Anyone who knows Zach and Julia can write something here... No, you don't have to be from SAIS. Email me at stefan@sighs.com. I'll start.

June 6, 1999: Stefan Geens, New York

At a wedding there is a time for solemnity and there is a time for celebration. Zach and Julia's wedding proved particularly adept at both--whereas Judge Messitte's speech imbued the ceremony with a masterly magisterial air, it was Julia's dad that (unwittingly) provided the tools for an unscripted twist to the party that easily ensures it a place in the pantheon of best parties ever. It involves a missing band.

You see, between last October--when the band was booked--and the day of the wedding, the band began to see itself as somewhat up-and-coming. Not a difficult illusion to entertain, after all they had that Hootie and the Blowfish sound but with a Southern drawl, precisely the kind of "fusion" that the radio-industrial complex thinks will appeal to the lowest common denominator. The name escapes me. Was it Mud Brothers?

Their first set was competent in that they got everybody onto the dance floor, but the planned 15-minute break saw them drop their instruments and rush to their shiny new tour bus, which proceeded to carry them off into the night. Rumor was they had a scheduled appearance at a local radio station to plug their album. An hour later this rumor had all the trappings of fact, and some carousers were beginning to think about calling it a night.

Not Veronique (dWdW) (PBUH). The shiny instruments, all prepped, the hum of the amplifiers, and the lure of an on microphone proved too much, so she ventured onstage and challenged our set ways with a rendition of vocalized syncopated rap so fresh out of the Amsterdam underground that it had us cheering and the waitstaff in stitches.

Her performance buttered the slippery slope for the musically inclined among us who had previously respected property rights, and soon there was a headlong rush for the stage as every available cymbal and guitar was claimed for the greater good of the Party.

I'd like to dispel right away any idea that the result was festive but amateurish noise. IT ROCKED. From the moment that [Zach's high-school friend's] opening riffs met [Julia's brother's] self-assured drumwork it was evident to all that we were in the presence of improvisational genius. [Help me out with names here.] The response was an ecstatic dance floor, not least because the house band proceeded to play every feel-good classic the MIA band had said they were too good to play. "Down Home Alabama" is one particular highlight that comes to mind. I mean, how can you be a wedding band in Alabama and not play that song?

After about an hour of what I imagine a good Grateful Dead concert must have been like, the headlights of the tour bus strafed the tent. The stage was cleared in a more-or-less orderly manner, but it was the real band that redefined the word "sheepish" as they reclaimed their instruments. A couple of safe jokes segued into the second set, but by now everybody was in such high spirits that there was little point in holding grudges.

After all, the night had been made.