the brunch.

A lot of Izons!

Brunch!

As I have found in my travels, this is mostly an American invention. And, outside of New York, many places only do SUNDAY brunch. Where on Earth am I supposed to nurse my Friday-night hangover if you're only serving kale salad and Pat LaFrieda burgers at 12 PM? WHERE ARE MY EGGS? To paraphrase Shakespeare, when I drink tequila, do I not get drunk?! Ergo, comfort food should be mandatory all weekend, every weekend. Bloomberg, you have a few months left. Get on it.

Anyway! Digression!

Today's topic at hand is the post-wedding brunch. You can read about our early travails of finding a rehearsal dinner and brunch spot here. Since our event was rather large, we couldn't invite everyone, so we limited ours to wedding party and out of town family members. As you can see from the above photo, the Izon clan rolls pretty strong. We also had lovely representations from the Lewins and my mom's side of the family but I was too hungover busy to take pictures (the above is from my awesome, awesome cousin Joe, who is a professional photographer. You can check out his website here.).

We decided on The National for our brunch since it's close to The Plaza, has lots of private dining room spaces to choose from and I have a mini-crush on silver fox Geoffrey Zakarian. Rather than attempting to corral everyone for a sit-down brunch, we served everything buffet style, which included everything from french toast to fruit salad. Insider's tip: I recommend this method for any other brides planning a post-wedding event since a) the last thing you need is to fill out another seating chart and b) people can come and go as they please. Did I remain firmly seated in one place while I wolfed down three breakfast burritos? I'm not saying no.

The brunch is also, of course, an excellent way to do one's first post-mortem on the wedding. One of the best parts was sitting with my bridesmaids giggling over everything that had happened the night before. Or should I say morning? The sun was pretty close to rising before we turned in for the night. And, as I had many family members in from outside the country, it was such a gift to be able to spend a few more hours with them apart from the craziness of the wedding day.

Smile!

Is it a little weird to show up to the brunch and be married? Yes. I looked pretty confused in most of the pictures from this day and our mini-moon. 20 months of planning for one night, but, if you're like me, you don't really plan for the day after. But, as a fully minted wife for almost six weeks now, trust me that it's OK to feel a bit discombobulated in the days and weeks post-wedding.

And once you emerge from the fog a bit, take heart! It's time to start planning next year's anniversary trip.