Wedding Weekend, Part II

Part II of III of Wedding Weekend: Friday.

My apologies for the delay, but there was a lot to write.


It's Slightly Less Annoying When You're Half Deaf

Suddenly, noise. Pure, overwhelming, intrusive noise. It came from every direction, it layered upon itself with a deafening shriek. My first thought was "KAYAK WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF ALARM IS THAT?!?!?!?" We had an early alarm set because we had an 8 am tee time. Then I realized it was the fire alarm. It was 4:30 am. There was no fire. I had stayed at this particular hotel 11 years earlier, when looking at Ithaca College with my dad. Back then, in the 3 am hour, the fire alarm went off. So it seems that re-living old memories knew no bounds. It took the fire department a little too long to get there, and after about 10 or 15 minutes the alarms were turned off. Half an hour later, as we lay in bed, they went off again. It was now 5:15 am, we didn't bother leaving. Everyone else presumably fell asleep, but I couldn't. I half-slept for about an hour and hopped in the shower. Then Kayak took a shower, he later would tell me that in the shower he contemplated pulling the fire alarm on the way out, turned out he didn't need to. As I lay in the chaise in my bedroom at 6:45 while he showered, the alarm went off for a third time. Today was going to be great! In retrospect, we all should have called The Doctor when the alarms went off, and all left him voice mails of the alarms. We're abusive friends.

Jean Van de Velde, Where Art Thou?

Backstreet's actual back.

The Groom, Kayak, Backstreet and I played a round at Soaring Eagles Golf Course in Horseheads, NY that morning. I must have drank more than I thought on Thursday night, because I was letting a good fart rip on pretty much every hole. There seemed to be a positive correlation between my gas and my tee shots.

At The Groom's bachelor party we went golfing as well. I got him a fanny pack filled with pink balls for him to play with (on the course). He protested, but everyone shot him down. At your wedding you get to call all the shots, at your bachelor party you call none of them. This day, he played with one of them (the rest are in my truck, which was at the Hartsfield-Jackson parking lot. D-oh!). Later in the day he would lose it in the trees, or a pond, or the brush, we're not really sure. The following exchange ensued:

"I can't find the pink."
"Yeah I've been having that problem lately too."

None of us did too well. Only The Groom broke 100, and I think he got a 97. But it's not like we let him win. Kayak and Backstreet agreed to go after each other on the scorecard. I think they forgot the lowest score wins. I did pretty well for myself, I didn't hit a tree or a house, or the cart path (although Kayak and I came close on one) and I shot a 125.5. Yes you read that right. I have my own scoring system, because I suck. I'll drop it when I get better, whenever that is, but I wouldn't wait up. Backstreet lost his pitching wedge, but it's not like he was playing great with it to begin with. Kayak and I played some great "cart golf." There was a par 5 where both our tee shots went about 40 yards, and on multiple tee shots we hit to the same tree.

"Anyone plan on playing golf today?"
"No, but I am enjoying walking around outside and hitting things."

I don't want to give the impression that because were all having fun golfing that we were a quartet of oblivious douche bags. We weren't. I'm sure that for The Groom the various levels of stress, worry and anxiety were creeping up on him, so it was good to get him out and relaxed. Sometimes you need to take a moment away from it all to soak it all in and appreciate it.

Meanwhile, Goldie Locks, who has an impressive ability to turn on his asshole switch, got me 25% off the hotel bill due to the fire alarms. He's the man. In a "funny because it's true" moment on the course, I said "you can tell I've improved as a human being because for the first time we're all on a trip together and people owe me money."

On the drive back, Kayak and I were very much looking forward to a nap. He told me that there were some rocking chairs on a porch. I already loved the place.

The Cottage of the Damned

The Inn at Glenora has a nice little cottage about a quarter mile down the road on the winery property. As the first arrivals to the cottage, Kayak and I felt that it was our duty to test out the napping capabilities of every piece of furniture in the cottage. We agreed that while there were many fine options, the couches in the living room were the best. About a minute and a half after we kicked back, family members arrived with supplies for the rehearsal picnic later than night, so our naps were short lived, but it was no big deal, we were happy to help. Muppet and Camera came from Los Angeles and brought a really great gift: In N Out Burger. So delicious.

We Interupt This Blog Post To Bring You A Special Message

Wedding Weekend was probably the most enlightening experience of my life. I learned a lot about myself and quite a bit about others, and almost all of it was positive. I'm only going to share the positive here because this isn't the place to air dirty laundry.

Throughout my write-ups of the weekend, you might notice a recurring theme of "all the people who were there." I don't want this to be misunderstood. The point I'm trying to convey is that the Bride and Groom aren't just two of the most wonderful people I know, it's that they are two of the most wonderful people that a lot of people know. There were about 160 there, and 19 of us were asked to be a part of one of the biggest days of the lives of two of our closest friends, and it made me really honored to be asked to be one of them. Until Friday, I hadn't really put that in the proper perspective.

