Baldur

It's been ages since Baldur has posted a video for everyone's enjoyment.
Here is one that I've only recently found.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5usVahlDjv0

marius

Well this was fun to catch up on Baldur's Channel!

Can't wait to hear all about the wedding.
Wishing you both all of the happiness and joy that the world can offer.

: )

indigo

http://www.thinkdraw.com/picture.php?pictureId=195831

Love, Happiness, Joy!
Congratulations and Best Wishes! *J*

Hazer

First snowfall for Southern Alberta....winter wonderland. The temperature drop- ped 30 degrees in the last 24 hours. My winter wear is ready for tomorrow's drive to work, my vehicle winterized, patio furniture stored away , furnace serviced, snow shovel handy, so bring it on Mr. Weatherman!

Hazer

That should just read dropped. It had to be hyphenated in the draft.

Lizzi

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=CvQBUccxBr4
Shadow Dance

Hazer

Thanks for posting this Lizzi. Beautiful!

Lizzi

I wonder how the honeymoon couple are doing. I hope Baldur gives us all the exciting details.

Normal

Yes, I hope we see some wedding photos soon.
And thanks for posting the talented Hungarian
dancer/story tellers. Hope we see more of their art.

belladonnis

I have not been here in a very long time! Congratulations Baulder! So good to see such joyfull news!

clorophilla

thank Lizzi for your post - very moving!

Belladonnis - how long! miss your art!

Baldur - congrats!!!

Baldur

Thank you everyone for the congratulations.
After some delay here comes the wedding saga.

Same sex marriage became legal here in RI this past August. The rush for all the longterm gay couples to get married was on.
Robert and I have been together for 18 years, that was a very long engagement.
In truth we never foresaw the world changing enough that we could get legally married.
Rhode first passed a domestic partners bill a few years ago. It was not at all well received. The local gay community fought for the right for full marriage status. It was anounced on the news that something like only a dozen couples took advantage of the domestic partner arrangement.
There was no parity with what heterosexual couples were receiving as benefits in terms of taxes, property ownership status, health benefit sharing and visitation rights in times of medical duress.
It remains a sad fact of life thay even in long term relationships,without a legal document you can be stopped from even visiting (let alone make medical decisions for) a loved one in the hospital if some blood relative decides they don't recognize your lifestyle.

In truth many hospitals are more compassionate than family members in such scenarios and will do whatever possible to help.

Baldur

Segue forward.

Robert proposed to me. Baldur said yes.
We wanted to get married as soon as possible before someone found a way to delegalize it. This happened in California but was happily found unconstitutional. Nonetheless speed was of the esscence.

Baldur wanted his son's family to fly in to attend. A call was made and they began arranging vacation time and airline tickets. A date was chosen based mainly on their availability.
The wedding day was just 6 weeks away!

We decided on a small affair and began a whirlwind planning session.
In just 6 weeks the task was to:

Find a church and minister
Secure a venue or caterer
Choose a menu
Invite guests
Get a marriage license
Select the flowers
Choose and get wedding rings
Decide on clothing
Make wedding favors (a last minute decision)

Baldur

We live in a small rural town without a mayor. Instead there is a town administrator.
Robert called her asking about what needed to be done.
She explained the marriage license process and added that the Unitarian Church on the town common was happy to perform same sex marriages and had gone out of their way to facilitate things
Robert thanked Mrs. Administrator and called the Church.

Incidentally both of us were raised Roman Catholic, there was no possibility of a wedding there. They were the staunchest opponents of allowing such marriages. We are probably automatically excommunicated at this point, we are awaiting our 'suitable-for-framing' excommunication certificate.

In any case the Unitarian Church was indeed very pleasant and helpful, but not available on our selected date. They were booked.
We needed to find other arrangements, and quickly.

Baldur

Robert went online and found a resource site for same sex weddings, which listed Ministers happy to perform the service.
He contacted 2 of them.
Both were willing to perform the ceremony either at Boughbreak or at a restaurant/function hall.
Oddly there was a very large discrepency in the amount each charged for the ceremony. Neither was an out of reach figure but we decided to meet with the least expensive one.
Bingo, we both loved her immediately. Reverend Remi was quite charming.
At her home she gave me pages and pages of printouts of vows and a magic marker.
Baldur had made it clear that he had no desire to write his own vows. No no no no no. I'd been to many weddings and cringed through what the bride and groom were babbling about. Tried and true was the way for me.

I crossed out acres of text. In the end the ceremony would take less than 3 minutes, including her greeting and welcoming the guests.

