Brad, Toni, Will, Melissa (or How the Summer of the Wedding Came to a Close)

First, apologies. I've neglected to post for some time now. It's not that I've been too busy... it's more like too lazy. Once I realized that Tony had posted recently (and he never posts), I figured I'd better pick up the keyboard and do an update. I've been meaning to for a while, honest.

So our story begins with the marriage of Brad and Toni (wedding 3 or 4 for 2005). To summarize: beautiful wedding, lots of bees, still honoured to have been Best Man/Emcee, lost shoes, lost bag, good times.

It was a stressful weekend in general for a number of reasons. I had been working non-stop for the week prior as I geared up for a couple of big BBQs I was helping to organize for a client of mine (funny story in that, but you have to ask me for an update in person). The Friday morning began with a 4:45am wake-up to be with my client on a morning show cooking demo in north east Calgary. Then I work like mad to have everything in place by noon for when Natalie picks me up to head up to Edmonton. For the first time ever, I need to be attached to a cell phone for the weekend because media/client could call (I got two calls, both on Friday before 7pm).

So, I was stressed about work. These were big events coming up and I needed to be on top of a lot of details.

But, more importantly, I was stressed about the wedding. Theoretically, I shouldn't be because it's not like it's my wedding, right? But, as it was someone else's wedding, I was getting stressed because I didn't want to screw up and ruin anything (Rule: you can ruin your wedding, but ruining your friend's is unforgivable). So, tucked in with my work binder and my cell was a detailed emcee's agenda and a Best Man's speech. The latter I practiced to myself a few times in the Devonian Garden parking lot (after a while you get use to talking to yourself in public).

At this time, I, Nat, was driving Jeff to Mary's place. Jeff was also going to Edmonton to cover the Fringe Festival for FFWD and was getting mileage. So out of our love for someone paying for our gas money, we drove Jeff, not because we like Jeff. We end up getting lost. Daorcey drew a route but we missed the turnoff. We eventually make it to Mary's and now I have to return the same way. Daorcey said to follow the same route, but on the map it twists and turns and is confusing. Mary, a non-driver, says to take another route which in the end was much better. I pick up Chris and Daorcey and to the dinner we go.

Did the rehearsal at 4pm Friday and promptly lost my work bag with all my stuff in it. Of course, I didn't notice right away... I had to go home first. Don't worry, I got it back, but I still had to leave the rehearsal dinner early. Speaking of rehearsal dinner, I'll have to let Natalie tell you how she feels about broccoli and bacon.

Best salad ever!

Wedding day was wonderful with good sun and not too much heat. Happy times all around. Hopefully there might be a couple of digital/scanned photos of the wedding floating around that we can upload some time.

Photos, standing around, more photos. It was a typical after wedding event. Then we piled into the limo. Although generously donated, it was a tad tight. Chris and I should have opted to sit in the front, but we didn't want to miss out, so we crammed into the back with the rest of the party. Sitting on the floor with a number of shoes poking into us, we poured champaign and toasted to good times and the such. There was a bit of smell and my legs went numb, but good times nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I walked around the gardens with Daorcey's parents. As it is a Saturday in the summer, there are wedding parties everywhere. We stopped for some ice cream as it was hot and just people watched. I think I saw the most hideous bridesmaids dresses. I saw one and thought it was just an old grad dress someone was wearing to a wedding. But then the whole party showed up and... well Daorcey says Direct Energy must have sponsored their wedding. From the front it was this electric blue, ugly but not too bad. But the back had BRIGHT ORANGE STRIPES. Not just little stripes but huge stripes. Even the flowers and limo were decorated with these hideous colours.

OK... I'm getting into details here that may not be too exciting for the general public. Don't get me wrong, there are stories to tell and each wedding is different, but not everyone likes them so I'll keep all my excitement to myself. Maybe we should get back to the summary: reception was fun, food was tasty, being emcee with Becca was all good and my Toast to the Groom didn't suck. There was dancing and more food, PG-13 jokes shared between new friends and karaoke.

Daorcey misses out on fun details like the native friendship dance we did. Turns out Toni is part Metis and everyone joined hands in a huge circle and danced to this song. Well tried to. Toni said you could tell who was native because they were dancin' it up. Us non-natives sorta stumbled around. But it was cool.

Also, my table was pretty cool. I met a guy whose second sentence to me was he was divorced. I met another guy who was Chinese, looked like Eric Fung, but was a CBC just like me. And he was hilarious. We got to making jokes in the cake room other people would consider racist but we're laughing it up. I think we got some strange looks. Even Daorcey's parents had fun. They thought they would leave early as they didn't know anyone but their table was pretty cool. The DJ, Toni's uncle, played the Metis national anthem and Colin, being a social studies teacher, had to dance, so that was neat as well.

We had a good time and stayed until the hotel made us leave.

Oh, speaking of the hotel, they lost our reservation again! Lame. This is the second time this has happened this year. Fortunately, there were some rooms left so we were able to snag something. It could've gotten ugly.

