Wild Wedding Weekend

Spent the weekend in Kansas/Missouri. (Kansas City, MO is the closest airport to Overland Park, KS, so that's where I went.) My friend Stuart "officially" married his wife Jenny. Yes, you read that correctly. These two eloped almost three years ago, before he was to be stationed in [a Middle-Eastern country] for two years, and she was going along on the trip. So now that they're back, this weekend they had a church wedding and a big party.

I admit, was a little (ok, alot) apprehensive about going to another wedding by myself, but in no time, I was "adopted" by Stuart's high school friends, Anthony and Tamara, and Tam's husband Eric. Turns out these were the "cool" kids - the ones that were always causing trouble, the ones that everyone stared at for laughing too loudly. I fit right in! We were so clearly the "fun" table at both the rehearsal dinner and the reception that people moved to hang out with us -- or moved to get away from us! [pictured right: Eric, Tamara, Stuart and Anthony]

The wedding itself was *very* Catholic. Made me think of those times when I was in high school and we would go to the Christmas service at the Cathedral (I was in the choir). Afterwards, my mom would say she needed to go to the synagogue, to "cleanse her palate". I really felt like I needed a good Sh'ma and maybe some Kaddish after the whole father-son-and-holy-ghost thing. (although I can still say the Our Father prayer backwards, forwards and upside-down after all those years at NCS... scary.)

Then we all (the bride & groom and attendants, and the troublemakers) jumped on a little trolley (thankfully, there was heat on the trolley - it was COLD in KC!) and drove around the city to take pictures... although someone on the bus pointed out that it was kind of silly to take pictures of the bride & groom with dead plants and piles of snow everywhere. Oh well. Unfortunately, the trolley seats were wooden slats, so it wasn't terribly comfortable to ride around for two hours. But we survived. (and we stopped and picked up some "Christmas Cheer" after we were done taking pictures, on the way to the reception.) I probably had a few too many of the signature drink - pomegranate martinis - but was able to snag enough water bottles to make it through the night and not have (much of) a hangover this morning. and I think I danced off plenty of alcohol on the dance floor!

All in all, it was a GREAT weekend. I also had to thank Jenny for *not* throwing her bouquet or doing the silly garter thing. Turns out there were probably only two of us who would have been waiting for the bouquet [one of my favorite scenes from SATC - the girls all stand there when a bouquet is thrown, let it fall to the floor without even moving a muscle, and then walk away]. We talked about it this morning... ten years ago, our friends' weddings were full of singles. Not so much any more. Instead, they had an "anniversary" dance - they asked all the married couples to come on the dance floor, and then whittled the dancing couples down based on how long they had been married - 15 years, 20 years, etc. Turns out there was one couple who have been married for 43 years! Wonderful.

There are plenty of other stories from the weekend (I was hanging out with the troublemakers, after all!) but they will not be posted here. If you wanna know, you're gonna have to ply me with food & drink. probably a lot of drink. ;)