Dolly + Zeb

Saturday morning I got up, leisurely sipped my tea, and then finished making a pasta salad and a goofy-but-cute card.

It was a typical Oregon April day, chilly and drizzly, and it was the day of Dolly and Zeb’s wedding. Well, their reception, rather. They like to do things their own unique way, so only their parents and closest friends attended their wedding ceremony Friday.

But the next day, Saturday, they hosted a large reception full of family, friends, fun, and food.

I intended to post Saturday, so I had an idea that I’d take notes on their reception as I was experiencing it. As you’ll come to discover, things didn’t quite go according to plan. Nevertheless, here’s how the day went for me.

11:06 am – Ben and I arrived. At this point the reception had been going on for about an hour, but it was a pretty casual, come-and-go-as-you-feel-like-it reception.

Zeb was wearing a kilt. Dolly was dressed as a woodland fairy. At least, that’s what I thought she looked like with the hand-crocheted green lace on her dress and the mushrooms in her garland.

Fun fact: Mom made the wedding dress. Didn’t she do a beautiful job? The lace was crocheted by Zeb’s mom.

The photographer was a friend of mine, and she showed me the way to the kitchen to drop of the pasta salad I’d brought, and then showed me pictures of Friday’s ceremony on her camera.

Instead of having a coffee bar like you might expect at a wedding reception, Dolly and Zeb had a tea table with a carafe of hot water and a large selection of black, green, and herbal tea!

Glorious.

Here’s a photo of my tea, as well as the table centerpieces. The treasure chests were full of chocolate coins.

This was the “fun and games” portion of the day, where guests played Twister, Dutch Blitz, and cornhole. Only most guests, myself included, just chatted.

There’s always so many people to chat with at a wedding. Distant relatives you haven’t seen in a while. Neighbors who haven’t seen you in a while. Friends of friends you like to catch up with occasionally.

11:48 am – My friend Sarah Beth arrived. With her living in Oklahoma and me in Texas, we don’t see each other often, and it was great to catch up.

We took a selfie together, which of course is terrible quality, but luckily enough we had an “in” with the photographer (she’s Sarah Beth’s sister) so there’s a nice photo of us too, out there somewhere on someone else’s memory card.

This is the face Sarah Beth’s son Leonel made when she told him to smile for the camera, haha.

12:12 pm – Time for food! I snapped a picture of Zeb and Dolly praying while my cousin Tristan tried to fix the mushroom centerpiece that Leonel had destroyed.

Dolly’s dad, Darrell, provided the meat, while the sides were brought by guests, potluck-style.

I was going to make you guess which of those sides I brought, but then remembered I told you earlier in this post that I’d brought pasta salad.

1:05 pm – Cake cutting time!

I’m starting to feel pretty embarrassed by the poor quality of these photographs. I have a nice camera, I just never bother to use it. I’ve been thinking, though, that I really should learn to take better pictures. So if you have any free online photography courses or challenges to recommend I’m all ears!

By this time, the table I was sitting at had filled up with a random assortment of cousins and friends. But then, at 1:10 pm, my friend Ashlie showed up. It was the first time I’d seen Ashlie since arriving back in Oregon, and since it was the day before her due date, she was very pregnant.

There wasn’t much room at our table, so I swapped tables to sit with her.

A bit later I glanced at Ashlie and saw that she appeared to be in pain, breathing deeply with a determined grimace. My eyes widened. “Contraction?” I asked her.

She nodded.

It was happening! The baby was coming! “How far apart are they?” I asked excitedly.

She smiled at my childless ignorance. “I haven’t started timing them yet,” she said.

I checked my watch anyway. It was 1:12 pm.

The contraction ended, she relaxed, and we resumed normal conversation. A bit later, another wave of pain hit her. I looked at my watch again. 1:16 pm.

“That was four minutes!” I exclaimed. I don’t know much about childbirth, but I thought four minutes seemed awfully close together.

“This was just a little one,” she said, already over it.

