Wedding Weekend Recap

As most of you know I was gone this weekend to attend my brother’s wedding. Here’s a recap for those interested. For
those who aren’t… regularly scheduled programming will be back tomorrow 🙂 You’ve already seen what pics I’m going to share for now so here’s the details:

Friday:
After work I had to go to the local clothing store to pick up my suit. I was hoping it was in as they had to re-order it. Either I dropped serious inches in the 10 days since they took measurements or they measured wrong. The suit coat and pants were way too big. Fortunately it was in and it fit great.

I had a friend working for me Saturday so between picking up the suit and waiting to show him the ropes I went home and got ready for the weekend away. Packed my clothes,wrote up directions to my customers for my friend and then I
shaved! I haven’t shaved in a couple of years. I usually get them to clip my beard and mustache when they clip my hair off but I never do get around to shaving. I figured for my brother’s wedding I could shave 🙂

Once my buddy got off work I gave him a crash course on working for me and I was off. The wedding weekend for me actually started tonight as my brother and his groomsmen and a friend of his along with me were going to play poker. Poker to be honest sucked as it was really like a bunch of hen’s gabbing rather than playing poker. I realize maybe I should have expected that with the enormity of the weekend ahead but I didn’t and it sucked. Also 2 of his friends have such big egos and think they’re so good at poker it’s actually not enjoyable at any time to play with them. From my perspective they’re not bad players but they’re damn lucky more than good . I busted out at 1:30am and hit the hay.

Saturday:

I woke up at 7:30am to shower and watch my brother’s brother-in-law’s kid while they went out to do some wedding stuff. After they were back we all got ready as they needed to take some pics before heading to the church. The pic of me the other day was taken by the kid. It’s not a bad pic but hoping I’ll be getting some better ones after my brother is back from his honeymoon.

For the pics we walked a block to the local park and the photographer who is a good friend of my brother’s spent maybe a 1/2 hour taking a number of photos. I haven’t seen it yet but apparently the photog’s idea really came out well. His idea was for the groomsmen to surround my brother while my brother squeezed a deck of cards and they flew at the camera. It’ll be interesting to see this shot. They played 52 card pick up 4 times to get it right. The last photo before the church was us walking single file across the street. Nothing like holding up traffic for a photo shoot 🙂

After the pics we had an hour to kill before the limo showed so what did we do? Yeah you guessed it a quick little poker tournament. It wasn’t my weekend for poker so glad it was a cheap one. The limo finally arrived and we drove to the church. When we got there we had to wait 40 minutes for the limo to go pick up the ladies from the spa where they were getting ready.

The church was built in 1902 and is called St.Patrick’s Basilica. It’s right downtown in Ottawa,Ont. My iphone is not great for capturing such a big place in a tight spot so I didn’t bother taking any photos of it outside. As you can probably guess from a couple of the inside pics I posted it’s a great old church.

The wedding was catholic so it was long but since I didn’t take my watch along I had no idea. I thought it went fairly well and went off with only a small hitch. The babysitter they planned for my niece in case she didn’t react well and had to be removed didn’t show. I didn’t realize it but found out afterwards my sister ended up missing most of the ceremony taking care of her outside the church. That sucked but I’m sure was greatly appreciated by my brother and new sister-in-law.

Once the ceremony was over we had family pictures to take outside the church. Once that was over we had an hour and a half to kill before the cocktail hour started before the dinner. So we went shopping! Well my nephew did as he had some gift certificates for Old Navy he wanted to spend. While he was in there I went in to the sporting goods store that was next door. They had everything on sale but I did a great job walking out of there with nothing!

On the way to the dinner we stopped at my parent’s hotel to pick them up. They drink so they were playing it smart and not driving. I haven’t drank in 6 years now so I didn’t have that to worry about. When we got there they had a little spread out for us to munch on. Mainly veggies and dip with some crackers and cheese. They had some crab too but I missed it. That’s the one great thing when I’ve been to my brother and now sister-in-law’s for an event..they eat healthy!
Knowing this I wasn’t too worried about really blowing the calories out of the water this weekend.

