West Virginia Installment 4
Installment 4
"Like Red, but Not Quite"
This'll be the last installment, so it might be a bit long, but read it anyway.
The ceremony was beautiful. The church was so tiny, and quaint, and made completely of wood. I love wood. Outside it was logs, but inside the wood was polished to a shine, with little shining wooden pews and gorgeous flowers. It was the shortest wedding ceremony I've ever seen. They literally did exactly the parts you see on TV: do you? do you? By the power vested in me. It couldn't have lasted 5 minutes.
The reception was held two cabins down, in the second floor of the gift shop. It sounds shoddy, but it was GORGEOUS. Again, all shining, polished wood. And tons of windows to let in the view of mountains and trees.
My Aunt Carol planned the wedding. She's Michelle's step mother, and apparently had been given not a lot of guidance on what Michelle wanted. You see, Michelle is a laid-back, happy woman. Carol is... more the kind of person who is concerned with doing things the way they're "supposed" to be done. In any case, I found out at the wedding that the only guidance Michelle gave about the reception was that she wanted it to be pink. And boy, did Carol live up to that.
Everything was pink. The bridesmaid dresses, the napkins, the chair cushions, and the little candle-favors. The wine glasses were tinted pink (we got to take those home too!). Even the strobe lights for the DJ were pink. But the final touch, and by far the most popular one, was the pink champagne.
The gave a bottle to each table for the toast. There were no assigned seats, so ofcourse we younger cousins secured (and dominated) a table for ourselves. Other tables were nearly full, quiet, well-mannered. We were none of that. And in keeping with our style, I poured that bottle of champagne into each little pink-tinted glass, and promptly killed the bottle. We toasted, we drank, and we proceeded to eating.
There was an open bar. As might be expected, the guys were all about the beer, and the girls were all about the mixed drinks, but the most popular beverage (at our table at least) was the bubbly pink champagne.
This wasn't entirely unexpected on my and Artie's part. If you'd asked me years ago if I liked champagne, I'd have said no. Not at all. But, a little ways back, we were invited to Sally's wedding at Sally and Lisa's parents house. There was something of an... overstockage of champagne come the end, and something of a... challenge from Lisa's dad to finish it all... well... Just picture Lisa's dad, Artie, and I sitting on the steps to their backyard, each swigging our own bottles of champagne. (The only reason Lisa and Bert weren't on the steps with us was because Lisa was inside puking and Bert was literally passed out in the grass on the lawn.)
So, not so surprisingly, though Artie, my cousins, and I had finished the bottle, and our glasses were empty, as the party progressed (and boy, did it progress, once we got them playing some modern music, it was nothing but dancing and drinking) we all wanted more champagne. Someone told us there was more in "the back," but somehow that more never seemed to make its way to us.
So we drank and we danced. Danced and drank. I danced twice with my Poppop, which I've never done before, and it was... moving (not to make a pun!). It was really nice.
The night wore on, and people with young kids or who weren't as hard-core as my cousins and I started leaving... and, being me, I couldn't help but notice that they were leaving nearly full bottles of champagne, PINK champagne, on their tables. And I might have mentioned this, in my buzzed state, to... ARTIE. I then completely forgot about it and went back to dancing.
Minutes later, Artie saunters onto the dancefloor with a nearly full bottle of champagne in his fist. He's drinking it straight from the bottle, and showing me these little directions they had on the top that looked like someone drinking from the bottle, with a big slash across it, indicating it should not be done.
Within the hour, Sean had also appropriated a bottle from one of the now vacant tables. The party was dying down (it was fast approaching midnight), and Artie had finished his bottle and was eyeing the one on, yes, the bridal party table. It took him a few minutes, but he danced his way over, in the slick way you expect from a drunk person, and nabbed their half-full bottle of champagne. The first few swigs left him spitting out pieces of foil, but after that, he looked pretty pleased.
Picture for yourself a new scene. Jen, her cousins, their significant others, and Artie, stumbling back to their cabin through the dirt roads of backwoods West Virginia. The girls are carrying their shoes, and everyone is carrying their pink-tinted wine glasses and pink candle favors. Incidentally, we're also carrying about a dozen little creamers that we appropriated (ok, ok, I did that!) from the reception. (We were out of creamer and had no milk, people. Desperate times.) In addition to all that, Artie is carrying his trusty THIRD bottle of pink champagne.
The walk was maybe half a mile, probably less. We had to go around the creek (there was only one bridge across, and it was on the other side of some seriously muddy, puddle-y territory), and we'd come within 100 yards of the house, when my cousin Elise starts whining about how badly she has to pee. Sean goes, so pee here in the grass. She feigns being insulted "HERE? In the grass? I'm not peeing here!"
And then.
She proceeds to squat down...
And the rest of us started moving a little faster toward the cabin, while Elise peed in the grass next to the creek.
Just goes to show, there's a little West Virginia in all of us.
