LIVE! From the beach!

So here I am, coming to you live from Holden Beach, NC, where a beach wedding is about to take place just across the street on the sand. I'm here, my nose plastered to the window, as I type detail after detail.

The set up has been taking place all day. A chuppah has been carefully been constructed out of PVC pipe and tulle. Chairs have been dragged across the sand to the site. Flowers have been placed. Someone was kind enough to rake up the peanut shells which someone scattered all over the beach earlier in a piggish feast.

The bridesmaids poured out of a car illegally parked in our driveway in dresses of varying styles, all a summery shade of red. The bride herself gracefully unloaded from a white minivan in a dress with a few too many sparkles for my taste, who am I? Only a casual observer okay, stalker.

Random vacationers line the beach and peer curiously from their balconies and decks. A clueless family who just arrived today rushed across the accessway laden with swimsuits, boogie boards, and sand pails. They should add to the character of the wedding.

The wedding begins in five minutes. Guests are trooping across the street, one after another. My mom stops short of hanging out the window in her zest to gawk and stare. She evaluates the clothing of each guest, rating their ability to dress for a beach wedding. She is alarmed by the presence of both long sleeves and too casual of dress. Somewhere in between must be key.

We wait anxiously, breath bated. What are we waiting for so eagerly? No one can tell for sure.

WAIT! The moment is here! The bridal party has walked! One of the bridesmaids is carrying a baby! Whose is it? The bride's? A collective gasp fills the room! Is she marrying the baby daddy? The author dashes for the camera. Snap! The camera's batteries choose that moment to fail and she is left with only one fuzzy picture snapped through a window pane covered in beach goo.

She dashes outside to see mom and Mr. Pigs and Piglet stopping just short of throwing themselves over the balcony in an effort to see more. More! After a hasty discussion of ethics, mom dashes with me to the house across the street, which we have just seen vacated by its renters. Clearly a thumbs up.

In my haste to gather photographic evidence for you, my dear readers, I failed to put on shoes and hip-hopped ungracefully across a gravel driveway and skittered up the steps to the tops of the dunes where...ta-DA! The wedding lay before me.

Blast! At that moment I took a sand spur to the foot. After plucking the offending sticker, I gimped to the railing and snapped two pictures with my trusty camera phone. Feeling suddenly exposed, I snuck back to our house, realizing only as I crossed the threshold that I had forgotten to save the photos. Back across the street I raced, to take two more photographs, though the wedding was recessing at that point. You still get the picture. Heh.

The result? We still don't know whose baby that was, though its presence caused mom to cast great disdain upon the wedding itself. It was a lovely ceremony on the beach and it was fun to, um, be a part of the event.