community: built

Christine and Jody got married Friday night, and I know I say this every time one of my good friends gets married, but it was one of the most fun weddings I’ve been to. (Not too long ago I came across a blog entry where I sung the praises of my friend Cara’s wedding, and in retrospect I was like, Really? What made that so great? All I remember about it now is that B wouldn’t go, so I was date-less, and that Cara’s aunt tried really hard to get me and Cara’s [quite possibly gay] cousin to dance to “YMCA.”)

So I’m probably totally unreliable, but whatever. I can unequivocally say that Christine and Jody’s wedding was the most conveniently located one I’ve been to. AK and I could have biked there. (But we didn’t, seeing as how my shoes were barely made for walking.) They got married at the L.A. River Center and Gardens, a stunning piece of landscaping and mission-style architecture tucked somewhere between our house and the Gold Line, and they decked the place out with black-and-white table cloths and hot pink flowers, the former of which AK and I helped cut with pinking shears.

The wedding was very DIY or DIYWHF (do it yourself with the help of friends), and we heard a few stories of backstage scrambling, but thanks to Christine’s good eye and enviable management skills, and the aforementioned friends, you never would have known there was no wedding planner.

Jody and Christine mingled with the guests for an hour before the ceremony. Seeing as how I can’t even mingle before a reading, this struck me as an amazing feat of calm—although I did see Jody make more than one trip to the bar, so their relaxation may have been helped along by cocktails.

The ceremony was short-ish and genuinely sweet, with a couple of funny moments, like when the Universal Life Church minister (a.k.a. their friend Nat’s mom) said something about growing together, and Jody, who’s a lot shorter than Christine when she is wearing fabulous hot pink heels, stood on his toes. I thought it was appropriate that the Gold Line train zoomed by right when Nat’s mom was talking about life’s journey.

We all danced the hora and ate coconut shrimp from Cha Cha Cha and kimchi quesadillas from the Kogi truck. Yes, the Korean taco truck that started the revolution—a brilliant alternative to the chicken/pasta wedding buffet. Then we danced some more, and I exchanged my cute heels for flip flops. Stephen and Pedro got an unofficial Best Dressed award for their respective seersucker suit and gingham shirt. Meehan networked with the many other attorneys at the wedding, although since they’re all public interest types, they would have called it “community building.” Jamie exchanged baby stories with the various other pregnant ladies and new parents in the crowd and did her best not to give birth on the dance floor. She was successful.

The next day we saw Jody and Christine at a family barbecue at their house, and I asked Christine the rather lame question, “So, do you feel married?” She grinned her big Christine grin, rolled her eyes and shrugged. “I don’t know—do you?”

She had a point. Later AK and I were talking about all the big changes that our lives inevitably hold in store, and she said, “I’m glad Christine and Jody aren’t going anywhere.”

“I know,” I said. “When I was writing in the card, I had to be careful to make my message about them as a couple. I wanted to just be all, ‘This is the start of a long beautiful life together as our friends.’”