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Kit and I both work in the Department of Physical and Life Sciences (a.k.a. PALS), a large (30+ faculty) interdisciplinary group. When we returned to Corpus Christi from our Gringo Honeymoon, our Administrative Secretary, Gracie Olalde organized a wedding reception for us. Here's what it looked like.
Here's the table laid out with goodies. Note the nut cups forming twin hearts.
True to form, Kit working up the minute before the reception.
Do we really have to do this in public?
A few words of explanation...we work in the same department. Grady is chair of that department. To comply with Texas' tough anti-nepotism laws, Kit's reporting line circumvents Grady and goes directly to the Dean. In order to "maintain a level of professionalism", we never flaunted our relationship at work. How well did we do it? Let's just say that after almost 7 years together, there were people who were surprised to hear news of the wedding since they had no idea we even spoke to one another. So this reception was our way of "coming out".
Part of the crowd.
Cutting the wedding cake. The couple on the right, also in the department, got married over the holidays too: Eugene and Rayna got married over the Internet so that her family in Iran could see the ceremony. Unfortunately the netcast was censored by the Iranian government so this webpage may be all they see of the festivities for them.
Feeding each other cake.
The world's greatest Administrative Secretary, Gracie Olalde, who put this reception together. Special thanks also to Stela Voltoline, Sylvia Reyna and Adriana who helped make this happen.
Kit with fellow professor David McKee and the Assistant Dean, Claudia Johnston.
For those of you up north, check out the attire...the high temperature on this particular day was 86 degrees...Kit actually sweated!
With our good friend and colleague Suzette Chopin.
Grady and Kit with our work study student, Adriana. She presented us with a treasure box of Las Aras, a traditional Mexican wedding present of 13 coins to symbolize security together.
Grady's postscript for those of you who know us best: This was another wonderful day. We have had a lot of those lately. With what we now recognize as a 7 year engagement, Kit and I have had lots of time to talk over the years. Both of us are intensely private which seems strange now since we're putting these pictures on the net. One of the things we realized during this reception is that, over the years, we have used that privacy to shield the nature of our relationship from many of the people closest to us. Call this our "coming out" if you like, but it has also been a personal awakening for both of us. By accepting each other publicly, we have discovered a pride in each other as partners that we never experienced before. Our decision to share the same name also reflects that discovery. To paraphrase the old cliché, "Yes, Virginia, getting married DOES make a difference".