Andrew and Alyssa's Wedding

During the last few days of the trip I went to Baltimore for my former roommate Andrew's wedding.










Left to right: Dave, Andrew, Ryan.








Andrew and I were composition students at IU at the same time. I first met him while he lived with the other two pictured above. They were all roommates at 805 S. Henderson, and the address became a way of identifying anyone of the three guys.























Two years later Andrew and I lived together with our friend Sarah in our awesome house in Bloomington.







Andrew at our "Good ol' fashioned pumkin carve,"
Halloween, 2007. Typical WVU shirt.














Not sure what the deal is with Andrew's face in this picture, but this is what he looked like when we were roommates - basically the exact same as he's looked since he was 13.





















I had such a great time at this wedding. Andrew was nice enough to include me in the rehearsal dinner and then to sushi with the other out-of-town-friends the next day (shown above).






















The wedding was at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The ceremony took place in the sculpture garden.






















This set of three stones was the "x-factor" of the ceremony, according to Dave, since everyone in the bridal party had to walk across it.




















Carla and I went for a walk in the sculpture garden before the wedding started. We ran into Alyssa as she and the bridesmaids were returning from the pre-ceremony photo-shoot.




























Alyssa plays flute in the US Army field band. But she sure cleans up nice.






















Carla and I had pretty good seats for the wedding, though our line of sight was somewhat obscured by this statue, Mother and Child. Andrew was a little self-conscious about having his older relatives sit right next to it, since from the front it's basically a naked woman with huge boobs.





























Alyssa processed to a string quartet piece that Dave composed specifically for the wedding.




























They worked a couple of jokes about the WVU-Pitt rivalry into their vows. It was a pretty secular ceremony, and they came up with a lot of meaningful passages to read and recite.




























Andrew is vegan and there were vegan options for pretty much everything at the rehearsal dinner and the reception. Unfortunately, I completely forgot to eat any of the cake.

























Immediately after the wedding we had cocktails and hors d'oeuvres, and then sat down at the IU table for dinner. Technically I think this was the IU-but-not-in-Alyssa's-army-band table.




























I partly forgot to eat dessert because the band started playing immediately and we all went out on the patio to dance.




























I managed to take a few awesome pictures of Carla and Dave letting loose.























A little while later they announced that Alyssa was going to toss her bouquet. Carla refused to participate in what she called an "antiquated social construct," so I said to Ryan's girlfriend Suzi that I would go stand in the back with her, if she wanted.




























The bouquet came flying toward my face, and I reached up and grabbed it out of the air before it hit me. I asked Carla if this was a sign, since a) I am not terribly coordinated, when it comes to catching things, b) I mostly went over with the group of single girls to show solidarity, and to avoid being shoved into the group by my dude friends.


Andrew and Dave asked if we were going to meet up and do the same thing in Canada next summer, and I said no...not next summer. I hope he doesn't wait until I'm getting married (in ___ years) to come visit me in Canada.