Enjablog

What a year this has been… And I’ve finally made it to a golden and perfect age. Thanks for giving birth to me, Mom! It has made a huge impact on my life. ;)

Like the number pi, love is irrational. The digits of pi go on forever without repeating, just as each day of your life together will be marked by new and exciting experiences.

Einstein said that “Gravity cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.” But consider that Ian and Jane are standing approximately 1m apart right now, you could calculate the attractive force between them by multiplying the Gravitational constant by the product of their masses divided by the square of the distance between them…or approximately 1/3 of a microNewton. Now, one-third of a microNewton may not seem like a lot to most, but consider that this force will only continue to increase as the two of you grow closer and closer.

Is the force of love infinite? Well, if love is similar to gravity or electromagnetism, this would only be possible if the distance between you is equal to zero. Now Pauli might argue that this is not possible for two objects to occupy the same space and time, but Schrodinger might posit that there is nothing to say that your wave-functions cannot and do not overlap. And in that sense, I can say without hesitation that today, the two of you will truly become one.

But what about the power of love? Well, that depends on the distance over which the force of love is exerted divided by the time. Given a small enough time frame, I can also say without hesitation that the power of love between the two of you has an upper limit of infinity.

But let’s not get too complicated. We don’t need integrals or functions to derive what it is that has brought us here today. Instead, let us celebrate today with a simple proof. Given the following statements:

- That Ian and Jane take each other from this day forward;
- And that they promise to love and to cherish one another for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, for as long as they both shall live.

Ian, do you attest to the truth of these statements?
Ian: I do

And Jane, do you also attest to the truth of these statements?
Jane: I do

- And by an exchanging of rings, that provides a physical affirmation of the promise you have made to one another…

(Best man presents ring to Ian to place on Jane’s finger)
(Best woman presents ring to Jane to place on Ian’s finger)

Q.E.D.

By the transitive property…and by the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Virginia and the City of Alexandria, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss my sister.

Thanks to Sonny for writing and conducting the ceremony. And thanks to Amy and Ben for posting the video so quickly (before their 12-hour drive home)!

After the reception dispersed, Ian and I went with a few friends to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. (You know, wedding & a movie. It’s the latest thing.) Since neither of us drove, we all went in one car, thinking we’d get dropped off later or something…

But by the time the movie ended, we decided it’d be better for the driving couple to drop off the third friend in DC and Ian & I would just catch a cab home since we were close and it’d be a cheap cab ride, vs. adding 20 mins to the night for the people with the car.

As our friends departed, Ian and I asked each other if we had cash. No, I gave all my cash to my sister to tip delivery people… Nope, no cash either…

We were still at the theater and there’s an ATM outside, so we’ll just go get new cash. After a few failed attempts, we determine that the card reader wasn’t working and there were no other ATM options. Hm.

Well, I have my carry-all bag for life, where my sister and I were both piling the wedding cards people were giving us. I bet at least one of those cards has a $20-bill in it or something… That’d get us home and would also lead to a unique thank you card:

Dear [honored guest],
Thank you for the generous gift you gave us. We used it the night of our wedding to pay for a cab to get home. Thank you so much for helping us masquerade as functional adults. We will think of you fondly now each time we have a need to take a cab.

Love,
The Petouies

But, as we started opening a dozen-plus cards, each one lovingly written with well-wishes… we found checks, gift cards, and a rendition of the chicken dance. But no means by which to get us home.

As we were losing hope, a cab just happened to pull up next to us and Ian remembered our condo building has an ATM in the lobby. So, as long as we have the cab, we can just go to our destination and then worry about money. Or, you know, we could’ve stopped at any of a number of banks with ATMs in the 3 miles between the theater and our building.

For as smart as people made us out to be in their toasts (maybe they were just being nice because it was our special day), we took a ridiculously long time to come up with this obvious solution. S-M-R-T.

Wow, so I maybe had too much sugar today and can’t sleep… Or excited about getting married. Hard to tell.

I only got 1 plate of food, so sampled about half the options, had a snow cone, drank root beer for the better part of 6 hours, and then had 2 pieces of tasty, tasty cake. So I mostly had sugar today. :)

I’ll post up more stuff when people start sending it to us. I know someone took a video of the ceremony, so I’ll hold off on posting the text of Sonny’s ceremony for us until I get that. Here’s us just after the ceremony with Best Man & Best Woman.

After Anna’s months of test cakes for us and the last week(s?) of prep… The final cake came out beautifully. And delicious too! The top and bottom tiers were nutella frangelico cakes and the middle tier was amaretto with almond pralines.

Then, the other confection that was a far second in comparison, but also a huge hit: Snow cones! I thought it’d be a good idea since it’s July and we were going to be outside in the heat… but the demand was pleasantly higher than I had expected. My sis even tried to start a snowball fight, but it seemed that people really were much more interested in eating the snow cones.

And last picture that I’m swiping from my cousin (thanks, Katie!) is of the back of my head. I’m just fascinated. I had my friend’s hair person come do my hair and I have some action shots that might better explain my fascination. But my hair is held in place by ~50 bobby pins and ~half a can of hairspray. And when she started, she teased my hair into a big ‘fro and it ended up all neat and wrapped up like this. I physically do not understand how she did that.

In any case, the day turned out fantastically. The weather was great — hot, but with frequent breezes. And the rain didn’t start until most of the guests were heading out anyway. We have so many people to thank for how smoothly everything went… but mostly, I’m glad so many of our friends and relatives were able to come out and celebrate with us. :)

Ian: How did you sleep last night?
Me: Not so well… I got woken up by Dwight having a competition to see which metal would be best to use for your wedding band.

<pause>

Me: I think maybe I dreamt that. Did that wake you up?
Ian: Do you mean Dwight Schrute?
Me: Yeah… Hm… That must have been a dream. The fighting would’ve woken you up.