Wedding Leftovers

I survived my trip in fine (if fat) fettle, and I have lots of things to say about it all, but my true love and I are about to retire to watch some InuYasha reruns, so I simply don't have time.  However, it is still Love Thursday -- at least I'm drafting it on Love Thursday; it may not actually be posted until Love Friday.  In honor of Love Thursday, it seems only fitting to share a couple of souvenirs from one of the many, many weddings I witnessed in whole or in part while in southern California to celebrate my niece's last week.  (Click to enlarge.)

In my supposedly quiet room at the Marriott, the one overlooking the driveway, two restaurants and the main lawn, late Saturday afternoon saw me inadvertently witnessing an entire Hindu wedding ceremony from my tiny chip of a balcony.  My friend A's little daughter M and I had watched the hotel staff setting up for it that morning, and as they swathed a peaked frame with great lengths of some shimmering bronzey/coppery fabric that billowed in the morning breezes, we had wondered whether it was to be a huppah or a mandap.

I did not photograph this process because I was wholly taken up with my little friend whom I hadn't seen in seven years and the beauty of the day around us.  Besides, I had just delivered a tedious rant to half my snapshot-crazed family about living life not recording it.  So you will just have to take my word for it when I tell you that it was a graceful activity in which these drably uniformed men engaged that Saturday morning, something like an ancient dance in modern dress, flowing in circles on the hotel's front lawn that overlooks the grassy public park above the marina full of yachts.

And I did not photograph the wedding, because I wasn't a guest and I didn't think it would be appropriate, though it was colorful and I had the same view of it that a queen has of the stage in a fancy old European opera house, nor did I pocket a stray red tassel I had found while passing the wedding on the way to my room, instead trying to tie it to the white plastic-coated metal fence surrounding the grounds and the event.  (I do not think I succeeded.  The golden threads were short, the fence was slippery and unyielding, and the tassel was gone the next morning.)

The next morning, it was all gone, save for the white plastic folding chairs and the stage and a few shreds of lovely detritus here and there.  Here is a photo of some late-arriving guests feasting in the mild Sunday dawn afterward (click to enlarge):

There were so many weddings!  Almost as soon as this one had ended Saturday evening and the guests had begun milling about looking for food and alcohol, there was another bride leaving the lobby, this one a white girl in a strapless white dress and veil who looked young and, with all her attendants around her helping her walk to her own ceremony, who knows where, wore a look of both determination and vulnerability.  And at my niece's wedding at the courthouse the day before, we had seen so many more weddings, my niece's slotted in between others standing in line and milling about outside around the fountain.

So many promises.  So many hopes.  So many stories I'll never know.

Here are some more of the souvenirs I mentioned, fragments of other people's hopeful promises lightly dressed with morning-after mist (click to enlarge):

Lovely, aren't they, these stray carnation petals?  Perhaps after I passed they were ground underfoot by a running child, minced in a lawnmower, carried off by birds to line a nest, nibbled by rodents, or simply blown away by ocean breezes to dessicate and decompose elsewhere.  In this moment, though, this one moment I shot, they lay together under heaven and were beautiful.

Congratulations and best wishes to everyone who was married last week, this week, anytime.  And happy Love Thursday.  Or Friday.  Or any day.

Comments

[Ron Sullivan]

And what I really like is the ceremonially white-clad fire hydrant. I'm not sure I want to know exactly what its contribution to the ceremony was, tho'.

[Sara]

I know! Do they have that many wedding fires? Honestly, though, I didn't even notice the hydrant until I was looking at this image in PhotoShop. It's less obvious in real life than the ravens were, or the pueblo of Disneyland-colored $5M homes with no yards clamped together in the background along the sedimentary stone hillside that only ten or fifteen years ago was habitat for lizards, birds, bunnies, and flammable native plants flourishing in dusty shades of green and grey and brown.

Incidentally, the hotel ("spa") brochure describes the lawns (including this one, but mostly part of the public park outside the white fence) as "Gatsbyesque."

[elizabeth]

Normally I would have some comment about weddings but once you mentioned InuYasha I let out a long internal scream "Ahhhhh, another adult who watches anime, and admits it!" - since I commented yesterday that I must be the only female in this city over 14 who reads manga and watches anime - since when I mention the words, people tend to do a "Yeah, I think I tried that suishi once" response.

[Sara]

We LOVE anime. We don't love just any anime, like not so much the space-blonde-bubble-pop kind of stuff, but we go as silly as Naruto, Yu-Yu Hakusho, and Tenchi Muyo and as serious as Akira and most Ghost in the Shell stuff (the first movie, both the TV series, and the TV movie, but not the second movie which actually put me to sleep). We gobbled up both Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, always love a good InuYasha rerun, and are currently enjoying Bleach, an episode a week on Cartoon Network. (Blood Plus airing afterward is a guilty pleasure, extremely silly and soapy, but somehow addictive.)

What do you love?

Incidentally, it may please you to know that your comment above was my 666th at this site. :)

[elizabeth]

I watch a lot of shojo anime so Revolutionary Girl and Fruit Basket of course, saw Cowboy Bebop and Evangelion (plus Irresponsible Captain Taylor), of the new stuff, Air is really good (and has disability themes) but very sad. Linda and I watched Kaleido Star together because Sora reminded her of me (the wierd obsessive determination - not the gymnastics), and we watch girls high school series like Lucky Star or Azumanga Doiah - I loved Mai Hime more than Mai Otome. I also like the girl/girl love ones (like Mai Hime!) but most shojo has a bit of romantic love girl/girl action going on somewhere.

Cowboy Bebop (I love Ed!). We also like the stuff by Ghibli studios like Porco Rosso and the others (but on in subtitles - no evil dubs please!). That's why I want to go to Japan next year!

[Sara]

Oh, yes, Ghibli is the best! And I am completely with you re dubs. Jeepers, they even change the script when they do that! Arrrrgggghh.

We have two versions of My Neighbor Totoro, one in fullscreen (because it's all that was available) with "no-name" Canadian voice actors and the Disneyfied one in widescreen with the option of either reading the subtitles and hearing the Japanese or listening to the movie star voices in English. Between the two movies, there are actually three different English translations. For example, in the fullscreen/Canadian voice version, the little dark splotchy critters are called "soot sprites." In the English subtitles of the Disneyfied widescreen version, they are called "dust bunnies." I couldn't bear to hear the American movie star version, so I only suspect that there are further differences based on my experiences watching the Disneyfied widescreen version of Kiki's Delivery Service both in English with movie star voices and in Japanese with English subtitles. Grr.

Re Cowboy Bebop, we loved Ed, too, but our favorite character of all was Ein. Ein on happy mushrooms is a particularly favorite episode.

There are a certain number of corgis around here. It's that kind of suburb. They are all adorable -- and they all remind me of Ein.