned out not to be a huge problem, so we had, um, some time to stand around in the Meeting House foyer, gradually accumulating more and more Grinnellians in an awkward clump by the door. Eventually, the number of people in the foyer reached critical mass, and we went in to the main room to find seats.
I’d never been to a Quaker wedding ceremony before, and it was truly lovely. First, a meeting member explained what would happen for all the non-Quakers in attendance. There was about half an hour of silence at the beginning, and then Ann & Erik rose together to say their vows. In many ways, this seemed to make the whole thing much more of an immediate experience, with none of the distance that seems to get brought into the process by an officiant asking the bride and groom to “repeat after me.” They were talking directly to each other, and once they finished exchanging rings, they kissed and that’s it, they were married. They then signed the marriage contract and Ann’s uncle read it aloud. We then returned to silence, with the invitation for those who felt moved to share a memory or thought about Ann & Erik to do so. Since the meeting youth group was how Ann & Erik met in the first place, there were quite a few people who had memories of their relationship’s early days. (Many of which were mildly embarrassing, but in a nice way, of course.) After an hour or so of this, the ceremony was pronounced done. Everyone then lined up to sign the marriage contract as witnesses. It was very nice, all hand-calligraphed by one of their meeting friends, with lines underneath for the signatures, meant to be displayed in their home afterward. (Ann’s parents admitted that they keep theirs stored in the basement, though.)
The reception was downstairs, and it was packed! Again, there was a great muchness of food and pie. (I really felt like I spent the whole weekend eating.) We ate and chatted and I spotted more people I hadn’t seen yet from across the room and then proceeded to never get a chance to talk to.
Afterward, we all went back to the hotel again, changed into less dressy clothing, and started gathering Grinnell people in the lobby. Ann & Erik then hosted an “afterparty” in their honeymoon suite, at which, like a true group of predominantly nerdy liberal arts grads, we proceeded to play multiple rounds of Werewolf, (aka Mafia). I ended up as a werewolf twice, but I am apparently not duplicitous enough to confuse the other villagers when they try to decide who to kill, so I always died early. Mark objected that others in the group were not taking the necessary deductive reasoning seriously enough. This suggests that this is perhaps not a party game meant to be combined with people who also want to drink. Or just talk to one another. But despite the lack of seriousness in proper werewolf hunting techniques, people had enough fun that Ann eventually had to kick everyone out so she & Erik could go to sleep.
The next morning, we went over to Ann’s parent’s house for brunch in their yard, yet again extending the feeling that we did nothing but eat for the whole weekend. The weather was a bit colder than I think many of us had been prepared for, not being well-acquainted with MN in May, but to me that just felt like camping, especially since we were under a tent. I was very sad when we all had to finally leave.
We had some time before we had to get to the airport, so I got Ann’s dad to give me directions on how to get to two of the most excellent bookstores I’ve ever visited, Uncle Hugo’s and Uncle Edgar’s, which Erik had introduced me to on a previous visit. (The are, respectively, an all sci-fi/fantasy bookstore and all mystery bookstore, in case you couldn’t tell from the names, and conveniently attached to one another.) I got to spend a blissful hour or so wandering around there, and ended up buying a couple of things. (I exercised great restraint, truly I did.) Then we really did start heading to the airport.
When we were almost there, we got a call from our friend Mike, asking if we’d like to have lunch at an Ethiopian place he’d found not too far away. So we turned back onto the highway and enjoyed yet another large and tasty meal. Then we really did go to the airport…
…only to discover that our flight, the one that both Mark & I and Matt & Heather were supposed to take to Chicago before changing planes to our respective final destinations, was not to be. Oh, sure, they boarded us, but then we sat at the gate for an hour, at which point they finally made an announcement that there was an electrical problem they were trying to get fixed, which in turn was followed by a long series of them turning all the power on and off and on and off, which didn’t really serve to make us feel great confidence in their eventual announcement that they thought they’d gotten it fixed, and eventually they made everyone get off the plane again. Then we got in line to be rebooked on other flights. By the time Mark & I got to the counter, there were no more flights going to NC. Matt & Heather did get to go back to Michigan, but wouldn’t be getting in until the wee hours of the morning. We went to have dinner with them in the airport, saw them off, and then went to the new hotel that the airline had booked us in to wait for our new, direct flight to NC the next day, on a new airline. Of course, the last minute ticket change made the airline flag us for extra screening, but we did, eventually, get home. It turned out to be a good thing that I had bought those books after all.
