Boo/Yay is a storytelling improv game where one improviser says something negative, and everyone says "Boo!" Then an improviser on the other team says something positive, and everyone says, "Yay!" It's simple, but effective.
First, the groundwork. I went to my parents' house late the night that Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister got engaged. They were still up. Little Sister showed me the ring.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Do you have a date?
MR. LITTLE SISTER: May 4th. Star Wars Day!
Little Sister is a huge Star Wars fan. Mr. Little Sister likes it, but definitely not as much as Little Sister. In fact, I'd arrived at my parents' house with a Star Wars-themed engagement present for her.
MR LITTLE SISTER: The sealing is at 10:20. We've already booked the temple.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: What are you thinking for colors?
LITTLE SISTER: Lavender and wheat.
AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: What about my bridesmaid dress? Do you already have that, too?
They didn't, but it was soon obtained. During preparations, the wedding soon turned from lavender and wheat to more of a purple fest, and the bridesmaid dresses were frothy concoctions of a sort of lavender-and-mauve mix color.
Baby Sister was the maid of honor. Older Sister and I were bridesmaids. The brothers were groomsmen. Since Mr. Little Sister has no brothers but three sisters, there was a swarm of bridesmaids, and the groomsmen presence was a bit thin.
Two days before the wedding, Older Sister flew in from New York. One day before the wedding, Mr. Little Sister's family held a wedding dinner in lieu of a luncheon.
And that's when things started to go a bit wrong.
BOO: The night of the dinner, I found that I had a raging cold.
YAY: At least I was sick and not Little Sister or Mr. Little Sister.
BOO: The next morning, our parents went off to the temple with Little Sister. The five Obnoxious siblings were scrambling around, trying to get ready. Baby Sister was trying to do my makeup and her hair. Baby Brother couldn't find his preferred shoes. Amidst all this, Little Sister was frantically texting Baby Sister, asking for various items she'd forgotten.
YAY: Baby Sister, being a good maid of honor, gathered everything that Little Sister needed. We managed to mollify Baby Brother and herd him into the car. Then we set off, Older Sister driving, me in the passenger seat and hopped up on cold medicine, everyone else in the back.
BOO: Suddenly, we hit traffic very uncharacteristic of 9:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning! It was rush traffic, and then some. Evidently, there'd been an accident. Soon we were locked in a complete standstill. We'd been on the road for at least fifteen minutes, and we'd hardly gone anywhere.
YAY: We happened to be near an exit. I was able to help Older Sister navigate safely out of the standstill and off the freeway! We then found an alternate route.
BOO: By this time, we were running rather late.
YAY: Older Sister used her mad driving skillz to get us to the temple in record time. At one point, we were turning right one a green light. There were a couple old ladies about to cross the road, but Older Sister yelped, "NOPE!" and cut them off as she raced toward temple parking! Soon Older Sister and Baby Sister and I (Baby Sister having recently been endowed) were headed into the temple while our brothers waited outside.
BOO: Although we made it to the temple on time, most of Mr. Little Sister's family did not. Presumably, they were stuck in the terrible traffic. The sealing room was ready early, so when they started ushering us in for the ceremony, many family members still weren't there!
YAY: Because the sealing room was fully booked for the day, we were afraid the sealing would have to start without everyone being there. Happily, things worked out, and almost everyone was in the room by the time the sealer started speaking! The ceremony was lovely. Mr. Little Sister is a sensitive soul, and he wept throughout most of the sealing.
BOO: When we went outside to wait for the new couple to emerge from the temple doors, we suddenly realized that none of us had ever seen the photographer! We didn't even know if she existed! We gathered that she did, since someone had to take the engagement and bridal photos, but we didn't know for sure. But, assuming she did exist, no one had any idea what she looked like.
YAY: After a good half hour of my awkwardly side-eyeing every single passing photographer, the photographer finally showed up just minutes before Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister made their appearance.
BOO: I spilled soy sauce on my skirt during lunch.
YAY: I wasn't wearing my bridesmaid dress yet! I'd just worn a normal Sunday dress to the temple and planned to continue wearing it until we were done setting up for the reception. Obviously, I wasn't happy about spilling the soy sauce, but it was more manageable than it would have been had I ruined my bridesmaid dress.
BOO: Literally as soon as we got to the aviary in which Little Sister's preferred reception center was located, a bird messed a big, brown mess on Little Brother's white shirt.
YAY: Older Sister was able to wash out the bird mess in the bathroom of the reception center, and Little Brother wore a women's shirt while we set up for the reception.
BOO: Not long after we started setting up, my parents found out that the moving van with most of the items would not be coming to the reception center as planned. They decided that both of them would go back to Hometown to get it, taking Little Brother with them. That left the four remaining Obnoxious siblings, the best man, and Rosebud (who is Mr. Little Sister's cousin) and Mr. Rosebud to set up everything. The problem was, only our mother really knew how everything was supposed to look, so we were at a bit of a loss.
YAY: Rosebud is an interior designer! She oversaw us as we frantically ironed things, hung them out, set them up, moved them across the floor, and so on and so forth.
BOO: The reception center was overly warm. Something wasn't quite right about the distribution of the air in the dated structure of the reception center. I went to the aviary office to ask them to look at it, but they said there was nothing they could do.
YAY: Since I was the only one running a fever, I was the only one who found the heat unbearable. Everyone else was just a little toasty!
BOO: The wedding party didn't wear their outfits to the temple, so we hadn't gotten any family pictures. We were supposed to do that right before the reception. However, the time was drawing near, and things still weren't set up. Fairy lights were still being strung. The backdrop for the bride and groom was falling apart even as Little Brother and Baby Sister put it up. Not to mention that no one had changed, freshened up, or put on their various flower accessories.
YAY: When Mom got back, she just told us to set things up...it didn't matter where. I put a few small trees lining the walkway, a formation that nobody questioned. In the end, everything got set up, and hey! We all were ready, too. Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister arrived, and all the bridesmaids got dressed at the same time as the bride. Mr. Rosebud dedicated himself to getting the boutonnieres on the groomsmen, and somehow, everyone was ready and lining up for photos.
BOO: Little Sister loves her record player. She'd put together a selection of records for the reception that we were supposed to play on her record player. However, just moments before the reception started, she discovered she hadn't put the record player power cord into the box of reception equipment.
YAY: When the DJ arrived, she offered to have her dad and brother bring her record player when they arrived at the reception. In the meantime, Rosebud's dad had an amplifier, and Mr. Little Sister had an iPod, so we did't have to go musicless.
At that point, things went mostly smoothly. The reception was set up like a fairy picnic in the woods. It was lovely. The refreshments were delicious. Having the reception in an aviary turned out to be rather interesting. At a couple points, my younger siblings ran away into the aviary. I had to hike up my delicate skirt and trot out looking for them in my cream-colored heels and flower crown.
At the end of the reception, we indulged in a bit of geekery. You might have seen photos of couples leaving their receptions to a send-off of sparklers or bubbles. Well, we'd gathered a good 15 or so lightsabers. We went out behind the reception center, turned on the lightsabers, and crossed them to make an archway. We blasted the Star Wars theme, and Little Sister and her new husband ran under the lightsaber path to the music.
I didn't see this myself, but word on the street says that after they were clear of the lightsabers, Little Sister stopped and said, "Wait! I didn't say goodbye to my family!" and started hugging everyone with arm's reach. And then she and Mr. Little Sister were gone.
We cleaned everything up and, exhausted, went home and went to bed!
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