After a bazillion years of dating, my former co-worker, Eric, and his girlfriend, Christine, finally decided to stop living together in sin and started planning their wedding in her hometown of Miami. She whispered the date to me one night at my office dinner club and asked if I could come, and I said I probably couldn’t swing a plane ticket for the wedding and Thanksgiving in Ohio in the same month. And then I of course bought the ticket to Miami, like, the next day. My roommate/landlord/co-worker/friend, Jack, was also representing the not-Eric’s-friend-from-college contingent, so we flew down one night a couple of weeks ago after work for a whirlwind weekend filled with not wearing sandals, one of the best weddings ever, and so many stolen robot cookies.
Jack and I had just the morning and afternoon before the wedding to explore Miami, so naturally we didn’t leave our hotel until noon, and then it took $40 and a ridiculous amount of time to get from our hotel to South Beach, ten miles away. That was the weird thing about Miami: everything looks super-close on the map but never actually is. Since we’re used to walking everywhere in NYC, we thought it’d be no problem to walk across the bridge to South Beach, and then Google told us it would take three hours. So we ended up taking taxis everywhere, which was a different experience in that you call independent companies to come pick you up instead of just walking out your front door and hailing one of a thousand passing cabs, and some guy shows up in what might be his personal car with a backseat full of fast food wrappers. In a way, it’s cool, because you can’t call yellow cabs here and are sometimes left waiting for ten minutes at the side of the road on Saturday nights or when it rains, but in another way, I like the big divider that separates me from my cab driver here and makes him seem more like someone I’ve hired to do my bidding and less like my dad driving me home from the mall in his ’92 Toyota Camry or whatever.
Anyway, once we got to South Beach, we beelined for this restaurant Jack had picked out on Yelp. You know, despite the fact that I have an acclaimed palate and have been professionally critiquing food for the past three years. (Just kidding.) But seriously, I had bookmarked three or four restaurants that had four and five stars and would serve us an authentic Cuban sandwich, but Jack felt like he needed brunch. Brunch. In South Beach. But it was fine (three donuts and no more, if I was reviewing it for donuts4dinner.com), and then we had the rest of the afternoon to walk along the boardwalk separating the beach from the fancy hotels that seem to be having boozy pool parties all day long.
The beach was cuh-RAZY beautiful and totally put our beloved Hamptons to shame, but of course we were idiot Northerners wearing jeans and sneakers and absolutely no sunblock, so I basically ran out onto the beach to take these shots and then ran back in under the shade of the palm trees. We passed all sorts of adorable restaurants blowing mist from fans onto patios full of people sipping giant frozen drinks and then caught a taxi back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding. And by “get ready”, I mean “put some pretty clothes on over our sweat”.
Jack looking swank
The wedding took place at a hotel on a tiny island surrounded by palm trees
with a great view of the mainland
and was casual enough that we could talk to the groom on the hotel’s generous veranda beforehand but formal enough that we were not allowed to wear flip-flops, the wedding website proclaimed. We were served champagne before Christine walked down the aisle in order to make the ceremony bearable, but it was short and sweet and needed no such bribery.
this guy with all of the shoulder would NOT get out of my picture
I do notice that I totally Photoshopped this picture below way more yellow than the picture above, but I’m still stinging from the fact that Eric and Christine didn’t hire me as their totally-unpaid-wedding-photographer, so I’m not going to fix it.
This isn’t the kiss picture, but I just love how happy both Eric and the minister look. She thought Eric and Christine were destined for a long and happy marriage because they were both so attentive at their pre-wedding meetings with her, but little did she know that they’re just a couple of do-gooding nerds who were programmed to pay attention in school.
I can’t tell if Eric is pumping his fist and saying, “MARRIED! YUSS!” or if he’s thumb-pointing to himself and saying, “Who’s married? THIS GUY!”, but I like it either way.
Are those . . . blue flip-flops . . . peeking out from under Christine’s dress? DESPITE HER SPECIFICALLY TELLING ME I COULDN’T WEAR FLIP-FLOPS?
The table settings included diskettes with our names on them (but nothing actually stored in the memory–Jack asked)
and robot cookies that Jack requested to eat repeatedly throughout the evening and that I told him not to eat over and over. Well, at one point, we left the table, and when we came back, my cookie was gone. And then, after a billion years of dancing, we went outside to cool off in the less-cool-than-inside outdoors, and when we returned, Jack’s cookie was also gone. AND I KNOW WHO DID IT.
So tell your middle brother we hope he enjoyed the cookies, Eric, because he is dead to us now.
(j/k, j/k)
The reception started off with Eric and Christine’s first dance and ended with some robot cake
but in the middle was one of the most awesomely-planned weddings ever. They had a live band that legitimately did not suck, and right after Eric and Christine’s first dance, the band brought us all to the floor to dance. And then they sent us back to our tables to eat our crabcakes while Christine and her dad danced and Eric and his mom danced. And then they brought us all back out to dance. And then they sent us back to our tables to eat our salads while Christine’s dad gave this incredibly involved speech about how wonderful every single member of his family, including himself, is. (And I only say that a little bit mockingly, because I would want my dad to give the same speech at my wedding.) And then the band brought us back out again.
It went on like this until 11 p.m., when the band’s time was up. By this time, they had played “Livin’ on a Prayer”, “Don’t Stop Believin'” (can you believe both of those songs have dropped Gs?), and my very favourite ironic song of the moment, Enrique Iglesias’s “I Like It“. And we danced to every single one of them. With very little alcohol needed.
