So...Why Exactly Are We Looking At Wedding Photos?

That's me, in all of that white satin - trying to dance a jig on a concrete floor in my stockinged feet. (Never a good idea and doubly so in wedding regalia.)



The other dancing woman is my friend Amy who was my singing partner for well over a decade.

Amy and I began singing together in high school and worked out an extensive repertoire, ranging from Renaissance to broadside ballads and American folk. We also composed our own songs and tunes.

Amy had classical training in guitar and voice. I couldn't read music (still can't) but I had a good ear. I learned through the playing and singing of other folks. Amy could do both and she wrote everything down in a spiral notebook.

We went to different colleges and I fell in with traditional Irish music enthusiasts. I wound up working in the live music business for a while and spent some years immersed in traditional music. Not only did I have a chance to learn from the playing and singing of some amazingly talented individuals but some of them became good friends, as well.


So, back to the wedding photos:

My husband (not a traditional Irish musician, oddly enough) and I met at the nightclub where I worked. Naturally, we decided to have our wedding there. (We even owned it, at one point. But that's another story.)



The music for the wedding was supplied by friends and the wedding part segued easily into the session part. Amy and I sang; the groom and best man did "What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love and Understanding"; someone performed a song they'd written for us as a wedding gift, etc. At one point, a gang of merrymakers inhaled helium and took to the stage for a wacky version of "We Are The World".


The house band for the wedding proper (and likely the instigators of the "We Are The World" performance) was composed of members of the band Touchstone. A couple of the members of Touchstone were housemates of mine, at one time or another. Touchstone was Triona Ni Dhomhnaill's band after The Bothy Band broke up and before she went on to play with Relativity, Nightnoise, etc.


That diminuitive female behind the clavinet is Triona.



So, that's why we're looking at my wedding photos!