Baldur

As charming as our home Boughbreak would be as a wedding location I knew realistically that I did not want to be setting up folding chairs and ironing tablecloths on my wedding day...especially with my 2 year old grandson Kanye running around.
We began a search for a venue.
There were several obstacles, one being the small size of the wedding, the other being the short notice.
Most wedding halls want a minimum of 35 guests, we invited 18.
Finding a hall that wasn't booked was proving a challenge.

I'll narrow it down to the final 2 choices.
We had hoped for a place the next town over that has a huge wedding hall and a smaller function room. We went to dinner and the hostess was very nice. The smaller function room was already booked but they had yet another room that we hadn't known about.
It was to say the least nasty, a small dark windowless room at the end of a basement corridor.
There was not enough bunting and floral garland in the world to make the place attractive. We thanked her and moved on.

The next restaurant also had a function room that was much larger than we could use, but we went to dine there anyway.
They had a regular dining room above the function hall that was quite nice, but coincidentally the hostess sat us in a small room off the main one. It was separated from the larger room by French doors , had a large fieldstone fireplace and windows overlooking beautifully groomed pine woods.
Baldur counted 6 tables each set for 4 guests, this room was perfect. We asked to speak with the manager.

He was immediately very excited saying it would be their first same sex wedding. He also told us that they rent out the smaller room all the time for parties. They could easily accomodate us and it was available on the date we wanted.

bugoy1

Wow!

It sounds like you've been crazy busy. I'm glad you were able to find a way to make your intimate ceremony work.

I believe that years from now the next generation will read stories like this and wonder how people could justify baring loving people from marriage. Times are changing quickly. That's a good thing. Even here in Utah there are signs of gradual acceptance. It won't be that long even here. The Mormon church is slowly backing off their hard line stance. I expect them to do like they did with the priesthood and black men.

Anyway, congratulations! I hope that you have a chance to rest up from your last few frantic weeks.

Normal

So happy to see some wedding narrative, at last! Very best wishes to you and Robert for many wedded years ahead. Sounds as though things fell into order and went well for your ceremony and celebration.

InTheOcean

I'm glad things worked out. Back here in the island state, the same-sex marriage bill is not quite legalized yet; it's on its way. (http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/hawaii-senate-vote-gay-marriage-20859216 this link was literally posted 3 minutes ago)

Baldur

The restaurant also had a small outdoor wedding grotto. It basically was a tiny rose arbor with a few little shrubberies on each side, the whole arrangement sitting on a bed of pine needles at the edge of the woods.
Very pretty but not practical for a late October wedding in Rhode Island.
Potentially it could have snowed, most likely the weather would be blustery and cold.
There was also going to be at least one guest arriving by wheelchair. It was much easier to keep everything on smooth solid flooring.

The menu.
Baldur is a vegetarian, however I did not expect everyone else to go meatless. My daughter in law doesn't eat a lot of animal protein, my daughter gets squeamish around meat with bones still in it.
Robert just doesn't eat vegetables. He might eat a few peas or a tiny amount of corn, beyond that none at all. Well unless they are in soup.
He loves mushrooms however, go figure.
There would be 4 diabetics in attendance and 3/4 of one family of 4 has a severe tree nut allergy and bad reactions to cherries was well.

We settled on the family style roasted chicken dinner. This is somewhat of a local Rhode Island traditional choice. 3 guests, myself included, would have eggplant parmigiani in place of the chicken.
The manager cautioned me that their eggplant had meat in its tomato sauce. Oh bother. Why would they do that? It was the only menu choice that vegetarians could eat. Vegans were completely out of luck.
He assured me that all the tomato sauce served to our party would be made meatless.
Of course I had just eaten an order of the dead animal contaminated version before chatting with him. But anyway....
Chicken/Eggplant it was.
We could then each pick and choose among the other items on the table.

The cerermony was to be at noon, the dinner at 1pm
Robert requested that they put out cheese and crackers for guests to nibble on in the interim, as the ceremony was to be quite brief.
We also wanted a champagne toast.
I specifically did not want an open bar, I asked for pitchers of soft drinks to be provided as needed. The bar would be open in the next room. If any guest had to have something else they could wander over and get it.
The wedding cake would come from elsewhere and be delivered that morning.
So after all the wrangling the menu was chosen:


Champagne
Cheese and Crackers
Italian Chicken Soup
Garden Salad
Hot Rolls and Hot Cinnamon Sticky Buns
Roasted Chicken (Eggplant Parmigiani)
Penne with Marinara Sauce
French Fries
Coffee
Wedding Cake
Vanilla Ice Cream