Tall Ship Silva

N.B. This is one of a series of posts about my short trip to Nova Scotia for a friend's wedding. Feel free to browse forward or backward using the navigation links.
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The groom's brother and sister-in-law planned a combo bachelor/bachelorette party aboard the tall ship Silva. We boarded from a pier near the Maritime Museum and soon set off. We weren't really operating under sail power though (that's just for aesthetics):

Here we go: Sails up for the tourists!

Bride and Groom celebrating their last day of singledom ... together:

A tradition definitely worth keeping, IMHO. I like their body language in this photo - so comfortable with each other, and so in love.

(As for "traditional" bachelor parties... I suppose if you get married at - say - age 23 or earlier, you might have a lot of crazy living to get out of your system before you settle down. Maybe. But on some level, isn't the idea of one last wild spree a breach of the commitment that is already in place by the time you're engaged - if not earlier?)

It was good to meet a few new people and re-connect with the bride's relatives whom I'd certainly met before, but hadn't seen since roughly 1982 when my family moved to Belgium. I would not have been able to pick the bride's brother out of a line-up if someone hadn't clued me in; he was just a kid, a little brother, last time I saw him. He's all grown up now, and has turned out well, complete with a dazzling smile and a good sense of humor.

The owners of the ship did not seem to notice that we were boarded by pirates. But luckily these pirates seemed friendly:

It became cooler and cloudier over the course of the evening, but everything was lovely in this light. I took a lot of pictures of this ship passing the lighthouse on an island in Halifax Harbor:

I believe it is Georges Island. A long-time friend of the groom mentioned that the off-shore technologies association used to have an annual picnic there, which sounds like it was very fun:

Afterward, I and another friend of the bride had the opportunity to help staple and fold the wedding programs while the bride hand-felted the last few bouquets. It was great to have some extra bonus  time with E, and also to observe her interactions and casual banter back and forth with her beloved. I'm pleased to report that they both have the same wonderfully warped sense of humor.

The program covers featured a full-color copy of a painting of the decommissioned church at which the ceremony would take place. I think they said it was painted by a friend of theirs. Lovely picture. I didn't look at the inside of the program carefully at this time, just enough to see that it was indeed bilingual (Gaelic-English).

The felted flowers were amazing. She had such a vision for exactly how each bouquet should look, and patiently hand-crafted each one. The whole process took many months - but many old and forsaken sweaters were put to good use.

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