#15. Wedding Day (Saturday, May 12, 2018)
What was your best day…of taking part in someone else’s special day?
In case this needed any clarification, this is not my wedding day; but that of my close friend and colleague Aaron Brookbank (#34). But, given how excited I had been to attend my first ever wedding at twenty-seven years old, it may as well have been mine as well.
I also had a pretty good day leading up to this one. Two days earlier, at my institution’s annual employee conference, I won one of three Innovation awards for this project I did the previous year, where I took an internal model and did a bunch of stuff (mainly prettifying the code and navigating the legal technicalities of open source licensing) so that it could be shared publicly on GitHub. Fernando (#115, the research director who supervised me) and Nora (an in-house lawyer who I consulted heavily for all the open source stuff) won the award with me; and we all received shiny glass trophies and got to shake hands with the head of our institution. Just on its own, that should’ve been one of the best days of my life.
But all of that was overshadowed by my pure anticipation for what was coming next. I was finally going to be attending a wedding. An actual wedding. One my friends had decided that he wanted me to be there for the most important day of his life. How could this not be the greatest thing ever?
And so, Saturday comes.
That evening, Aaron Brookbank is getting married to Joanna Mahindra. It’s being held at the Museum of History1, where everything in the main atrium save for the totem poles has been replaced by a lavish dining space. The moment I enter, I’m just super-hyped and jump into a conversation with the one old guy who arrived before me, this wild blueberry farmer from Aaron’s Nova Scotia hometown2 who’s probably never seen any stranger that excited about the blueberry business.
A lot of Aaron’s credit analyst colleagues – Shawn Hausler, Jagmeet, Dennis, and Andrew (#53) – are there, plus some of our other close co-worker friends like Mathieu Remillard (#110, #55), Shawn Capella, and Jean-Pierre. Naturally, I’m the only dateless one3. The whole thing is about a hundred people.
When we all get to the makeshift chapel room, I get my one stupid action out of the way early. By sitting on the bride’s side of the chapel – I didn’t know that was a thing – because I just made a friend with the maid of honor’s fiance (who looked lonely and bored out of his mind4).
From there, it’s all a typical non-stop enjoyable experience. I see the whole wedding thing live for the first time. During the post-wedding mixer, I introduce myself to at least twenty different people. I have dinner at the same table as a bunch of my colleagues and their dates, and we have a raucous time (mainly courtesy of Mathieu) through the speeches and the “Who wore it best?” photo slideshow.
It’s open bar. We do shots once with Aaron. Then, for several hours, we drink a lot and I dance a lot. Just like all those others times at the bars and at the nightclubs; except this special setting somehow makes the whole thing feel simultaneously more unrestrained and more legitimate.
Man, weddings are awesome.
- Renamed from the much cooler-sounding Museum of Civilization (#98).
- Aaron and his brother also owned a blueberry business.
- Technically. Hausler designated Andrew as his “date” so that he could be sure to sit beside at least one person he knew for dinner.
- After the reception, the maid of honor does thank me for making friends with him.