Bird and blooms

This afternoon I joined the rest of my family in attending a wedding here in Manchester. The happy couple was a pair of great guys: Ralph and Karl. Ralph's been a family friend for a number of years, and both he and Karl were a huge help to Greg when he was looking for a place to live in Albany. They're also both accomplished musicians (Ralph played the harp for a number of years before switching to the bassoon, while Karl plays the viola) who met via their orchestral work, so it's only natural that the theme for the ceremony was "The Magic of Music." All of us who attended were treated to a free concert put on by members of various orchestras and ensembles, all friends of Ralph and Karl, to start things off—it made for a truly unique and magical wedding celebration.

Naturally I took a ton of pictures, but I didn't really have time after we got back to go through all of them. However, just before we left a female Baltimore Oriole came in to use the birdbath. Even though I was shooting through the sliding door, I think they came out pretty well:













Don't you just hate it when you get water in your ear?





Both the wedding and the reception were held at Hildene, the Vermont home of Robert Todd Lincoln; Robert was the only one of Abraham and Mary Lincoln's children to survive to adulthood. Well, technically they took place under the permanent event tent set up on the grounds. However, Ralph and Karl did the receiving line thing up next to the main house, giving us attendees a chance to stretch our legs, get a bit of fresh air, and enjoy Hildene's famed formal garden. To quote from Hildene's website:

The formal garden was designed in 1907 for Mary Harlan Lincoln by her daughter Jessie. Her design was influenced by French parterre gardens she had seen while the family lived in Europe and she wanted the garden to resemble a stained-glass Romanesque cathedral window. The panes of colored glass were produced by different colored flowers and privet hedge was planted to represent the leading between the panes. In mid-June, over 1,000 peony blossoms from original plantings fill the garden with color.

A look at the garden's layout from the side, moving from left to right:







A shot of Hildene from the top of the "window"; the white pillar in the middle is a sundial.



And, of course, some of those peonies:











This little girl's mother told us she knew it was highly unlikely that her daughter would make it through the day behaving in a manner appropriate for wearing a dress—hence the orange shorts:



Loved this guy's ensemble:



And last, but certainly not least, my dad:



I did also take some photos of my mom, but I got the sense that severe bodily harm might be in my future if any of them made it to the blog...