The Welding

Here are the pictures from my recent trip to California to celebrate matrimony. I will try to explain them through the medium of captions. Here goes:

Arriving at the temple a few minutes late, we quickly stashed our cell phones and other valuables in the trunk of the car so as to protect them from marauding temple thieves.

The Oakland temple is pretty amazingly beautiful. I had forgotten how impressive palm trees are. Also, the temple had a neat carving of the last supper on one wall.

As we wait for the new couple to emerge from the temple, Christine gets a kick out of something while Rachel Gilman and Rachel Hamilton look on in amusement.

The bridesmaids. I was not invited to wear a blue dress.

I was however invited to look a bit goofy in front of the amazing view the temple has.

Dan took the opportunity to think about his upcoming marriage.

Finally Kimber and Julian show up in all their beauty. They really did look very good for the whole day. I especially am fond of Julian's waistcoat and tails. Also the matching flower is well done.

I like this picture.

And Julian likes closing his eyes in pictures.

Kimber with her mother and father. I like the hat.

This is at the wedding luncheon. I am already beginning to look a bit weary, and the food hasn't even been served!

Speaking of food, this is the spread at the reception, later that night. There was also a table entirely devoted to candy which people could take home in small Chinese-food-style carry out boxes.

Kimber and Julian get some last minute dance tips. I think he was telling them that if everything fails, "just write your name in cursive with your bum."

This is blurry, but it gives you an idea of the cake. It looked very nice, but I'm not sure we actually ate this one seeing as it looked pretty intact at the end of the night. They had chocolate and carrot sheetcakes they sliced up and I helped serve. I think people thought that I was the hired staff because of the bow-tie. It happens.

On our day off after the wedding we biked around Palo Alto. This was a little community garden we stopped by that was very lovely.

This is a totally awesome/creepy statue at the Stanford Art Museum. I can't remember the artist, but the piece is entitled "Slab Man". I was looking at another painting and thought it was just a repairman resting when I finally looked over and saw that he wasn't moving. It's amazingly lifelike and a bit disturbing to get up really close to. In the explanation on the wall the artist said that they were looking to explore the human body and the taboos surrounding staring.

Finally, the parrots. They are perched in this tree if you look real close. Click and enlarge to see a better version. You can even see one flying from the tree on the right to the center one.