I regret that we did not take pictures of more attendees, but the house was pretty packed! We had a lot of folks stream through and made a lot of great connections!
Most of these are on a Saturday, but we would not have wanted it to be on the twentieth anniversary of 9-11, so we opted for Sunday, September 12.
When the organizer of the Vallejo Gay Network asked to pick a theme, we thought of DIVAS, of course! Every corner of the house I try to keep as an homage to Barbra Streisand, naturally.
We weren’t able to do our vows at City Hall, so we did them two days later at our reception.
Fun fact: Twenty years to the month before Joe and Shando got married, we attended Jennifer Holliday’s 1997 New Year’s Eve performance at Splash Bar. We were oblivious to each other’s presence until a few years ago. Then, on the drive to the wedding, Joe mentioned this to Brian, Shando’s best man, who Joe had never met before, and he mentioned he was also at the event (with Shando)! To think, we all could have been next to each other without knowing what was to come!
Our friend Gary has an amazing garden and a golden heart, having a canned food drive regularly for those in need. We were very happy to be able to participate and enjoy the extraordinary surroundings.
Donita and I have been friends since at least 1984!
Shando didn’t get to his 25th year HS reunion in Bucyrus, Ohio, this year, but he did join me at my 30th Reunion in Fremont. My high school was technically in Union City. It was a lot of fun and I got to reconnect with a lot of people I hadn’t really been in touch with for a long time. I also got to show off Alex because she happened to stop by toward the end after she attended a conference nearby in Silicon Valley.
It was also Ray Squared’s birthday party and the big FOUR OH for the red-headed Ray Lillie. The couple known as Ray and Ray have both of their actual birthdays on July 3 (as well as sharing a name). July 3 was when I had my birthday party this year, which they attended, even though my actual birthday is the day before.
