Please click the photo or follow the link to view Sarah and Jeff’s wedding at St. Mary’s Church (Littleton) and The Tivoli.
It should probably have been sign of how the day would go: moments after arriving at St. Mary’s Church, while setting up my lights for the altar formals, I set off the fire alarm.
You see, St. Mary’s is a big, beautiful, modern church, with lots of big, beautiful, modern things to protect from fire, so they have a very modern fire detection system. The component of the system I tripped was a invisible infrared beam that traversed the entire length of the sanctuary, 15 feet in the air. When the beam is broken by smoke (or say, an umbrella on my strobe…), it sounds the alarm.
Who thinks to check for infrared beams before raising up a 15′ umbrella stand? And why was the beam even on during the day anyway? Would the people in sanctuary not realize it was on fire, “… thank God for that ever-present infrared beam. I couldn’t tell the difference between the priest’s incense and the smoke… I would’ve been burnt alive…”
I digress, as usual.
Sarah came to us after having been a bridesmaid in her friend Allison’s wedding (I love word of mouth, wedding-to-wedding refferals!). She and Jeff were such a cool couple. From Sarah and her bridesmaids playing with the nursery toys to Jeff and the boys messing around outside, their entire wedding coudn’t have been better.
By the way, Jeff set the wedding gift “bar” a little too high for the rest of the male species. He bought Sarah a new Lexus RX Hybrid. Rediculous, Jeff. Whatever happened to a card (like I got Char)?!?
The fun with fire didn’t end at the church! We played around with the wedding party a the Auraria Campus by the Tivoli for about an hour after the ceremony and went inside to bustle Sarah’s dress and relax before dinner, and suddenly the Tivoli was a mad-house. A ear-splitting fire alarm was ringing throughout every floor and corridor of the giant Student Union. Charlotte, the embodiment of clear thinking calm, practically ran screaming down the fire-stairs. Once everyone from the wedding was gathered outside, the firefighters were charging bravely into the building. Everyone was looking around in half amused, half scared disbelief when suddenly Char said, “Where’s Sarah and Jeff?”
They were left upstairs in the Adirondack’s Room. Nobody, not us, not the bridesmaids, not their parents, not the police on staff for security, nobody went and got them. I’m sure they simply thought, “Well, if it’s serious somebody will come and get us…”
Thankfully, it wasn’t serious and the firefighters cleared the alarm within minutes, and even stopped for a photo-op with the couple after they found them. Was the shot on our cameras? Noooooo, we were still outside. I hate missed opportunities.
After that tiny little (4 fire truck) interruption, Sarah and Jeff’s reception went off like clockwork. After a little bit of cake carnage, and a lot of dancing, we said our goodbyes and wondered if we’d ever see another wedding with 2 fire alarms. Actually, I kind of do wish…
It was pretty fun.
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