The last of the guest posts . . . sniff

I'm not sure that anything I write here will be able to top what Daltongirl just did, but I'll do my best.

First off, I need to say that she gave me way too much credit. She also did not mention the part where I had sort of a hairball fit in the kitchen corner around 4:30pm, with the hissing and spitting. I was freaking out because I wasn't sure where to begin, and not all of the ingredients were there, and people were looking at me but I HAD NO ANSWERS!!!! But then people started arriving with the missing items and Ootsie Boodle got there (which is when the choirs of angels started singing) and it all started making more sense.

Everyone worked hard enough for 4 people. Ambrosia and Daltongirl and Jenny were wonderful, as was Cicada's family, and then all these other people turned up and started doing whatever was needed. Which was amazing. I heart Cicada's family and friends.

One of my favorite moments was when Ambrosia, Daltongirl, Jenny, and I got the giggles over some stupid thing, but then I choked on a grape, which turned the giggles into guffaws, and then Jenny got up all alarmed and had to do the doubled-over scissor-legged gripping-countertops stagger that is the I'm Going to Wet My Pants dance as she went out the back door looking for a bathroom or janitor's bucket. Then the entire Springville Museum was treated to unholy sound usually reserved for a horse whose leg has just broken and will be shortly put down. But no, it was just us laughing. Or, possibly, just me who sounded like that.

Then the moment arrived to get the food out there and start the show. Everything came together beautifully. I overheard people who just could not even believe their luck as they approached the buffet table all laden with goodness. The dessert table was a work of art in itself, as one of Cicada's cousins kept it stocked with beautifully arranged platters of truffles and baklava and Ferraro Rocher and Almond Roca and Belgian-chocolate-dipped cookies and I don't even know what else because now I'm wiping drool off the keyboard just remembering it. As Daltongirl restocked one of the many bread baskets, a girl we'd sat with at the wedding breakfast noticed her and asked, all stunned, "You cater, too?" Daltongirl smiled nicely and said that Costco was the real caterer and we were just helping. But I loved how the girl was just so blown away by Daltongirl's many talents, because that's how I feel about her pretty much all the time.

The Springville Art Museum really was a great place to hold it. Its a lovely building, the museum staff was really helpful and friendly, there was plenty of room for everyone, the kitchen was huge. People got to walk around and admire the artwork and (I hope) refrained from smearing food on any of it. Cicada and Murray had a great jazzy CD playing over the speakers, and the wedding favors were Canadian chocolate bars with a special Murray & Cicada wrapper slipped on over them. They had darling little girls carrying baskets around and offering them to the guests. Which, hi, having little girls walk up and hand you chocolate is pretty much the only way to improve upon an already-amazing party.

Cicada and Murray cut the wedding cake and fed the pieces to each other nicely. My favorite bit, though, was when a small piece of Cicada's cake fell down the front of her dress. Later Daltongirl asked if she'd managed to get that out. Cicada said she hadn't bothered, and would just leave it for when Murray got hungry later.

We handed out tiny glass vials of bubbles and lined the front door of the museum, blowing bubbles to send off the bride and groom.

Near the end of the night, the photographer came in to the kitchen to get a few pictures and said that it's so much nicer to photograph a beautifully styled wedding. Cicada and Murray's was one of the nicest ones she'd done in a very long time. Darn straight it was. No clever camera angles to hide the basketball hoop here, thank you very much.

When it was time to clean up, there was still sooo much food left over, and the Cicada family pressed us all to take whatever we could carry. So I made off with two shopping bags of gourmet food items. Thinking back on how amazing it all was, I'm really kicking myself for not taking more.

And now back to your regularly scheduled blogger!