So we slept in and were ready to make our way to breakfast when I noticed my shoes were missing. I had been wearing tux rental shoes all day prior, so I didn't pay attention to where my actual (work) shoes were. Only minorly concerned (they had to be somewhere!), we checked out and prepared for breakfast.

I admit that it must have been hard to notice that I wasn't wearing any shoes in the hotel lobby, but as all of Brad and Toni's relatives noticed it only helped to reinforce my image as a klutzy, slightly dense, absent-minded fool (stories about poo ponds, tree forts and rides tied behind a skidoo originally planted that image for people). I don't really mind the image (there are worse things to be seen as), but every now and then, it's nice to be thought of as a successful, moderately intelligent, interesting person. Oh well, it's important to throw one's ego out the window now and then.

So here's a list of things I did without shoes: breakfast with the bride and groom, packing the car, driving, shopping for cheap replacement shoes, not finding cheap replacement shoes, purchasing a new pair of shorts instead, driving to the the gift opening, attending the gift opening, leaving the gift opening early to find my shoes, getting laughed at by Moores' employees when I walk in without shoes, finding no shoes at Moores, finding my shoes where I left them: at Nelson's place.

Thanks, again, Nelson, for leaving the party early to help me clothe my feet. I probably owe you.

I don't know why Daorcey felt it was important to buy shorts. But he came out of the dressing room to show me and the door closed behind him. Instead of asking an employee to unlock it, Daorcey slithers under it. Eww.

More importantly, thank you, Brad and Toni, for asking me to be involved in your wedding. It was a great experience! Lots o' fun!

Fast forward one week and Natalie and I are going to wedding 4 of 4 for 2005--Will and Melissa. And, more importantly, we're going to the first wedding of the season where neither of us has any responsibilities as part of the wedding party! Hip, hip, hooray!

Yes, it was kinda nice to just be able to sleep in, get gussied up and show up at the wedding. For the first time ever, we were also able to change and run errands between ceremony and reception. This was also the first wedding of the season in a church. I like churches (probably because I've been to so few in my life) so I found the whole ceremony really nice. Sacred Heart Church in Calgary is a very pretty place (way to go Will and Melissa!).

Summary of this wedding: posh and surprising. It was easy to see that a lot of work had gone into this one (two years in the making). Everyone looked great and the reception was held in the classic Crystal Ballroom of the Palliser Hotel.

Jeez, describe the dress. Melissa is very petite so they had to look everywhere for a dress. But she had this beautiful gold dress, with a sweetheart neckline and off the shoulders straps. The train was huge as was the veil but it fit the church setting. The bridesmaids had brown sheath dresses with a strap going diagonally across a shoulder. The boys were in tuxes as well and looked good.



Surprise #1: Getting thanked in the Bride and Groom's speech. Background: Natalie had volunteered to help design and layout the programs for the reception. As she's said before, it was totally no problem and she was happy to help. We gather there were more people on that thank you list that did more work than we did... still, it was a pleasant surprise. We're happy we played a small part in your wedding, guys.

Surprise #2: OK, so we knew Will and Melissa did traditional Filipino dance and all that jazz, but we were blown away when, instead of a typical first dance, they came out in traditional garb and did the Filipino national dance (what's it called again, Will?). Now that little dance ain't no sissy square dance or anything like that. It involves something that might be described as two-person jumprope using two hulking bamboo (?) sticks that are smacked back and forth by two handlers while the jumpers dance/jump in and out of them. We sat beside the two handlers during dinner and one of them, Connie, said those sticks can do major damage to your ankle if it hits you.

That dance pretty much kicked up the energy of the wedding a touch and everyone seemed ready to dance. It set the scene for quite a party. We stayed for a bit after that for some photos and cake, but being non-dancers, we opted to leave a little early and hit the sack... and slept until 11am the next morning (something I haven't been able to do for a few weeks). That was nice.

Daorcey also neglected to mention the wonderful Toast to the Groom. This one had a powerpoint presentation. They explained the phases of Will, including hairstyle and dress, with photos. To further the hilarity, the best man and one of the groomsmen dressed up like that Will. The best costume was the Will's phase where he had bright bleached hair and wore blue sparkly shirts. It was a shirt you would wear to the club but I've seen Will wear it at school. So the groomsmen puts on a blond wig and the infamous blue shirt. Hilarity ensues.

The blue shirt made another appearance as well. At the garter toss, Will starts stripping and I don't understand why. He gets down to the shirt and starts unbuttoning. Melissa starts laughing like crazy and from my angle I can't see why. He rips off the shirt and there's the blue sparkly shirt. He wore it for the rest of the evening complete with the white tie from his tux.

Wow... this has been a lot of writing. It took me three lunch hours to complete. Once I have some photos, I'll add them in. Speaking of photos: Toni/Brad and Melissa/Will if you happen to have some digital photos of your weddings handy, I'd love to put up a couple.

And that's how the Summer of the Wedding came to an end. Four weddings later I'm married and so are three sets of my best friends. Now that's a productive summer! Let's do it again sometime.