New York Trip Part 2

Part 1

Friday we hopped in the car and drove up to Albany for Bradlea and Mike's wedding. 

Fiance enjoyed snapping some photos of the city as we drove in. He's only been to New York a handful of times and this was his first trip to the Capitol. Albany is an old city and has some awesome architecture. I think the building above is an administrative building at SUNY Albany.

We arrived at the church about an hour early. I've gotten to used to the Atlanta traffic. I expect any trip undertaken during rush hour to take an additional hour to complete. This isn't really the case in Albany, NY. It's a small city and it's pretty easy to navigate.  So my excellently executed leave-early-because-of-traffic plan was a bust.

We putzed around outside for a bit, but went inside once we started to get cold. Not that it was blisteringly cold by any stretch. It was actually in the 50s that day, but there was a lot of wind. That and I am southern folk now. 

The inside of the church was cute. Bradlea only had a few of these simple bouquets hung around the church, but they really gave the place a nice feel. Bradlea is a classy lady with classy tastes.

About 20 minutes later my bridesmaid and ex-college roommate Tiffany showed up. (She came to visit a few months ago you may recall). It was awesome to see her twice in one year and it was also great to see her boyfriend Kern who I hadn't seen in over two years. I like this photo of Kern. I call this look his "lecturing a bunch of bored college students" face.

The wedding kicked off at 4:30pm and was beautiful. Bradlea went for a long sheath dress with an empire waist. She looked absolutely beautiful.

Bradlea roomed with Tiffany and myself back in art school. Her Fiance Mike didn't technically live with us, but he slept at our place way more often than he slept at his own place. Their wedding took place on their 7th anniversary of dating. The ceremony was very sweet and I was able to hold in the tears, though my eyelashes did get stuck together with mascara. Wet eyes and all that.

After the ceremony we headed over to the reception hall. It was dark when we arrived, but we went back the next morning to snap a picture of the outside of the building. The reception venue is an old converted bank. It was built in 1927. Can we say vintage geek out? The walls and floor are marble and there were these great deco carvings and light fixtures inside. I'm pretty sure someone had to remind me not to stare more than once that evening.

We partook in some of the libations and then went to find the crew. We spent most of the night with our table mates Tiffany and the beautiful Jen. Jen was an honorary member of the old apartment crew. She even put up with our crazy Spice Girls Halloween costume idea.

Halloween 2006, the Riverknoll 35 crew. Renata as Baby Spice, Tiffany as Sporty Spice, yours truly as Ginger Spice, Bradlea (the bride) as Scary Spice and Jen as Posh Spice. Good times, good embarrassing times. 

 

After some awesome food and cocktails the bride and groom arrived and had their first dance. There may or may not have been more wet eyes and sticky mascara on my part.

This picture gives you some idea of the inside of the old building. It was gorgeous. We danced and partied way too long into the night.

The Mrs

 

 and the Mr.

And yes I totally made them stop their wedding rounds and snap a few pictures with me. I'm like that. How do you all like my 1950s red satin wiggle dress with pearls? It's one of my favorites.