(more evidence I was never meant to be a pro photog…)

This post took a while to get to, huh?

I am playing the sick card, because my lungs are still awash with grossness like a leaky basement. Complete with a rusty tricycle lodged near my bronchioles.

BUT.

For those of you playing along at home, you’ve heard the tales of our arduous journey to the North, and our blissful, yet icy time in the Snow Chapel watching Sean and Carey get hitched.

After all that, we had a reception. Or they did. I just went to it. And spoke at it. And danced at it.

But before I say anything else, I have to tell you about the thing that happened at said reception that has never happened before.

My parents? They danced.

Dude.

Now, a lot of you may have immediately jumped to the conclusion that there’s some sort of sinister reason my parents don’t dance. Perhaps you’ve referenced the fact that my dad is a minister and tied this reality to the classically Baptist disdain for booty shaking.

In fact, many Baptists fear the booty shaking so deeply that the old adage “dancing leads to sex” is reversed… because it’s way worse to be caught doing the watusi in some den of iniquity than to get knocked up in the back of a Chev.

Okay, not really, but I love that paragraph.

My parents’ friends dance. My parents’ children dance. In fact, their parents dance. It’s not an issue for them. It’s just that my mom can’t even really clap and sing at the same time, and my dad (although a musician with a great sense of rhythm) doesn’t enjoy dancing at all.

However — regardless of her lack of skillz — at my brother’s wedding, my mom was going to have to do the “mother-son” dance. This filled her with great trepidation — not enough trepidation to refuse the honour, mind you, but some trepidation.

What’s amazing, though, is that this led to a group obsession with getting my father to dance, as well. It took his sister, my Auntie Gwen, to finally get him out there, and eventually he danced with like, four different people.

Including (excuse the blurry, it’s like trying to capture the Loch Ness Monster on film) my mom:

Wow.

Just saying.

You’d have to know them to know how major that is.

They didn’t even have dancing at their own wedding.

(No, Mom, I wasn’t actually comparing you to “Nessie”… just accentuating the rarity, you know?)

What this means to me REALLY, however, is that my dad can no longer in good conscience duck the “father-daughter” dance at MY wedding. YOU’RE SCREWED, BUDDY.

Anyway, back to the reception.

It was held in Elks’ Hall, which is the most Canadian place you could have your wedding reception besides, say, a hockey arena. It was gussied up with pretty paper lanterns and pretty people, and ended up a lovely spot to spend a few special hours.

The food was fabulous, the company was great, and the DJ was even pretty damn good.

Also?

There were pipers, courtesty of Carey, who knows my brother loves them more than most things in life (even Star Trek and his iPod and novels about soldiers):

Also?

There was this guy totally shaking it in a pink shirt:

I have no idea why I love that photo so much, but I was actually trying to take a picture of something else and he just danced right on into it. Brilliant.

Also?

I learned YET AGAIN never to speak after either of my parents in speaking publicly ANYWHERE because they will MAKE ME CRY and then my usual steely composure is shot before I even hit the microphone. This time, I have my mother to thank for being a trembly, emo mess giving a toast to her son right before I went to welcome Carey to the family.

However, I did still manage to welcome her with a Top Ten list that I wrote using the “Notes” function I got with my iPod Touch software upgrade.

(I think that’s the most embarrassing sentence I’ve ever written. Gah.)

Unfortunately, when I’d lose myself into teary trembletude for a second, the Auto Lock function on the Touch would activate, and I’d have to use my shaky hands to get back to my “Notes” screen.

(No, I was wrong. THAT is the most embarrassing sentence I’ve ever written.)

I won’t print the Top Ten list here, because that was just for Carey. Suffice it to say, I warned her about the kooky clan she was walking into sufficiently, while at the same time letting her know we’d love her pretty much forever.

Because we will.

The same way we love my brother, who is one of the most kind, open, funny, special men you could ever hope to meet. And also a closet dancer, since he chose this moment in time to do pretty much this same routine to this same song:

And he did it WELL.

We all laughed until we couldn’t breathe… and his bride was sufficiently charmed.

The rest of the reception was unbelievably fun — I’ve never seen more people up and dancing for that long at a wedding before, and I’VE BEEN TO A FRICKLOAD OF WEDDINGS. Sean and Carey’s friends REALLY know how to move, and all my (biological and time-earned) Aunts and Uncles have some notable twinkletoes as well.

Even I — though I knew no one, and was not a fan of my heels at that point — got out there and did what I do when good music is playing.

Eventually I was in (the shameful yet Nothern-approved combo of) my Uggs and my little black dress, because I wasn’t DONE WORKING IT even as my toes screamed I HATE YOU I HATE YOU! I’m the one in my family who LOVES to dance, after all.

It was really the ideal night. Everyone said so, and keeps saying so. Which is everything you could hope for from your wedding reception.

But here’s the important thing in all of this:

My brother is happy.

And that’s what matters to me.

So, to him:

You and I don’t always agree on everything, and that’s fine, even when we aim to step on the other’s last nerve and push buttons that are thirty years old or more. We spend enough time making one another laugh to make up for all of that.

We are also the best kids anyone ever took on road trips, the best-behaved PKs in any pew in any church anywhere, and the single silliest pair of siblings anyone ever sat down to Sunday dinner with. All in all, a good brother-sister act.

You remain a consistent blessing in my life that no one else could have been, or ever will be. My only brother. My protector. My friend.

It was always my hope that you would meet someone who understood you and valued you and loved you for exactly the man you are, and you found that in Carey. She’s lovely and unique and amazing and everything a man could hope to find in a wife.

I’m really proud of your choice, and her choice.

Most of all, it does my soul whole worlds of good to see what I saw in your eyes that weekend… that sense of peace and hope and joy that comes with following your heart.

I’m so happy for you.

And I love you. And Carey.

Not so much the North, but you know how that is.

Thanks for letting me be a part of your big day.