The gift table at the wedding.

The Tuesday between our flight and our return to work, we spent gathering all our wedding stuff back from our parents' houses. First, a trip to my mom's for the gifts. She warned me that we should use her minivan to take them all. But we stubbornly didn't want to make two trips, so we managed to cram every last gift into Thomas' little Toyota Celica sports car. We had our seats pushed far forward, and gifts piled to the roof of the hatchback. I even had gifts piled in my lap!

Then we went to Thomas' mom's house to get our guestbook and miscellaneous ceremony items. Lastly, we picked up the leftover centerpiece materials, aisle bows, and -- most importantly -- the disposable cameras from his dad's house. I secretly worried that not all the film had been used on the disposable cameras, and was relieved to see that only one camera had any pix left (and just five at that). We gathered up all our honeymoon film (four rolls, an underwater camera, and a panoramic camera), and took all this wedding-related film to Safeway to get developed. 18 rolls total! We got Kodak's website service for everything, so we can get pix online fast.

After getting groceries and starting dinner, we began opening our wedding gifts. Wow, what a crazy experience! It's like a mega-Xmas with loads of sweet sentiment attached. We'd open a card and get all mushy from the lovely words, then open a gift and get all excited about how we could use the item. Fun!

Probably 90% of our gifts were from one of our registries. The Target registry was the only one with repeat gifts -- a half-dozen or so duplicated items, including one item that was duplicated three times. The non-registry items were mostly things very similar to what we'd registered for, though we did get a couple really odd objects d'art. We are set for life with candles and candleholders (good thing we really like 'em!). Got quite a bit of the camping gear we'd registered for at Target, so we're already planning trips for this summer. Received some random pieces of china in our pattern (but not always pieces we'd registered for). Got a couple of checks and some Macy's gift cards (I suspect that's because our Macy's registry was bought out first, and people can't always make the trip to another store; fine by us!).

I was impressed by how so many people wrapped their gifts with an eye to our tastes. None of the gift-wraps were outright gothic, but many were a lovely blend of darkly romantic sensibilities with typical wedding styles. Black and white rose print paper, black ribbons around crisp white paper, soft purple ribbons in abundance, baroque gold and black designs, glittery silver and white. So much prettier than pastels.

We had a couple cards that fell off gifts, but we think we deduced what was from whom. Just a little tip to anyone giving wedding gifts -- include a tag or card inside the gift box/bag, or write your name on the gift box/bag somewhere. Either that, or tape your card on very, very securely to a large flat surface of the gift box. If you lessen the chances of your gift being unidentified, you'll get a thank-you note faster ;-)

After all the gifts, we read our guestbook. I'd made an archival-quality scrapbook with pictures of us throughout our lives and from our eight years together. Around the pictures were quotes about love, romance, and friendship, and there was lots of space left blank for people to write in. Scott and Kelly were in charge of getting people to sign the book and to write something more than just their names, and they did a fabulous job.

The resulting guestbook is awesome! Most everyone really took some time to say something meaningful to us. Some people shared a memory of times we've spent together, some people wrote of their wishes for our future. Some people wrote under pictures of them and us together. Some people signed in a couple of places, saying different things that fit the mood of the different pages. Some people wrote jokes, some people did calligraphy, some people wrote in spiral patterns, some people wrote all around the edges of the pages. It was really touching to read this book, and both of us got very choked up. This was definitely worth the effort. I plan to expand it into a whole wedding scrapbook, once I have pictures.

Lastly, we watched our wedding video. We had our own video camera on a tripod in the back of the ceremony room, and our friend and audio/video specialist Rich ran it for us. On the video was the first time we really heard the San Jose String Quartet play, and we were *not* impressed. They botched two of Thomas' original pieces during the prelude, and they did an awful version of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (the recessional). The only piece they didn't totally screw up was the processional (another original work of Thomas'). That had been the only part we'd heard live, and it sounded good, although they played it too fast and it ended a bit too soon.

The sound quality of the actual ceremony was not great, since all the people talking were at the opposite end of the room. But we can still hear everything on the tape. Not to toot my own horn, but our ceremony is really beautiful. It's amazing to hear James read it too -- I know how a playwright must feel to first hear her written words take flight in the voice and skills of a good actor. James is a marvelous speaker, and the whole ceremony was a delight to watch.

The tape ends after the recessional, and the only regret I have about the wedding is that we did not have anyone take the video camera into the reception. I would have loved to have all the toasts on tape. Nothing else about the day would be that impressive on video, IMO, but the toasts would have been wonderful. Oh well, maybe one of the several digital video cameras in the crowd caught those moments!