If you're coming to this site/blog/whatever for the first time, it's probably because you just received our wedding invitation.

So, hi, gang!

Anyway, we sent out our invitations almost exactly six weeks before the blessed event (and according to the experts, they're supposed to go out six to eight weeks before), but we'd planned on doing it a few weeks earlier. But it didn't occur to us how insanely difficult it might be to a) make your own invititations and b) make your own high-concept invitations. You will notice that the invitations are one piece of paper perforated into three. The perforation turned out to be the hard part. Who knew? Considering the over-abundance of perforated response cards in the modern life, you'd think it would be easy to make one of your own. But nooooo. Kinko's cannot perforate half-pages--they either bisect or they don't -sect at all. The first perforator I bought was a piece of crap. It didn't make straight lines. Then I went back and got a bigger, better perforator, and everything was good with the world. But then we had to fold, add stickers, address the thingamajobs, and stick on the stamps.

Um...wait...this may be boring. When I told a client of mine about the so-called "invitation fiasco," he responded, "I am curious to hear about the wedding invitation fiasco, but not curious enough to ask."

Well, no one asked. But now you know. Ha.

Because there aren't any "rules" for gay weddings, we get to do whatever we want. And that means we can have a shower and bachelor parties. (Don't worry. There won't be any pictures of the latter. Unless, of course, it is true that Rob's will be held at American Doll, as the rumor has it. Then there will be LOTS of pictures.) Anyway, Ted's old roommates Cat and Liz threw us a shower on June 18. Their evite called the event "Ted & Rob: Chaotic." We hope that we don't end up like the folks in show that they referenced.

Here are the hostesses:

They made us wear silly shirts and tiaras.


Ted is drinking Scotch out of a shot glass made to look like the Greek deli coffee cups. Ha. In addition to lots of liquor, Liz and Cat made lots of excellent, tasty food. The recipes ended up in the gift they and their hubbies gave us, a recipe book that we registered for. Rob was especially excited:

The gals made us play a fascinating game involving our shoes. We took them off, and we each held one of our own and own of each other's. We stood back to back and Liz asked us questions like "Who makes a bigger mess in the bathroom?" and "Whose blog gets more hits?" and "Who dresses better?" We each raised the shoe of person (Ted or Rob) who is messier, more popular among the blog-readers, and nattier. Etc. Some of the questions were less, uh, family friendly. This is a pic of us raising Ted's shoes after the messy bathroom question. Or possibly it was, "Who's the daddy?"

Then we opened presents. Whee!

Frank and Audrey gave us coconuty cups.

We can't remember what was in this box. But it wasn't Pam.

Aaron and Vestal gave us salad spoons.

Here's Aaron talking to Liz. He seems very surprised.

They also gave us some books about bears.

David and Trent gave us some, um, dirty gifts. Including TWO Guys Gone Wild DVDs. Whee!

And a vibrating black thing. Heh.

This was one of the best cards--an actual gay wedding card. Apparently, these are hard to find.

While the gifts were being opened, two of the guests (Stuart and Aaron) were busy with the wrapping paper.

Amazing!

Here's us with the geniuses.

First Trent and then David wanted to wear the hats, too.


Look! Men kissing!

After the hat excitement died down, Jason (of Liz and Jason) and Kristabelle (of Amy and Kristabelle) started their ukelele duets, and we had a great sing-a-long. Please note that in this picture Jason is playing a guitar.

A great time was had by all.

The original idea was that we would go up to Boston for the weekend, use the state's lovely nuptial situation to get legally married before the wedding, see some pals, and then get home in time for the latest episode of "The 4400." But it turns out that in order to get married in the State of Massachusetts you have to be a resident of the State of Massachusetts--or plan on being one. Now, it would be rather easy to "plan" on being such a resident. I plan on getting tenure at Harvard. So there! But in addition to having your mind set on it you have to swear under oath that your planning to move to the State of Massachusetts. And we're not, so it would be lying, not to mention perjury, or whatever lying to the City Clerk would be. So, we're going to get a piece of paper in Canada.

Anyway, back to the story, written in photo chapters because the blogger formatting is wacky.

After a quick and easy drive from New York to Cambridge with Liz and Jason, we met our minister, Tiffany, and her husband, Josh, at one of my aunt and uncle's restaurants, Cambridge Common. They were exhausted from marching in Boston Pride--Tiff is the pastor at Cambridge Welcoming Ministries--but they took showers and trucked over to meet Rob and me, all smiley and ready for beer.


We love that our first meeting with our minister was over Bass and Hoegaarden. Obviously, Tiffany's on the right. Josh, her lovely husband, is also in the biz. He's studying towards his Master's in whatever it is you need to be Master of to be ordained.

We chatted about rituals and homilies and readings and high school. We also talked about church politics and Josh and Tiffany's puppy adoptions.

Tiffany and I have known each other since we were 12. We went to junior high and high school together. We were both huge nerds enormously cool super-geniuses, and we ran for Class Treasurer together with the slogan, "T-n-T for T!" Oh, what fun. Tiffany was the head cheerleader then; now she's a radical feminist theologian. I'm so happy that she's doing our wedding!

That night, Rob and I went to dinner with my old roommates and their spouses. I lived with Liz and Michelle the summer after my junior year; we were all working at Let's Go.


They're married now. Not to each other. Michelle is married to Jake, and Liz is married to Jason.

Jason is in the next pic, which from the car ride up:


Jake can be seen behind Rob:


Cat, seen here with her husband Kurt, lived with Liz and Jason and me in New York right after college. Are they cute, seen here with "Peanut":


Ah, to be in our early mid-20s in the Upper West Side. Good times. Good times. Actually, it was darn great. We were like a family. Now everyone's having babies and buying houses. Well, not Rob and I. We're just getting married and moving to San Diego. Babies...well, they're kinda far from our mind. Anyway, we all had a great time at dinner.

Afterward, at around 10:30 or so, we went outside, where it was still 94 degrees, and the four former Upper West Siders posed.


They look great. I look like a freak. Then we went for drinks. That didn't last long, and we were all asleep by 1am. The next morning, we had brunch with Liz and Jason and Jake and Michelle and special guest stars, Hendrik and Laura!

I don't get to see my brother and future sis-in-law often enough, so it was especially awesome to see them. Here they are:


They gave Rob and me two mix CDs of love songs that they made especially for us; we groved to the tunes all the way back to New York. Before we left, though, we posed for more pictures. There's one of Hendrik and me. Again, I look awful. Hendrik looks great.


And here's one of Rob and Hendrik: