So here I am in Rome...
Whew!!!! What a weekend!!!
Saturday was busy working to get ready for the wedding, and then we had a party room at a local tavern booked for a party for all of our friends and family. I was running late because I'd been working nonstop for days on this video for the wedding...but finally, Joyce (now my mother in law) and I went and got our nails done. The only place still open was the nail place that rents space at Walmart. We got there and a man said "oh, it's been a slow day. The ladies are over at Macy's, shopping. I will call them." So we had to wait for them to get back from shopping to do our nails. Then during my pedicure, the lady stopped to go take out the trash from somewhere else in the salon!!
Anyway, a full set of acrylic nails and one pair of smooth feet later, I was done. Joyce paid for both of us (awww, thanks Joyce!) and we got in the car, still in our flip-flops and toe separators. I was rushing and panicky because I was an hour late to the party I was hosting (though Dan was already there). Dan had said to call when we were getting close, so I called when we were getting to the parking lot. In the parking lot, I ran into anitavacation, geobabe1, unclebill35, and the twins and there were many hugs all around. We all walked into the Winking Lizard and headed over to the party room. As I opened the door, I heard the opening guitar part for Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" and Ash, (our best man), walked over and handed me my favorite drink. Dan walked up- and told me to go say hi to the singer. I looked up.
Oh my god. There is a guy with a guitar sitting up front, with a mic, playing "Wish You Were Here"... it's Chuck Cantalamessa!!! Ok, way back in January of 2006, Dan and I took a 2 day ski trip to Seven Springs near Pittsburgh. After an evening of night skiing, we retired to the bar at the ski lodge for some white Russians and a bite to eat. There was a guy on stage with a guitar. He was amazing. Let me repost something from my LJ post at the time about it, rather than recapping:
We ended up in a little bar which served some appetizers, sandwiches, and pizza until 11pm. There was a guy with a guitar getting down from a small stage in the corner, having apparently just finished playing. We sat at a table right in front of the stage--more because it was available than anything.
Dan ordered a beer and I got a white russian. The beer was in a really dinky cup so we talked to the manager and got them to exchange it for a pitcher-minus-about-a-cup (he'd have ordered a pitcher to begin with if he knew the cups were so small) and charge us just for the pitcher. My white russian was yummy. The jalepeno poppers were yummy. The pizza was so-so. The waitress was useless. The guy with the guitar came back...
...and rocked our socks off.
The guy's name is Chuck Cantalamessa and he does a really huge selection of other people's music in addition to some really kick ass original stuff. I made a request (The Boxer) right when he got up there and he said sure, and asked what our names were. He played it, and said it was for Katherine and Dan. He remembered our names the whole rest of the evening, as well as anyone else's name he got. I envy people who can remember names! Anyway, I requested another song a while later, and he played that, too. He was encouraging people to make requests and pointing them to the handouts on the stage which had his "song menu" (actually a list of artists whose stuff he plays). A newly seated table to one side of the stage asked him a question about requests and he said, jokingly, that they should run it by "Katherine over there" and said I was his... I don't remember the phrase he used. Production manager? Something like that. Anyway the joke being that he'd played, by that time, two specific requests by me and one song where I'd just asked if he would just play anything by a particular band.
So a little while later a woman comes up to me while he is in the middle of a song and asks me to make a request for her. Kinda odd, but ok. So when he finished his song, I said someone from a table in the back had requested "Amy". He played it. Then someone else came up and asked me "Does he do 'Let's Get Drunk and Screw'?" and I said "I have no idea...I can ask?" so the next chance I got, I said to the guy "Um, someone asked me to ask you if you'd play..." and so he laughed and played it. Then the waitress came up to me with a request from another table. Somehow I had become the conduit through which requests were going to the stage. It was hilarious. Not everyone did it--several people still came up to the stage or shouted out requests. But enough did it that it was funny as hell.
So Chuck plays until midnight, mostly requests, a few of his own choices, and some original music that just blew us away. The guy is seriously talented. So when he was done we asked if we could buy him a drink and he came and sat with us. For an hour and a half. It was a great time--we bought him a couple drinks, had a couple more ourselves, talked about lots of stuff... I hope he enjoyed it, too. Anyway, we totally didn't expect that kind of finish to the night--we'd expected to ski, toss down some food, then go right back to the motel. Very pleasant surprise.
Ok so anyway, we joked around that night that if we ever got married, we should get that guy to come play.
So it's the night before our wedding, I show up to our party, AND THERE IS THAT GUY!!!! And everyone knew about it except for me. Dan is this amazing surprise-planner and secret-keeper and he'd arranged this whole thing as an amazing surprise for me. It blew me away. The night was awesome with our friends and family and with Chuck. Then suddenly up come Anne and Bonnie--Dan's brothers' wives. They start draping beads and leis on me and put a gigantic "engagement ring" headband with a veil on it and start pinning embarrassing buttons to me, etc. They then announce that they're kidnapping me to my bachelorette party!
Two of my bridesmaids come along, as well as Emily, my friend from Atlanta who I flew up to be my photographer. We went to Howl at the Moon and had a BLAST. I got home really late, which meant I was up until 4:30am working on the video before I finally went to sleep...
Sunday was the frantic wedding day. We had rehearsal at 9:30am, rehearsal lunch at 11am--I was working on the video in the car and at the restaurant before guests arrived--and then a hair appointment--I worked on the video the whole time in the salon chair--and then a quick stop home before going to the wedding location! I was still working on the video while I was getting dressed. My bridesmaids were helping me put my jewelry on and so on, and finally I got the video to an acceptable level of completion and handed off the job of setting it up to play in the reception hall to Rob. I finished getting ready.
The rest of this story I will write soon. Right now I have a glass of wine to finish and my first official honeymoon night to begin ;)
Saturday was busy working to get ready for the wedding, and then we had a party room at a local tavern booked for a party for all of our friends and family. I was running late because I'd been working nonstop for days on this video for the wedding...but finally, Joyce (now my mother in law) and I went and got our nails done. The only place still open was the nail place that rents space at Walmart. We got there and a man said "oh, it's been a slow day. The ladies are over at Macy's, shopping. I will call them." So we had to wait for them to get back from shopping to do our nails. Then during my pedicure, the lady stopped to go take out the trash from somewhere else in the salon!!
Anyway, a full set of acrylic nails and one pair of smooth feet later, I was done. Joyce paid for both of us (awww, thanks Joyce!) and we got in the car, still in our flip-flops and toe separators. I was rushing and panicky because I was an hour late to the party I was hosting (though Dan was already there). Dan had said to call when we were getting close, so I called when we were getting to the parking lot. In the parking lot, I ran into anitavacation, geobabe1, unclebill35, and the twins and there were many hugs all around. We all walked into the Winking Lizard and headed over to the party room. As I opened the door, I heard the opening guitar part for Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here" and Ash, (our best man), walked over and handed me my favorite drink. Dan walked up- and told me to go say hi to the singer. I looked up.
Oh my god. There is a guy with a guitar sitting up front, with a mic, playing "Wish You Were Here"... it's Chuck Cantalamessa!!! Ok, way back in January of 2006, Dan and I took a 2 day ski trip to Seven Springs near Pittsburgh. After an evening of night skiing, we retired to the bar at the ski lodge for some white Russians and a bite to eat. There was a guy on stage with a guitar. He was amazing. Let me repost something from my LJ post at the time about it, rather than recapping:
We ended up in a little bar which served some appetizers, sandwiches, and pizza until 11pm. There was a guy with a guitar getting down from a small stage in the corner, having apparently just finished playing. We sat at a table right in front of the stage--more because it was available than anything.
Dan ordered a beer and I got a white russian. The beer was in a really dinky cup so we talked to the manager and got them to exchange it for a pitcher-minus-about-a-cup (he'd have ordered a pitcher to begin with if he knew the cups were so small) and charge us just for the pitcher. My white russian was yummy. The jalepeno poppers were yummy. The pizza was so-so. The waitress was useless. The guy with the guitar came back...
...and rocked our socks off.
The guy's name is Chuck Cantalamessa and he does a really huge selection of other people's music in addition to some really kick ass original stuff. I made a request (The Boxer) right when he got up there and he said sure, and asked what our names were. He played it, and said it was for Katherine and Dan. He remembered our names the whole rest of the evening, as well as anyone else's name he got. I envy people who can remember names! Anyway, I requested another song a while later, and he played that, too. He was encouraging people to make requests and pointing them to the handouts on the stage which had his "song menu" (actually a list of artists whose stuff he plays). A newly seated table to one side of the stage asked him a question about requests and he said, jokingly, that they should run it by "Katherine over there" and said I was his... I don't remember the phrase he used. Production manager? Something like that. Anyway the joke being that he'd played, by that time, two specific requests by me and one song where I'd just asked if he would just play anything by a particular band.
So a little while later a woman comes up to me while he is in the middle of a song and asks me to make a request for her. Kinda odd, but ok. So when he finished his song, I said someone from a table in the back had requested "Amy". He played it. Then someone else came up and asked me "Does he do 'Let's Get Drunk and Screw'?" and I said "I have no idea...I can ask?" so the next chance I got, I said to the guy "Um, someone asked me to ask you if you'd play..." and so he laughed and played it. Then the waitress came up to me with a request from another table. Somehow I had become the conduit through which requests were going to the stage. It was hilarious. Not everyone did it--several people still came up to the stage or shouted out requests. But enough did it that it was funny as hell.
So Chuck plays until midnight, mostly requests, a few of his own choices, and some original music that just blew us away. The guy is seriously talented. So when he was done we asked if we could buy him a drink and he came and sat with us. For an hour and a half. It was a great time--we bought him a couple drinks, had a couple more ourselves, talked about lots of stuff... I hope he enjoyed it, too. Anyway, we totally didn't expect that kind of finish to the night--we'd expected to ski, toss down some food, then go right back to the motel. Very pleasant surprise.
Ok so anyway, we joked around that night that if we ever got married, we should get that guy to come play.
So it's the night before our wedding, I show up to our party, AND THERE IS THAT GUY!!!! And everyone knew about it except for me. Dan is this amazing surprise-planner and secret-keeper and he'd arranged this whole thing as an amazing surprise for me. It blew me away. The night was awesome with our friends and family and with Chuck. Then suddenly up come Anne and Bonnie--Dan's brothers' wives. They start draping beads and leis on me and put a gigantic "engagement ring" headband with a veil on it and start pinning embarrassing buttons to me, etc. They then announce that they're kidnapping me to my bachelorette party!
Two of my bridesmaids come along, as well as Emily, my friend from Atlanta who I flew up to be my photographer. We went to Howl at the Moon and had a BLAST. I got home really late, which meant I was up until 4:30am working on the video before I finally went to sleep...
Sunday was the frantic wedding day. We had rehearsal at 9:30am, rehearsal lunch at 11am--I was working on the video in the car and at the restaurant before guests arrived--and then a hair appointment--I worked on the video the whole time in the salon chair--and then a quick stop home before going to the wedding location! I was still working on the video while I was getting dressed. My bridesmaids were helping me put my jewelry on and so on, and finally I got the video to an acceptable level of completion and handed off the job of setting it up to play in the reception hall to Rob. I finished getting ready.
The rest of this story I will write soon. Right now I have a glass of wine to finish and my first official honeymoon night to begin ;)