Rehearsal Dinner and Wedding Day Prep - part 2

Rehearsal dinner...food and fun with friends.

The wedding day has arrived!

The Wedding Ceremony

 

Upstate New York

My trip to upstate NY was busy, to say the least. I had a great time with my family as we prepared for the wedding and decorated the church and reception hall. There was a LOT of stuff to be done, and very little time to do it all. In and around the edges were the trips to the store and other errands. I did manage to see a lot of people, though most of them were for 5-10 minute increments as I had bits and pieces of time. I was somewhat blown away by peoples’ reactions when I saw them. I ran across everything from “you need to move back!” to “I’m going to move to Kodiak” and everything in between. It’s nice to be so loved! :-) While I was happy to see so many people when I was there, a lot of those interactions were rather, uh, strange, and I was glad when I got back to the relative peace of Kodiak Island. The wedding itself was very nice, and so much fun was had by all. My brothers even got me out onto the dance floor a few times! Mark got our family going with swing dancing awhile back, but we’ve generally danced up in the barn, so it was kind of fun to have an actual dance floor to dance on this time. The bride and groom left for their Jamaican honeymoon the next day, and things returned somewhat to normal, though we still had relatives there. I had set aside Monday as my ‘free’ day to do the shopping and other errands that can only be done while off-island. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t comply.

This winter in NY/VT has apparently been extremely snowy and cold. I wouldn’t know personally, as Kodiak has had a very mild, and fairly warm winter, which I am thoroughly enjoying. However, NY had huge amounts of snow, followed by rain and flooding, and then an ice storm, causing a state of emergency a few days before my trip. So when I arrived to find sun, warmth, and hardly any snow on the ground, I was thrilled. The beautiful weather continued through the weekend, but changed to snow/sleet on Monday, just in time for me NOT to be able to do all the things I needed to accomplish while off island. And in fact, it wouldn’t have been so bad if not for the rental car I was given…

Yes, there were issues with it, including having the alignment off, 4 completely bald tires, the check engine light on, and various rattling noises and hesitations while driving. Needless to say, I was less than thrilled with Thrifty, particularly when they told me I had to bring it back down to Springfield (2 ½ hrs away) to do anything about it. Since I didn’t have an extra 5-6 hrs to spare, I made the best of it, praying each time I went anywhere that I’d survive the drive. However, I decided it wasn’t the wisest move to drive an hour away on icy roads with bald tires, so the shopping had to go by the wayside. :(

The Rehearsal Dinner and Wedding Day Preparations

On Friday, since I wasn't actually in the wedding, I went home after we finished decorating the reception hall, and decorated the house for the rehearsal dinner. Some of the balloons didn't make it all the way home, so I ended up making two trips to Bennington for them. Zachary spent every spare moment he had on my new IPad.  

 When the wedding party got to the house, we spent the evening hanging out, eating pizza and shrimp, and relaxing while we visited.

 

Left to right: Zachary, Monty, Iuli, Johnny, Seth, and David. 

Left to right: Alli, Laura, Hannah, Lita, me.

 After dinner, Mark taught Laura a few of the swing dance moves.

The day of the wedding arrived, and with it came a flurry of activity. The girls got to the church early to do our hair and get dressed.

Joanna, Hannah, and I. 

 

Ben and Uncle Bruce. 

  

Ben, Zachary, and me.

NY, and Preparing for the Wedding...

The groomsmen had shirts for the bachelor party. Seth and Mark decided to model them for us.

 Gotta love the green bow ties.  :-)

 Mark and Iuli

 Out for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with the boys when I arrived.

 So glad to have had a chance for some quality time with my bro's.

 Not TOO serious...

 Mom and JJoy worked hard to make enough potato salad to feed over 100 people!

 Decorating the reception hall. Zachary and I were setting up the centerpieces.

 

 Hannah's mom put the boys to work washing dishes. :-)

 The groom got to make the veggie platters.

 Mark and Seth...fooling around.

 

 Hannah and I made the shrimp shooters...

 And of course we HAD to make sure they were okay. FYI: they passed multiple taste tests!