Holly and I were married on Saturday, October 14, 2000 at 10:30 in the morning. It was cold outside before the sun came up as we set up our pavillion. It was shelter 3 at Algonkian Regional park, which is our local park for Loudoun County, Virginia.

We set up the decorations mostly how we planned, being close to Halloween. We had small pumpkins on which we wrote peoples names to mark their seats, pumpkin plates and napkins, and a pumpkin cake. Well, okay, a chocolate cake with colored frosting.

We'd stayed up late the night before, as the final preparations were taking longer than we'd expected. We were finishing the cake (picture below) at around midnight; we'd made a test cake a week or so before, which turned out nicely, but we didn't like how the icing tasted. So we bought icing from Giant which tasted good, but in the final hour wasn't sticking to the cake very well.

Luckily, on the morning of the wedding, everything fell into place. Nice weather, plenty of sun by 10:30, and it even got warm enough that you didn't need a coat. The decorations all looked great, especially the arch which was decorated by Glenn Koppel (Holly's father), and Mary-Alice.

The ceremony began at 10:30; by the time we returned to the pavillion after going home to change, everyone had arrived, so I started the music. Everyone milled for a while, I double-checked that everything was ready, and only minutes passed by before the officiant showed up; Mrs. Fay Payne from Leesburg.

I had a short discussion with her on what to do and where to stand, then we were ready to begin. I stood at the front with the officiant, and Holly approached the arch at the back with her father. My brother pressed the button on my keyboard to play back the wedding march, that I had pre-recorded days earlier.

We had the traditional ceremony, and were married. We then had cake and soft-drinks, and talked for a while. After that, a bunch of the pictues you see below were taken; all by the guests, no professionals. After a bit of milling and picture taking, it was time to pack up and head to the reception. Unfortunatly, Holly and I didn't get to stay too long becuase we were running short on time! She and I just ordered appetisers, but it took so long to come out, that we would have missed the plane had we stayed. So, we took off early, changed, packed, and headed off to the airport for our honeymoon in Hollywood. And we lived happily ever after.