So, a couple weeks ago, after work on Friday I suddenly found myself on a little airplane heading west.

(I love pictures from airplanes, in case you didn’t know.)

The plane spirited me and Kristina to Buffalo, New York, where we were going to attend the wedding of Brendon Boyle and Kristen Carbone. This was a big thing not only because Brendon and Kristen are two of my best friends, but because this was the first of my friends to get married. I’ve been to a few weddings, and I’ve seen people get married, but I’ve never been to a wedding where I could remember sitting next to the groom five years ago, when I first saw his bride-to-be. (”Dude, your RA is hot.” Said I. “I know.” Said he.) That sort of thing significantly changes the way you think of a wedding, and I was pretty excited about this one. I’m a commitment junkie (or if you ask Kristina, “serial monogamist”), so that wasn’t very shocking. Still, Kristina and I flew in and checked in to our absurd hotel room. This hotel room was larger more lavish than my apartment by a long shot. I’m talking about a King bed and in bedroom jacuzzi. Look, it takes nine pictures just to show it!

After a late barbecue dinner, and an even later round of Buffalo wings at Kristin’s grandmother’s house, it was time for bed. The next morning was a groggy affair, but by 2pm everyone managed to get all dressed up and head over to the church for the wedding.

The lovely Kristen and her lovely father. I wish my pictures at the wedding had been better, but what can you do? You only get one shot at these things, and a dim church is a hard place to take the perfect picture of someone walking by you.

“This is my only daughter - if I ever hear that she is not completely happy, you’re a dead man, Boyle.”
“Yes sir, Mr. Carbone. I won’t let you down, sir.”

So, the priest told a long and meandering tale in which he forgot Brendon’s name, vows were made, things were said, and poof, the kids were married! Somewhat difficult to believe, but I guess that’s life.

This is the Good Feelings Picture for November 9th, 2006. Happy times.

Brendon and Kristen went on to be the centers of attention for the rest of the evening, I found myself looking for other photographic subjects. I settled on Matt, with his dashing suit and silly faces. In looking back over my wedding photos, I realize that I took as many pictures of Matt as I did of Brendon. Whoops. Either way, my pictures of Matt are some of my favorites, so here is a sampling from immediately after the ceremony.

Matt and Laura, his lovely lady. Matt looks like a statue in this picture.

Interesting story: As we descended into Buffalo, I was looking out the window and couldn’t really understand what I was seeing. It looked like all of Buffalo was covered in sparkling yellow lights. Every street, parking lot, and store was surrounded by flashes of yellow, and the lights were so dense that coming down through the clouds it looked like the center of Buffalo was shimmering. I couldn’t figure out what I was seeing until we landed and drove to the hotel. Buffalo had just recently been hit with a freak wet snowstorm, and the snow and ice had caused almost 200 million dollars in damage, and had cut off power in all of Buffalo for a while. What I was seeing were the utility trucks, parked on every street and at every downed power line, working 24 hours a day to fix the wires. Trucks had come from five states, and the effect of all their lights seen from the air was this yellow shimmering. In the background of this picture, you can see part of the repair effort.

What a bunch of classy, sassy friends I have! Rock on, Kristina.

After the post-wedding hors d’oeuvres, we went home, put on our dancing shoes, and then made our ways to the reception. The reception was awesome, the food was good, everyone was happy, and the music was perfect. The last bit on that list is not very surprising because Brendon (Mr. Music) picked every single song that was to be played, and then forbade the DJ from deviating from the playlist. Requests were of course forbidden. If it were anyone but Brendon, this would be the recipe for disaster, but in this case, the music was perfect.

I don’t remember what the music was for the first dance of the evening, but chances are it was perfect.

Another funny thing from the evening. Maybe you noticed the man who appears to be holding a walkman in the air in the last photo. He is actually the (really intense) photographer’s husband, and he is holding the second flash. His job is to stand off to the side a bit, and hold the flash in the air. That is kind of a crappy job, if you ask me, but that’s why I’m not doing it. Here are a couple more of the flash man.

Looks like fun, right?

If you ever click through my friends blogs on the right, perhaps you have ended up at Lena’s blog. If you have, you know it is probably one of the funniest websites in the world. If not, you should probably go right now. This picture is to commemorate a meeting of great blogging minds at Brendon’s wedding. Actually, I have no idea who took this picture. There are a lot of pictures from the wedding that are taken by a mystery photographer.

So the wedding was great, wonderful, everything you could hope for. I think everyone who went had a great time, and the only disappointment is that Brendon and Kristen probably won’t get married again, which means we won’t be able to have such an awesome party again for a while. Too bad.