Jesse & Regina - married at last.

Madison.

Aaand... the last wedding of the summer is finally over. Jesse and Regina had their wedding last night, and it was a pleasure and a relief for everyone involved. A pleasure for the obvious reasons. A relief because all the planning and work is over, and everything seems to have gone right. Now they get to gear up for moving day, the annual Madison tradition.

I admit that I'm not too sorry that I'll be out of town.

There were a fair number of lessons to learn last night, as well as some interesting (and funny) moments. Such as:

• When planning an outdoor wedding, it's good to be sure that your indoor facilities can accommodate comfortably in case of inclement weather. Fortunately, this worked out. Given the morning's gradual shift from thunderstorms and downpours to eventual sunshine, the set-up crew just put everything inside. Good weather rolled in for the festivities - and the photographs beforehand - but the ceremony and reception stayed indoors.
  
  
• When planning to use Olin-Turville Park for your next outing, be sure to see what's going on over at the Alliant Energy Center. If it's an outdoor concert featuring a series of loud, whiny, not-particularly-talented pseudo-metal¹ bands, you may wish to find an alternate date. If that's not an option, your best bet is to shut the windows along the pavilion's west side and hope for a sudden, inexplicable generator failure to force the bands to play intimate, acoustic sets.
  
  
• The farmers' market is the place to get flowers. Though enormous - and necessitating the occasional shift to see the person across the table - the bouquets were eruptions of brilliant color, and a lively counterpoint to the all-white interior of the pavilion. I can't recall who provided them, except that he was Hmong and no one was sure how to spell his name.
  
  
• You can't get New Glarus beer in Minneapolis. John Neely laments this sad state of affairs. He's asked around, and it seems the only way to enjoy some Fat Squirrel in the twin cities is to haul it from Madison yourself.
  
  
• Good roast beef doesn't take much, and it will get you no end of praise. People kept complimenting Sharon and I on the food, to which I had to respond along the following lines:
  
  
  • Telling us that we'd prepared a wonderful buffet: "Thanks, but we only made a portion of it. It was a team effort." This then prompted either a comment along that suggested we were too modest or one on something specific. Usually the roast beef.
    
    
  • Commenting that I ought to consider a catering business: "Maybe one of these days. Thanks." Sounds tempting as a vaguely defined enterprise, but I don't think I have the chops for it.
    
    
  • Gushing about the roast beef: "You can thank John and Dorothy. They raised the animal. I just heated it."
  
  On that point, Neely mused on something that he'd heard somewhere recently. "You don't cook a good steak; you source a good steak."
  
  I had to agree. Neely's point was that the quality of a steak depends almost exclusively on the animal it came from, especially since we tend to do little more to a good steak than add some salt and pepper before tossing it on the grill. Unless you do something to ruin it, you're looking at a piece of meat that's only as good as the animal it came from. And, since few of us have the opportunity to know the animals we're eating, it's best to learn who you can rely on to provide you with consistently good food. The top choice would be a good farmer or rancher; failing that, look for a good butcher shop.
  
  Incidentally, the beef was amazingly good. I was a little wary of cooking it a day ahead and serving it cold, but the flavor, texture, and appearance were still top-notch. The slow-roasting process - somewhere between four and five hours - produced slices that were well-done on just the thinnest outer layer², but a lovely medium-rare red throughout. Slicing the next day, they were still good and juicy. (Time to make a note to include that in my future entertaining repertoire.)
  
  
• Speaking of food, the glories of the cold buffet on a hot summer day are not to be overlooked. Not only can everything be prepared ahead of time and kept on ice, but I wouldn't have wanted to eat anything hot. I even opted for beer over wine because there was more of it and it was colder. If we'd had any way to serve ice cream, we'd have been hailed as heroes.
  
  
• Jesse and Regina - with help from friends and family, but virtually no professionals - planned out the whole wedding. Just about everything reflected their individual tastes and personalities, and I feel that made it one of the most exciting and fun weddings I've ever been to. One of the biggest perks, I think was that everyone was willing to lend a hand at all times, knowing how much stress and trouble the whole process had been up until that point. We stuck around until the very end, cleaning and packing up, and there were plenty of helpers.
  
  
• Ord, Regina's mom, has a few photos of the last few of us, taking the last swigs from the open wine bottles before we poured them out. That moment summed up the whole day, as we toasted the happy couple³ to celebrate the success of the whole endeavor. It was the triumph of a kind of homespun happiness over the traditional, expected elegance.

* * * * *

¹Real metal isn't angsty. There's never any assurance that it's good - I'll wager that most is pretty much just schlock - but distortion pedals and big amps do not a metal band make. Just like having tattoos and using power chords doesn't make you punk. Pop-punk is just pop.

Punk is the Minutemen recording in after-hours sessions after practicing all day, on used tape, so their albums would actually make money. For example.

²From the initial searing, to get a little of that Maillard flavor.

³Long gone, of course.