Karolinka In & Around Bulgaria

My little brother N. married K. on Saturday at the First Congregational Church in Walla Walla. So now he’s a married man and he has a Mrs. This makes him the first kid in our family to get married. Not that he’s a kid or that little. Nope. In fact, he’s 28 years old and 6’2.

This was a really wonderful day and all things considered this was also a pretty easy wedding. At least from the point of view of the groom’s family.

Sure we hosted the rehearsal dinner at our family cabin and that took a lot of planning, sweat equity and hard work but when the actual wedding rolled around it was pretty smooth sailing. Then again, maybe that’s always the case when you’re not actually in the wedding. 

The bride invited my mom, my sister and me to get our hair done for the wedding with the bridesmaids. This was great fun and meant that I didn’t have to worry about what I’d do with my fairly short hair. We showed up had a cup of coffee, ate some fruit and I drank a mimosa.








There was one funny-awkward moment when the stylist asked me what color the bridesmaids dresses were. Um, I don’t know. Why? Well because I wasn’t actually a bridesmaid. It’s just that the stylist didn’t know this and it took me a minute to catch onto the fact that she didn’t know that I wasn’t a bridesmaid. So I lean over to ask a bridesmaid what color the dress is. Answer: maroon with a grey sash. The stylist looks at me with big eyes and says: it’s pretty brave of you to not have even tried on your dress before the wedding. I hope it fits. That would be pretty brave (and/or crazy) of me but as the sister of the groom I was simply doing a reading and luckily this does not require a matching dress. Needless to say, I straightened things out pretty quickly and the stylist thought I was a whole lot less crazy than she had just minutes before.


From the salon, I stopped by Coffee Perk for an iced coffee and here my sister C. and I practiced our readings for the wedding. She read a selection from Shakespeare’s play As You Like It and I read e.e. cummings “i carry your heart.” We stopped by Macy’s so that my sister could buy a pair of earrings to wear and then I ended up buying a pair too. Mine were originally $29 and I got them on sale for $9. Not bad. Not bad. Only I didn’t buy mine to wear at the wedding. I just bought mine because I liked them.


At home, C. helped me wiggle into my dress with my hair all done up and I helped her.  I didn’t expect to have this problem given the fact that my hair is so short but I did. Oh and I got lots of complements on my hair. So that was nice. Needless to say, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to recreate it at home.

About 1pm we headed down to the church for photos. Again, this was really easy for me and involved me sitting around waiting until I was called for photos. I probably should have tucked my kindle into my clutch but I didn’t think about that ahead of time.


My poor little brother had a harder go of things. He took photo after photo both inside the church and outside the church in the 100+ degree day. By 2pm even the back of his vest was sweaty and I felt really bad for him and really glad for me. I was very happy not to be wearing a full tux.

The service started at 4pm. There were probably 130+ people at the church. It was a really wonderful service. There were some allergies on the part of my brother… or maybe they were tears. Either way, it was wonderful to see N. & K. so happy and so in love.

After the ceremony N. & K. escaped to sign the marriage license and then headed to Laht Neppur for a beer (or two). I tagged along because I am that kind of a girl. It was great fun. The bar is pretty everyman. There are picnic tables inside the bar, everyone drinks beer and people throw peanut shells on the floor. It was a really wonderful contrast of high and low to see N. & K. all dressed up in the bar drinking.






From there we walked down the street to the Red Monkey in the late afternoon heat. We had a cloyingly sweet shot made by K.’s favorite bartender. Even though the shot was sweet-sweet, it was the perfect match to the smooth but bitter-ish beer we’d just had. They were his and her drinks. Before we left, K. spent a couple of minutes in the walk in cooler with strict directions not to let her dress touch the floor. The Red Monkey was just a detour on the way to the Marcus Whitman Hotel where the actual reception was taking place.

The Marc as it’s fondly called is the nicest hotel in town and the only one with a ballroom. That makes it a staple on the wedding circuit in town. While this may make it sound common and pedestrian what it really means is that the hotel knows how to host a good reception. The food was amazing, the drink service was top notch and when the waiters cleared tables they did it professionally and with very little distraction.



The night ended with a lot of dancing. I think that I can safely say, a good time was had by all.