wedding carnage

Lordy what a day. Me and twenty or so of my sisters (including my pals Sue, Carol, Deb and Holly) all got hitched to our cousins yesterday. Sadly, not a single groom lived to see his wedding night: "there's been a slaughter here". Blood all over the field. Now i know what it must've been like to be a maenad.

No, no, sade hasn't finally gone off the deep end and lived up to my namesake. This was all in the spirit of fun. And Theater. Acting. Thank You. Big Love (no relation to the show) opens in two weeks. Even if we *wanted* to have fifty brides and grooms onstage, as implied in the script, the Liminis just isn't that big - so we added a virtual cast of extras.

And what a hoot! We had around two dozen couples, guys in suits and girls in everything from full wedding gowns to bridal nightgowns to white cocktail gowns to oh hell, any old white dress will do! We got hitched - against *our* feminine wills, i might add - by a priest of indeterminate denomination. We had a big fat (authentic) Greek wedding dance. A few lucky couples got to cut the lovely cake, which was gaily trimmed with blood-red roses. A few more couples got in on it for a full-on food fight. We all drank (faux) shots and danced again, which turned into a mosh pit; and then a ridiculously fun pile-up, everyone on top of everyone else.

Alas after that those poor brave fellows were butchered. We had so much blood flying around that field, our cameraman had to stop and wipe his lens coz he couldn't see what he was shooting! Every bride had a different weapon - a couple grooms were just knifed but the rest fell to any tool we could find. Crowbar, hack- and handsaw (both weilded by the same vengeful bride), ax, etc. i chopped mine up with a machete. Mark got screwed to death with a big old shoulder-brace drill. Big Daddy had his hand lopped off by a kitana, and Shawn had both his arm and foot sawed off. There were body parts strewn everywhere, and gore-spattered brides laughing and carrying on despite the carnage.

When it was all over, we had cake for everyone and hosed sticky, bloody participants down on the sidewalk. Several of the blood-soaked brides and their reanimated corpse husbands went down to the Tap House for Bloody Marys. i had to pass on that as i was helping finish cleaning up - amazingly, the dummy cake parts all survived; tho they're a little worse for wear. Haven't quite figured out how i'm going to clean those for our gracious cake baker Dee - maybe she knows some trade secrets?

It was tiring being out in the sun all afternoon, and then i went and jumped in my friend's pool and lazed around for an hour after; so by nighttime i was preeeetty well worn out. Was supposed to spin at the Duck but i didn't really consider how much this would take out of me - well, it wasn't clear that i was even going to BE a bride until the last minute. Originally the shoot was going to be Saturday, but it stormed Sat morning and we were concerned about the cameras in the rain - not to mention that even once it stopped, it would have been MUDDY, and slippery, and really humid on top of hot. This way worked out better, but some people (like Sarah, who had a matinee show at Bang and Clatter) had conflicts and couldn't make it Sunday. Fortunately she and i apparently wear the same size in wedding dresses, so it all worked out.

Curiously enough, by Sunday evening several of our unfortunate intended seem to have gotten the Frankenstein jolt, so there were a few zombie grooms spotted wandering around Tremont. i ran into a couple undead at Corissa's CD release, which seems to have drawn at least half the population of Tremont down to Lucky's. It was a beautiful evening for that too - nights have been balmy, warm enough to be outside but not *hot*, and everyone was enjoying the lovely night on their patio. Only after writing this did i realize this was our midsummer gather, or perhaps the last one in a week or so of festivity. Not Last One Evar sort of thing, more like a peak that brought everyone out like an old-time church supper.

i love being able to be part of what is functionally a small town where everyone knows everyone else - but its not like oh, there's old drunk Otis from down the block, and here comes Charlie, we all know he's a little nuts, and don't let Zeke catch you talkin to his old lady or he'll bust your face. Instead its all artists and musicians and creative people; and when we all get together like we did tonight, the energie generated is, well, really positive. Not trying to say there's never any drama - in a small town, everybody knows everybody else's business. But on the whole people are really open and supportive of each other, even if any one person's thing may not be your particular cup of kombucha. i'm honored to be counted a part of that, a village elder.

And that, my good people, is how i spent this lovely Sunday in July. i hope you all got to or will get to do something equally as uplifting with one of your summer Sundays. This has been one of those days i'll happily look back on the rest of my life.