Dinner started with a roll that seemed white but had whole grains through out. This was followed by Italian wedding soup. I could tell that one was salty right away. Not too salty but really good salty 🙂 I ate it all..lol. for the main course they served a big chicken breast with a bit of the leg attached in some sort of sauce. Along side it was mashed potatoes and broccoli and cauliflower?(can’t remember). It was all so good! I mentioned the chicken breast was big as it was all I could do to finish my meal. I know I didn’t need to eat it all but it was a wedding so I wasn’t worried too much about the food this weekend. Desert was a cherry cheesecake with a chocolate drizzle on the plate.

After dinner was over they started with the speeches. This went really well and all of the speeches were great. I was cracking up the whole time! Like I told you the other day my brother the best man at the end of his speech proposed to his girlfriend and she accepted. She originally thought he didn’t get down on his knee but he did. He didn’t stay down he said as he thought she was going to fall when going around the wedding table. Needless to say they’re happier now then they were.

When my now married brother started his speech he said he was nervous. My dad said pretend your selling a fridge. He’s(my brother) an appliance salesman. He didn’t hear him and kept saying he was nervous so I yelled to him he should pretend he’s selling appliances. He heard me and responded with this ” I would but I can’t bullshit 200 people at the same time!”

After the speeches it was almost over. Except for those who like to dance and chit chat. Part way through their was the removing of the garter where there was different spin on this. They sat my sister-in-law in a chair then blind folded and tied my brother’s wrists. Then my other brother came out in his boxers and took my sister-in-laws place! It was hilarious as my brother went full gusto at it and removed the garter from my brother with his teeth. The whole room was cracking up yet he still removed it. I never did here when he knew if he did. If he did he was a sport and still removed it. One of my sister-in-law’s cousins’ boyfriend caught the garter belt and her cousin snatched the bouquet. Rigged?

Shortly afterwards they cut the cake and served it. I had a piece of this and again it was okay. If it had been better I’d have been tempted to have another piece as there was lots to go around. The happy couple was vacating at 1am so the place started clearing out around 12:30am. By 1am we were all waiting for taxis to go home. Our taxi must have learned to drive in Boston as he was speeding and didn’t want to stop at red lights or stop signs. In fact he only slowed down at the first intersection because we were all like “Woahhhhh! You going to stop?!!!!!!!” Apparently not for the first one! We made it home safe but not exactly happy with the trip.

Sunday:

I woke up at 8:45am after falling asleep around 2am. An hour later when everyone was up we drove to the home of my sister-in-law’s sister for the gift opening. I mainly attended to be near family but told everyone I knew there’d be a free meal. Really I’m a softy most of the time but don’t let it out. Can’t show weakness you know 🙂 The gift opening was nice and there was lots of nice gifts for the happy couple. I think it was overwhelmingly cash gifts though. Most took the easy way out like me 🙂

For food they had rolls and pastrami,roast beef and chicken slices along with cheese,pickles and some cut fruit and veggies and dip. I ended up having 4 mini sandwiches on the rolls with 3 being the pastrami and one roast beef all topped with mustard,cheese and pickles. To end I had a slice of wedding cake. So I went almost 4 full months without any kind of dessert and then had 3 in less than 24 hours…..ooops!

The gift opening was quick and ended at 12:45pm as the newlyweds had to be in Montreal,Que at 5pm to catch their flight to Mexico. I never did hear what part of Mexico but they’re pretty sure it’s not where there’ been a lot of troubles for tourists lately. Hopefully they enjoy their honeymoon!

Since the gift opening was going to end so soon I had arranged a golf match the day before. I was playing really well except for my short game. It’s normally the best part. I ended up losing by a stroke when I figured I should have won by 10. Now we’re tied up 2-2 in our race to 9 for out plaque. Better smarten up!

Well hope that wasn’t too bad of a recap. If it was too bad….just kidding…sort of 🙂 I don’t think my other brother is planning on getting married this year so you should have at least a year before having to read one of these. However if I get more pics I will select a few of the better ones and do one more pic post. I think you’ve read enough so have a good night I’m outta here.