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Jim's Wedding Blog
It took hours of searching, numerous flyers, and talking to anyone who was walking near Pleasant Run Golf Course, but at about 2:00 this afternoon, we recovered our dog.
We started the day hoping that since Suzy was seen on Saturday but not Sunday that she had been picked up by Animal Control. However, since they don't open until 10:00 a.m., we still made efforts to look for Suzy before then. Brooke was on her way to Animal Control at 10:00 when my aunt called to say that she saw Suzy on Pleasant Run Golf Course. At that point, Brooke, my dad, and I all converged on the course to try to find her, but she had vanished. The greenskeeper said he saw her and thought she was sleeping in a nearby cemetary (I was considering the idea of looking for her there after dark, but hanging out in a cold cemetary at night was not a thrilling prospect). After about two hours of searching around the course, it was time for everyone to take a lunch break. While I abandoned the search a little earlier so I could return to work, Brooke and my family were still nearby and about to resume the search when Brooke got a call from someone who had seen a flyer about Suzy. Sure enough, they drove up Arlington and Suzy was on the side of the road around 9th Street. She was timid when Brooke called her name, but once Suzy sniffed her, she knew she was saved.
I'm thankful to say that after three days of being loose outside, Suzy is OK. However, she walked with a bit of a limp, she had red marks on her neck, and a grease spot on her back. (We also discovered that her tag with her name and address and phone number is missing.) As a precaution, we got her into the vet to make sure there was nothing serious. The red marks on her neck looked like blood, but it was just the red ink from her red leather collar. The grease spot was probably from rooting through garbage. The limp might have just been from exhaustion, but the vet said she saw where the pads on Suzy's paws were beginning to physically wear down because she had run so much in the past three days. That probably explains why she looks so lively in the picture above.
In any case, Brooke was so happy to get Suzy back that she was willing to hug her any way she could:
Suzy will rest for a while and we will be able to get back to our normal lives. Just to fill you in on the remainder of the events that are actually relevant to the intended purpose of the blog, I have not heard anything about Jim falling out of the plane on the way to their honeymoon or any of that crazy stuff just yet. He did call last night to ask for Dad's phone number (Dad got a new phone number only 7 years ago; the only thing that made it worse is that I looked it up in my cell phone to make sure I got it right). Jim was concerned because Angel's name on the plane ticket read "Angel" and her name on her government ID is "Angela". I don't really worry about that with Brooke, so I wasn't sure what to tell him. I am hoping they made it safely. I'm sure that stories will follow.
Until the next blog, we are all taking turns looking over Suzy, including our cat:
This concludes my blog of Jim's wedding. The next blog should be soon. However, I need to clean some space off of the site to make that happen, so the Texas blog will probably be gone soon. Hope you enjoyed this one, and I'll write to you later.
Unfortunately, this entry if the blog will not be as lively as the others as we learned on the way home that our dog is lost. She has tags, but we have received no phone calls. She has been missing in the area of Arlington and St. Clair since Friday. We have not heard from Animal Control and people claim to have seen her yesterday, so we are optimistic, but we may not hear anything until tomorrow. Wish us luck.
As you might guess, they did get married. Was it easy? Well, is that important now? They got it done.
Of course, that's not what you're here to read. We got to the park at about 12:45 (for the 2:30 wedding) and the only people there were photographers. It's too bad that they weren't there for the wedding; they were actually there taking engagement pictures for other couples. We explained the situation to them and everything was worked out. The next person there was actually the real photographer, and Jim soon followed, much to our relief (one of his other groomsmen got him going). However, we got concerned that no decorations or decorators were present, but my saintly wife stepped in and helped decorate. She also even went shopping for scarves and blankets so the bridesmaids wouldn't freeze.
After that, the setup and groomsmen pictures went without incident and it may have been a bit of a rush, but we were ready to go at 2:30. If only there had been a bride. The female portion of the wedding party was about 30 minutes late. Shawn wondered if Angel had cold feet, but it was really just a joke because we all had cold everything. They did all show up and the ceremony went very well (except the unity candle song had to be played twice because they struggled with getting the candles lit and actually broke the glass candle holders while trying to get the candles out.
The result of all this is that Jim and Angel were married in a lovely, artic ceremony, and their worries about how to spend the three and a half hours between the ceremony and reception as we ended up rushing to get pictures done with the remaining sunlight:
I eventually got to the reception hall (Brooke was already there because she left early to help decorate) only about 5 minutes before the happy couple (I made a side trip to the hotel room to unload the pictures from the camera to the laptop). We had a surprisingly good dinner, and made a very improvised toast (could it have been any other way) that I was told was good except for the part where I admitted that I made it up in 30 seconds, and we had an awesome cake. And then it was a very active dance floor. I spent a lot of time taking pictures, but Brooke and I did manage to find a moment to steal a few steps together:
We closed down the place at 10:30ish and went back to our hotel (via McDonalds to get ice cream; it was all we could do to satisfy the DQ craving). My Oreo McFlurry rated a B. We also tried to make plans to eat breakfast tomorrow morning with all of my family who do not want to wake up at the same time. We may have to spend a long time in the Golden Corral to visit with all of them. That could be very dangerous in an all-Joe-can-eat restaurant.