You Only Get To Do This Once, So Practice Makes Perfect

The rehearsal was a mini-reunion of a couple of old friends and some new friends from the bachelor party. It was good to see everyone again. There was Pornstar (he's not really one); Taco Boy (aka My Proxy), who's girlfriend was speaking; Truck Wash, who was also a speaker and on this day a substitute bridesmaid; the Fake Canadian; Backstreet; the Brother of The Groom; and The Doctor as The Best Man. In addition to the wedding party, there were 9 speakers, speaking on 6 topics (3 pairs, 3 solo) chosen by the bride and groom. Each of us was given a word or phrase for our topic, and the speech itself was up to us, except for Taco Girl's, but we'll get to that in Part III. We speakers non-seriously tossed about the idea of everyone starting their speech with how Webster's dictionary defines the word we were speaking about. Home Brew would run into a problem in that Webster's defines "friendship" with the word "friend." You can't do that. One of the best moments was when The Bride and the Father of the Bride practiced their intro... arms locked, skipping down the aisle kind of like The Wizard of Oz, but way better. I kind of wished they would do that at the ceremony.

Great Idea, Serve Us Spicy Hot Dogs And Beer The Day Before Your Wedding

Back at the cottage, we helped set up for the picnic. Some tables were set up and The Doctor and I found a couple of swiveling lounge chairs that we positioned nicely. They'd come in handy later at the roast. The beer selection was excellent, a thanks goes out to those who got it. Like I said in Part I, you can't go wrong with Saranac. The food was really good: hot dogs and spiced sausages, fried chicken, macaroni and potato salad, and other picnic staples. It was fun watching people struggle to reattach the sliding screen door that kept falling off on the porch.

The picnic was held on the lawn. We all emerged from the vineyard like the ball players in Field of Dreams did from the cornfield.

Don't drink and drive.

The picnic was essentially a family reunion. It was good to see a couple of as yet unmentioned faces: Loaf Daddy (actual nickname!) and The Terminal (think: that Tom Hanks movie), who spent the entire day blowing up my phone. The bride and groom called everyone participating in the wedding up to the porch in front of everyone and spoke about why it was so important for us to be a part of their wedding. It was very sweet.

It Wasn't The Friar's Club, But It Wasn't Too Far Off

After dinner, we roasted the Bride and Groom. It was a blast. The Doctor and I got the swivel chairs out and were easily the most comfortable viewers. Everyone pulled out all the stops. Among others, Kayak got Backstreet in trouble with his girlfriend, Loaf Daddy held back nothing and MBFAM delivered a great limiric that insulted us all. They were embarassing stories, and everyone laughed their asses off. The Bride and Groom were given Dignity Bears. I'd explain it, but it wouldn't do it justice. You'll just have to use your imagination.

I had a story that I wasn't sure of how to tell that night. I decided to tell this jokingly as a story of how lame The Groom was, but really it works better as a sweet story...

The Groom, Sh*thead and I would be putting up the set for the college TV show we worked on together. The Bride and Groom had met and had been flirting with each other by the time this story happened, but they weren't yet dating. The Groom would be up on a ladder hanging a light fixture, and The Bride, who gave tours of the school on Friday afternoons would come in with a tour. At this time The Groom was the station manager for our college TV station. It didn't matter if an expensive, heavy light was hanging on by a thread of a screw, when she came in the studio with her tour, he'd rush to greet her. He'd give some spcheel about the studio and the station while Sh*thead and I would give him space and continue to put up the set. It was really cute how he'd drop everything to be with her. And here we are 8 years later and nothing's changed. That spark is still there. Cherish it. Don't ever forget it.

On Saturday morning, the Father of the Bride picked up some things from the night before and told me that, sitting on the deck of the Inn's restaurant that night, he and his friends could hear the speeches from the roast (we had a PA), and more importantly to him, the laughter from all the people in attendance. He was on Cloud 9 when telling me this. He couldn't contain the joy he had that his daughter had such great friends who cared so much about them. It was another one of my favorite moments the whole weekend. I hope that if I ever have a daughter, I'll be half as happy as he was when she gets married.

Just because the roast was done didn't mean we were. There were all the usual drinking activities, and then Home Brew chipped a front tooth while carrying a beer in her mouth like a can opener. Normally that wouldn't be such a big deal, but she was one of the speakers at the wedding. Smile! The Bride and Groom went their seperate ways as is the custom, with The Groom staying with us in the cottage. The Terminal washed his hands and apparently used the rug to dry them...

The Groom: There's a sink.
The Terminal: Yeah, but there's a rug too.
Love that guy.

And that's all I remember/wrote down. I'd say it's quite a bit, and as you can see as the booze got flowing things started escaping my memory. That's what happens.