Day 2 -- pre-wedding and wedding.

Slept in today, till around 11:00.  My folks and I went out to lunch, and then we had a few hours to kill before the wedding, so we went to a furniture store.

Yes, a furniture store.  I was a little concerned that "furniture store" was on the list of tourist attractions in this here part of Massachusetts, but I guess the pickings are a little slim a half-hour outside of Boston.

So we went to something called Jordan's Furniture. 

The inside of the store is set up like an outdoor street -- supposed to be like Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  (The whole street-inside-a-building thing was kinda like a Vegas casino.)  And then all the "shops" coming off the street had all the furniture for sale.  Also they had an IMAX theatre (yes, you can go to the furniture store and see Poseidon). 

And (the similarities to Vegas casinos don't end here) they had a corny little free Mardi Gras show running every hour.  Said show included life-size moving puppets (the quality wasn't good enough to actually be called audio-animatronic) of various musicians (Louis Armstrong, the Supremes, Elvis) ... all of which boogied around in a spotlight to a vocal track of "When the Saints Go Marching In."  Culimating in a big old Mardi Gras float being "flown" across the ceiling on tracks.  All the while, two employees of the furniture store stood there banging tambourines in time to the music (one of whom was really getting into it -- the other looked like she'd much rather sell you a sofa).  The whole thing was surreal -- and I was fairly certain it was one of those things that is really great fun if you're under 6.  Or stoned.

My cousin's wedding was later.  Held at the home of her new husband's parents -- this beautiful, old (1754 old) house on an absolutely gorgeous piece of land.  You know, where you can see a lake through the trees way over there.  The weather was more than cooperative -- after two weeks of rain, it was sunny and in the 80s -- so they're going to end up with some really lovely wedding pictures on this beautiful day.  Sweet service (the groom's sister got a Justice of the Peace license so she was able to actually declare them husband and wife), the two of them clearly love each other very much, and it looks like they got their marriage off to a great start.