To celebrate my departure from Washington and my return to happy Boston, I went to Utah. Shelly's sister was getting married in the Timpanogos Temple (or, the "Timple," as I call it), so it was a great chance to see both the Astle and Camacho families. In fact, all the Camachos stayed with the Astles in Provo.

The wedding itself was uneventful, and I think that means it was good. There aren't any entertaining stories to tell about how the bride tripped on her dress and landed in the cake, or how someone forgot the marriage license or something. Everything went rather smoothly, and I think Emily and Jason were quite pleased with everything. I was, at any rate.

So instead, I'll talk about weddings in general. Weddings are funny things, because they're ostensibly about sharing a special day with people who are dear to you, but in the end, no one ends up spending very much of the day with the happy couple. We flew across the country at the expense of much sleep (and quite a few dollars, but let's talk about what counts here), but like the rest of the wedding party, we certainly didn't have much contact with Emily. A hug inside the temple, a little chitchat as we were waiting for the photographer to show up outside (OK, that was the one hangup of the day that I noticed), a greeting at the luncheon, and a few exchanges at the reception. In fact, weddings are set up to encourage deep interaction among the guests, but not so much between the couple and the guests. Everyone gets a little bit of greeting time if there's a line, but then you go sit down with the other guests and have the real conversations.

That's why at our wedding eight months ago, Shelly and I decided to print out little booklets and leave them on each table at the reception. They included a short biography of each of us, a story of how we met, dated, got engaged, etc., and some selected emails chosen from our long-distance interaction mostly for their entertainment value. Shelly's brother Steve and sister Emily furthered the tradition (with increasingly high production values, I might add--Emily had an actual photograph glued to each cover, compared with our photocopy of a printout of a scanned photograph). It's a great idea, in my humble opinion (saith the man who had the idea), because it allows you to remember that you're actually at this wedding for the couple whose wedding it is. I don't think I have any intellectual property interest in the wedding booklet, so I'll be glad if the whole world adopts the tradition. At least it'll help us feel like we know the couple a little better.