Of course, there was so much more to the day than the measly amount I've written here, but I'll get into that when I talk to you later. We're hoping to be home tomorrow and I will be more than willing to share the experiences with you (like it or not!).
So what do I mean by six degrees of separation? I mean that there are only six degrees Fahrenheit separating the current air tempurature from the freezing point of water. At least there is no water falling from the sky. However, we did spend a little time this morning shopping to get Brooke a new coat so she will not turn into a Brookesicle at the wedding.
We had a nice breakfast and we went shopping for supplies to try to decorate Jim's car for after the ceremony. We got back to the hotel and Jim was here visiting along with one of his groomsmen so we were be able to plot the trashing of Jim's car.
We're heading into the final hours of Jim's bachelorhood and it is time for me to get ready. I'll let you know how it went later tonight...
Even though the real purpose of our trip to the St. Louis area is to be here to celebrate Jim's wedding, Brooke and I had also hoped to relax by getting out of town. It didn't take too long for that to change. It is a four-hour drive to get here, so we thought we'd leave six hours ahead of time. It turned out that we preferred some extra sleep, and managed to get here about 5 minutes late. Therefore, we skipped going to Jim's place altogether and went straight to pick up my tux and check into the hotel and get ready to go to the rehearsal.
To understate, that was the least of our issues today. The good news is that we made it to Alton safely. The bad news is that the site of the wedding is an hour drive away, and Jim was 25 minutes late. This meant that we didn't get to the wedding site, Bee Tree Park, until 4:20, leaving only a maximum of 45 minutes of daylight to get the rehearsal done. Here is the view of the Mississippi River from the the wedding site:
The place is definitely nice and it seems a great place for an autumn wedding. The leaves were everywhere and they were even flying (although that was due to the oncoming storm). Brooke was even convinced that the mansion overlooking the site was haunted:
Overall, the rehearsal went...uh...I'm sure they'll have a good marriage. Let's just say that Angel has things planned down to every detail, but I'm not really sure what to do. Here are the things I learned or observed today:
- I'll be walking down the aisle with the maid of honor. We will actually enter before the other bridesmaids and groomsmen.
- I do not know the maid of honor's name (although I did tell her that if she held my arm that Brooke might beat her up).
- Teenage girls should never be part of a wedding party.
- Angel is going to wear 5-inch heels.
- The pastor tripped and fell during the rehearsal by simply standing up. He is walking Angel down the aisle.
- There is no level ground or sidewalk in the altar area (think about the previous two items).
- The forecasted high temperature tomorrow is 46 degrees.
Another thing I learned is that you cannot mention the word tradition around Angel. Do you notice anything odd in this picture of the altar with the guys all in their positions?
Angel has it set up so the guys are all on the left side. Everyone, including the pastor, tried to tell Angel this, but she insisted that this isn't going to be traditional. However, she is going to extraordinary lengths to ensure that Jim does not see her in her dress until she emerges from a makeshift curtain during the ceremony.
So during the last run-through of the ceremony, the storm that had been threatening finally hit and I sprinted back to the car (to protect my camera, of course) and we headed to the rehearsal dinner. Now that is another story entirely, which I will not get into on the blog, but it left us with some frazzled nerves. I'll just say that we had to arrange some things at the last minute and it took us two hours in rush hour traffic on a Friday in a storm through the Castleton-like area of St. Louis. The dinner itself was short as we were ready to rest our frazzled nerves for tomorrow. We wanted to help decorate tomorrow, but when we asked Jim when we should be at the ceremony site tomorrow, he said he didn't know. Fortunately for Jim, his other groomsmen are more tactful than me.
We finally headed back to our hotel and I met up with my dad and we went to Dairy Queen; no "rehearsal dessert" was provided and it isn't a bloggable trip without Dairy Queen. I asked Jim to go with us, but he said he didn't know. He missed out on a pretty awesome Chocolate Xtreme Blizzard from the Wood River Dairy Queen. Dad and I had a nice visit, while Brooke got some much needed rest for her body and nerves.
It is almost 2:00 a.m., and I have a big day tomorrow. Well, I don't have much to do, but it feels pretty big. We plan to get up and have breakfast at the Golden Corral (we asked Jim if he would go with us, but he said he didn't know). We may need to eat plenty because we have no idea when we will get food again as the time and location of the reception (or the "pre-reception"; more on that another time) have not been revealed to us (he's planning on making copies of the directions in the morning). I'm sure that the wedding will be memorable and the important thing is that they will have a happy life, but it may take a lot of Blizzard therapy for me to survive the rest of this weekend.
Yes, it's another trip, so there is another blog. I promise to confine this one to three days, unlike the last one which became "The Blog That Ate New York, Or At Least Went There". But since this trip involves Jim's wedding, I'm sure that I will find enough to write about in three days. In fact, just thinking about Jim, I could spend three days writing about his adventures.
We are looking forward to celebrating with Jim and Angel, and I can't promise to update the blog too often, as I am in the wedding party and I don't know where I need to be when. I do know three things though:
- I'm the best man
- I already knew that
- That lame joke will get old really quick
We're heading out tomorrow morning and our next stop is Chez Jim! Stay tuned...
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