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| The Victor-Barnes Wedding, The Fairmont Olympic Hotel, Seattle |
TheFairmont Olympic Hotel is the grandest old hotel in downtown Seattle, housed in
an Italian Renaissance edifice with marble clad lobbies, Corinthian columns,
and vast, ornate ballrooms. The Garden Room is the centerpiece of these
gathering spaces, with double height windows rising above the hedges of the
motor court.
The
gentlemen who chose this place to exchange their vows are lovers of the arts,
and I was pleased to have been among the evening’s artistic offerings.
Upon
entering the lounge, guests lined up to have custom poetry written on the spot
by Typing Explosion, a performing trio in the guise of mid-century secretaries.
The nostalgic song of their typewriters was accompanied par excellence by the
Seattle String Ensemble, and dancers emerged from the shadows, choreographed by
Rainbow Fletcher.
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| The grooms with flower girls |
At the
end of the cocktail hour the violins went down, and the convivial voices rose.
But suddenly the crowd hushed, as Jennifer Krikawa, an operatic soprano,
began—mezzo piano— to call them to form a ribbon- lined aisle. She sang from both the standard opera repertoire and Broadway
show tunes. I got a little verklempt at Somewhere There’s a Place for Us from
West Side Story; later a Mezzo joined her for the famous Flower Duet from the
opera Lakmé, by Delibes. As an
avocational tenor myself, I was in heaven.
During
dinner the grooms and their flower girls found time to stand for quick
portraits, and the painting was done by the time the dance troupe returned to
pull them onto the dance floor with white feather boas.
