Michele and Brandon's Wedding 2016

Brandon and Michele during their wedding ceremony

I wasn't able to go to Michele and Brandon's wedding- to my own great unhappiness- but I interrogated some of the guests to try to get some early pictures and I have multiple sources that say that it was the most beautiful and romantic wedding of all time. Thanks for rubbing it in, trusted sources! Let's back up for a moment, the wedding took place in Mexico, here:

This place is beautiful...


It's ridiculously beautiful.

There were welcome drinks before ceremony. Then they had a super intimate candlelit circle of people who love them so much. I can speak from experience on this as I also love them so much and know many of Michele's friends and family members. Then those amazing loving people gave personal blessings to Brandon and Michele.

I love this picture of the ceremony.

And I've talked about how much Brandon and Michele love each other before, but it's worth repeating: it's the sexy, affectionate, self-sacrificing kind of awesome delicious love that makes people better individually too.

Brandon and Michele loving each other and their wedding guests

There was a cocktail hour, which is always even better when the bride and groom attend. They did. Sources say the margaritas were especially amazing.

Michele's brothers: Matthew, Arthur, Alejandro


Michele with her brothers' great loves: Emily, Avery, and Sama

Michele with her grandmother

The picture above and below are also a good time to reflect on how beautiful the bride looked. Kevin said that a man considers a wedding successful if there's a beautiful bride and an open bar. Check and check.

Kendra, Michele, and Yael looking spectacular together

Watching Brandon watch Michele is like reading a Jane Austen book!

They had dinner in this gorgeous setting. And my trusted sources said dinner was super delicious. 

Splendid from this angle

Equally splendid from this angle

Even more romantic in the dark

The happy good-looking couple

Michele and Angela about to hit the dance floor.

TIME TO DANCE!

This is how Arthur breaks it down.

Brandon and Michele's boys having a great time!

Dancing with David

Kirsten breaks it down!

This happened: Arthur, Matthew, and Michele

This also happened.

At this point, you're probably thinking, well, that wedding couldn't possibly get any better. This is when weddings wind down usually... well you're wrong. So wrong. There was a mid-wedding pool party... and then more dancing.

Kate, Michele, Kendra, and Kirsten in the pool

Post-swim dancing is fiercer.

Apologies to everyone reading all this for my overuse of every superlative, but I had to be accurate. Michele and Brandon, congratulations, and I hope that all your life together feels like this:

Love.

Prospect Heights and Sibling Code 2012

Another weekend, another Brooklyn bar crawl! Lately I've been going out in Brooklyn as much as I did when I lived there two years ago. After meeting Michele's brother Arthur last weekend, I was excited to meet her brother Matthew this weekend. (I'm pretty sure this mean Alejandro needs to come visit and meet me next weekend?) Matthew stopped to see Michele on his way back to college in Vermont.

Michele, Matthew, and I started with dinner at Chuko. It was my first time going out for dinner for real ramen (as opposed to having cheap gross ramen for dinner in my apartment when I was 22). It was delicious, as was my sake cocktail. We also had the most enthusiastic waitress in all of New York.

Ramen at Chuko

From there we walked over to Weather Up, which is a beautiful place that makes wonderful drinks. It reminds me of a smaller Clover Club. (Smaller in size and in drink selection.) In typical Brooklyn-style, we ran into at least two people wearing suspenders. Ironically? Non-ironically? I don't even know anymore.

Fancy drinks at Weather Up

Finally, we ran through the rain, as though in a sexy romantic comedy and went to Beast. I guess it's a bar, but I ordered two different drinks off their menu that they couldn't make because they were missing ingredients. So I gave up and ordered T & T, but they didn't have Tanqueray, so they gave me some other random gin. Not good. But we were having such a good time by then! By the end of the night I even thought I could understand Michele and Matthew's crazy sibling code. The code is informal, but they really only need to say every third word in a sentence to understand each other, or mumble entire phrases, or simply blink twice to indicate that this chardonnay from Chablis has very distinct notes of chalk. Or at least that is what I understood them to be saying as I sipped on my Random-Gin-and-Tonic.

Out of liquor at Beast- no wonder the lion is sad