Coincidently, the new table was at the perfect spot to watch the next part of the festivities, and we were soon joined by Dolly’s parents, brother, and dog.

1:17 pm – Dolly and Zeb showed the video of Zeb proposing. There was no sound, so Dolly narrated it, which was fantastic.

Then they repeated the vows they’d said at their ceremony the day before.

After the vows, several people were asked to pray for the couple or give speeches, and then it was open mic time.

It’s hard for me to resist an open mic.

1:43 pm – I walked to the mic and told a story. Here’s the basic gist of what I said.

Hi, I’m Dolly’s cousin Emily. I work for Dolly’s dad Darrell in the summers, driving combine, and Dolly would often ride with me and tell me about various boys in her life. But she always insisted that Zeb was just a friend.

Then, about a year-and-a-half ago, I was taking a 12-hour road trip one day, and I asked my friends to send me long podcast-like WhatsApp messages to pass the time. And Dolly sent me these loooooong messages…it must have been over an hour of messages altogether.

Anyway, she was all in a dither about Zeb. He was giving her these mixed signals, and she just didn’t know if he liked her or not, or what was going on with him.

So I messaged her back and added my two cents. I said that from her description of his actions, it really seemed like he liked her, but he probably did not want to date her at the moment.

But then I said, “You know, you can always just ask him!”

And to my surprise, since people don’t usually take my romantic advice, she did just ask him! And she messaged me back to say that I was pretty much right—he liked her but wasn’t ready to date her at the moment.

But then a few months went by, and they talked about their feelings and figured it out, and pretty soon they were dating.

So I’m sure they would have still gotten together without my help, but I’d just like to take a weeeee bit of credit.

Anyway, I’m so glad it worked out. I love you two and I’m excited for your future!

People seemed to appreciate the story.

Back at the table, Ashlie continued having contractions. They seemed awfully intense and frequent to inexperienced little me. When she got up and walked off a bit later, I followed, thinking this is it. We’re delivering a baby at this wedding.

But it wasn’t it, of course. She just needed to stand up for a bit, as sitting was painful.

2:02 pm – Photo hour. Dolly and Zeb stood by the wedding trellis and we took pictures with them. I don’t have any photo evidence of this because, again, the pictures are all on Lois Sophia’s memory card.

Ben had already left at this point, and my parents were acting like they were about ready to leave, too. I’d originally planned to go home and rest for a while before heading up to Ashlie’s place to hang out with her and some of our friends, but now it seemed she might be having a baby instead.

Still, she was completely nonchalant, telling me her address and how to find her house. “Are you sure you want to have a party while you’re having contractions?” I asked.

“If they’re just as bad as they are now, it will be fine,” she said. “If they get worse, I’ll cancel it.”

2:30 pm – I left Dolly and Zeb’s reception with my parents and my leftover pasta salad.

4:52 pm – Ashlie canceled the party.

6:28 pm – I headed over to our barn loft to eat wedding leftovers with Dolly’s aunts and uncles (my dad’s cousins). They’d rented our loft for the weekend.

8:30 pm – Ashlie headed to her birth clinic.

Sunday, 8:46 am – I woke up, drank my tea, and texted Ashlie asking if there was any news. She did not respond.

Sunday, 10:00 am – Baby Oliver was born!

Thus, this weekend included a wedding and a birth. I’d say it was a momentous occasion.

Also: Oliver is the first baby I’ve known to be born exactly on his due date. Maybe it’s happened to other friends and I’ve forgotten, but usually it seems like babies never manage to arrive precisely on the date.

Finally: I wrote most of this post on Saturday and fully intended to post then, but first I wanted to make sure Ashlie was okay with me announcing the birth of her son to the wide web.

I feel like I should end this with an adorable picture but I’m not meeting baby until tomorrow! Keep an eye out on Instagram though.

The April Blogging Challenge is almost completed! Tomorrow, Ben will post the last post over on Mom’s blog.