And then the next day we went to Christine’s parents’ house and ate all of their bagels to make up for not getting any robot cookies. We win.
Congratulations, Eric and Christine! We love you and promise to actually buy you a wedding gift someday!
26 Comments
This is beautiful! You did a fantastic job taking pictures, even if it was free for you to do so.
You’re such a slut for photography.
I just really, really enjoy taking them. I’m realizing that I genuinely love capturing people and food and places at their best. That’s why I love Mae-a-Day so much, I think; it’s all of these moments of Maelie at her very cutest for you to keep forever.
So thanks! I’m dying to see what their actual photographer got, though, ’cause the dude was all over the place. I want that kind of access! I was ready to jump out of my seat during the ceremony to get some closeups.
Why do I find myself reading through an entire wedding website for people I do not know and whose wedding already happened?
(Oh, right, because I have papers to write.)
(Also, you make things interesting.)
(THERE I SAID IT.)
(Would you fly to Chicago for my wedding? OR SOMEWHERE ELSE IF WE HAD IT SOMEWHERE ELSE?)
(No reason.)
Okay, but their website WAS good. That post Christine made about her mom and the invitations? Killed me.
But papers to write helps.
I thought I was specifically NOT invited to your wedding, but I would probably move mountains to come. Especially if you and David took us to eat hotdogs beforehand. Not necessarily the-day-of-the-wedding beforehand, but maybe.
They are blue sandals, and they have 5 inch heals! It is not easy marrying a giant.
Also, I can’t believe you thought you could walk across the bridge. That might be the funniest northerner in Miami thing I’ve ever heard.
Definitely my favorite blog post of yours ever, and that’s only a slightly biased opinion. You are the best!
Watch your Google Analytics, I’m about to send this all over the place!
Okay, I forgive you because of the heels.
Things look really close on the map! And we totally did see one of the readers from your wedding walking on the mainland from our cab and then walking onto the veranda of the hotel a short while later, so I’m pretty sure it’s possible to use your feet there. Maybe they had been walking for days, though.
Thanks again for inviting us! It was a super great time, made all the better by the ten cents in Google ads I’m going to make off of this post.
Katie, are you an Uncle Bob?
http://offbeatbride.com/2011/06/unplugged-wedding
That’s a great article. And in a way, I am, because I do want my own pictures in my style with my editing on my computer immediately after the wedding. But in a way, I’m not, because I would never, as a guest, leave my seat (nor stand on it) for a picture. Of course it bothered me at Christine’s wedding not to be able to move around like the real photographer could, but I’m a grownup. Sometimes.
Also, I’m not shooting with an iPhone. I think there’s a major difference.
Sorry, I think I responded to this comment way too seriously.
“but little did she know that they’re just a couple of do-gooding nerds who were programmed to pay attention in school.” – Katie, why are you so awesome?!
Haha! We were all programmed. Well, maybe not Hack. He wore PVC and listened to goth music. But the rest of us.
Katie, you take wonderful pictures of food, but when you photograph people, you capture the moment. Maybe Ettible Photography is your future! PS I still have your birthday present in my purse. I thought I would see you at the Pumpkin Show! Love, Aunt Brenda
Oh, my gosh, thank you! I can’t wait to take some pictures of you and the fam over Thanksgiving. I have a wireless remote now, so we can go crazy with the group shots. And then I can put my watermark on them and sell them to you for the low, low price of a birthday present.
Deal!
I never really had the urge to visit Miami until now. Gorgeous photos and beautiful wedding! Love the robot cookies. I’d still be bitter too if I hadn’t gotten any.
I should probably stop harboring fantasies of Christine showing up at my apartment with a basket full of the leftover cookies, right? I didn’t really get the whole Miami thing until I visited, too. I recommend it!
I actually had the same fantasy. We have left overs and I was planning to mail you some, except they are in Miami and I just remembered that they are only good to eat for two weeks. Soooooo…I’m sorry.
Instead, I will buy you a bahn mi sandwhich and form it into the shape of a robot. Well maybe just the first part.
I really love your photographs.. the diskettes are so awesome!
Sounds like a beautiful wedding.
I hope some of the people I know are starting to get married soon, I haven’t been to a wedding since I was 7…
Thank you! It really was.
My roommate was also saying that he’s wedding-inexperienced. I think this was his third wedding. Meanwhile, I feel like I’m at the age where everyone’s married but me. Even my best friend and younger sister!
OK, that robot cake is honestly one of the prettiest cakes I’ve ever seen.
For some reason, those little robots slay me.
But they totally should’ve hired you as the photographer.
I think they’re so cute because they’re not just regular robots but nerd robots!
I will quietly show up at all sorts of weddings I’m not invited to until I get enough experience to get paid for this stuff.
Even if there was stuff on the diskettes, where would you use them?
Heck, they could have told everyone that there was a secret prize on one of them and no one would ever know the difference…
I just hear about Miami without getting that Will Smith song stuck in my head.
‘Welcome to Miami…
Robot cookies in Miami…’
(I know, I know… jiggy fail.)
:)
What person would have the willpower not to eat the robot cookie. It would’ve been gone in the 1st minute if I was there. Beautiful photos. Her dress is beautiful. Oh & his suit is nice. People always comment on the bride’sdress but never the groom’s suit
Beautiful wedding & photos! Who’s Uncle Bob?
I love those little robots too. So cute.
Beautiful wedding. I really want to go back to the beach now.
FYI Middle brother SWEARS he did not take the cookies. The mystery continues…