"Like Red, but Not Quite"
This'll be the last installment, so it might be a bit long, but read it anyway.
The ceremony was beautiful. The church was so tiny, and quaint, and made completely of wood. I love wood. Outside it was logs, but inside the wood was polished to a shine, with little shining wooden pews and gorgeous flowers. It was the shortest wedding ceremony I've ever seen. They literally did exactly the parts you see on TV: do you? do you? By the power vested in me. It couldn't have lasted 5 minutes.
The reception was held two cabins down, in the second floor of the gift shop. It sounds shoddy, but it was GORGEOUS. Again, all shining, polished wood. And tons of windows to let in the view of mountains and trees.
My Aunt Carol planned the wedding. She's Michelle's step mother, and apparently had been given not a lot of guidance on what Michelle wanted. You see, Michelle is a laid-back, happy woman. Carol is... more the kind of person who is concerned with doing things the way they're "supposed" to be done. In any case, I found out at the wedding that the only guidance Michelle gave about the reception was that she wanted it to be pink. And boy, did Carol live up to that.
Everything was pink. The bridesmaid dresses, the napkins, the chair cushions, and the little candle-favors. The wine glasses were tinted pink (we got to take those home too!). Even the strobe lights for the DJ were pink. But the final touch, and by far the most popular one, was the pink champagne.
The gave a bottle to each table for the toast. There were no assigned seats, so ofcourse we younger cousins secured (and dominated) a table for ourselves. Other tables were nearly full, quiet, well-mannered. We were none of that. And in keeping with our style, I poured that bottle of champagne into each little pink-tinted glass, and promptly killed the bottle. We toasted, we drank, and we proceeded to eating.
There was an open bar. As might be expected, the guys were all about the beer, and the girls were all about the mixed drinks, but the most popular beverage (at our table at least) was the bubbly pink champagne.
This wasn't entirely unexpected on my and Artie's part. If you'd asked me years ago if I liked champagne, I'd have said no. Not at all. But, a little ways back, we were invited to Sally's wedding at Sally and Lisa's parents house. There was something of an... overstockage of champagne come the end, and something of a... challenge from Lisa's dad to finish it all... well... Just picture Lisa's dad, Artie, and I sitting on the steps to their backyard, each swigging our own bottles of champagne. (The only reason Lisa and Bert weren't on the steps with us was because Lisa was inside puking and Bert was literally passed out in the grass on the lawn.)
So, not so surprisingly, though Artie, my cousins, and I had finished the bottle, and our glasses were empty, as the party progressed (and boy, did it progress, once we got them playing some modern music, it was nothing but dancing and drinking) we all wanted more champagne. Someone told us there was more in "the back," but somehow that more never seemed to make its way to us.
So we drank and we danced. Danced and drank. I danced twice with my Poppop, which I've never done before, and it was... moving (not to make a pun!). It was really nice.
The night wore on, and people with young kids or who weren't as hard-core as my cousins and I started leaving... and, being me, I couldn't help but notice that they were leaving nearly full bottles of champagne, PINK champagne, on their tables. And I might have mentioned this, in my buzzed state, to... ARTIE. I then completely forgot about it and went back to dancing.
Minutes later, Artie saunters onto the dancefloor with a nearly full bottle of champagne in his fist. He's drinking it straight from the bottle, and showing me these little directions they had on the top that looked like someone drinking from the bottle, with a big slash across it, indicating it should not be done.
Within the hour, Sean had also appropriated a bottle from one of the now vacant tables. The party was dying down (it was fast approaching midnight), and Artie had finished his bottle and was eyeing the one on, yes, the bridal party table. It took him a few minutes, but he danced his way over, in the slick way you expect from a drunk person, and nabbed their half-full bottle of champagne. The first few swigs left him spitting out pieces of foil, but after that, he looked pretty pleased.
Picture for yourself a new scene. Jen, her cousins, their significant others, and Artie, stumbling back to their cabin through the dirt roads of backwoods West Virginia. The girls are carrying their shoes, and everyone is carrying their pink-tinted wine glasses and pink candle favors. Incidentally, we're also carrying about a dozen little creamers that we appropriated (ok, ok, I did that!) from the reception. (We were out of creamer and had no milk, people. Desperate times.) In addition to all that, Artie is carrying his trusty THIRD bottle of pink champagne.
The walk was maybe half a mile, probably less. We had to go around the creek (there was only one bridge across, and it was on the other side of some seriously muddy, puddle-y territory), and we'd come within 100 yards of the house, when my cousin Elise starts whining about how badly she has to pee. Sean goes, so pee here in the grass. She feigns being insulted "HERE? In the grass? I'm not peeing here!"
And then.
She proceeds to squat down...
And the rest of us started moving a little faster toward the cabin, while Elise peed in the grass next to the creek.
Just goes to show, there's a little West Virginia in all of us.