P&P's wedding weekend (Saturday)
The plans for Saturday seemed pretty cut and dry: rehearsal at the church in Newark, Delaware, around 5:30 followed by dinner at a nice restaurant down the street. Sarah, my lovely girlfriend of the past couple months, met me in Brick a little after noon and we proceeded to head out.
Most of us staying overnight for Pete and Pumtiwitt's wedding were situated at a Holiday Inn around 20 minutes from the church and not far from the reception site. Sarah and I checked in, met up with Pete and then ran into Russ, one of the other groomsmen, and his wife Karen, who had flown in all the way from Arizona. The five of us decided to carpool over to the church for the rehearsal in the nice Toyota Prius that Russ and Karen had rented for the trip.
Karen was driving and while on the interstate came up alongside a car whose driver apparently was unaware his right blinker was going and going and going. Russ, evidently forgetful he was back on the east coast, leaned his head out the window, gestured to get the driver's attention and yelled, "Hey! Hey! Your blinker's on!" We weren't sure if the guy didn't understand what Russ was saying or just didn't take kindly to it, but his face darkened, he gave Russ the finger and then, after Karen passed him, he sped up behind us. This led Pete to bemoan the fact he might not live to see his wedding day, but that was pretty much the end of that little incident and we arrived in Newark without further difficulty (though, "Hey, your blinker's on," did become a catch phrase for the weekend).
There was no parking at the church other than on the street, so we parked in a shopping center lot about a half block down where the church people had told us to go. We walked over and waited outside the church for everyone else who was to be part of the rehearsal to get there, and that's when someone noticed it. Above the entrance to the church, some netting had been put up, I suppose in order to keep birds from nesting up there. Unfortunately, what had ended up happening, apparently fairly recently, was some poor bird managed to essentially hang itself from the netting. We decided the dead bird had to come down -- one, because it seemed like a bad omen; two, because it wouldn't look good if we decided to take pictures directly in front of the church; and three, because we could all picture something awful happening like the dead bird plummeting down on Pumtiwitt's head as she strolled out of the church on the happiest day of her life. We threw around ideas like trying to find a ladder, having a tall person climb up on another tall person's shoulders to try to reach it or just locating a really long stick and playing bird pinata, but eventually had to leave that task for later as it was time to get the rehearsal itself under way.
This was the first time I'd ever been part of a wedding party, so I wanted to make sure I got everything down during the rehearsal, as much as possible, so there were no missteps the next day. It was a little confusing, made more so by the fact the priest for the actual ceremony wasn't present because he had a Saturday night mass, and we had a fill-in. But eventually we were all satisfied with the proceedings and so we headed down the street to the rehearsal dinner, which was quite nice. It had its own cocktail hour and everything, followed by a four-course meal. Sarah and I ended up sitting at a table with Pumtiwitt's bridesmaids, who all went to school with her at the University of Delaware, and it was a fun time. At least, that is, until someone came back in to say their car had been towed.
This news started a steady trickle of patrons out of the restaurant to check on their own cars, and it continued to get worse as it was soon discovered that a handful of cars belonging to people at the rehearsal dinner had been towed from the shopping center lot. Russ and Karen were among the few to be spared, but only because they had decided to hit up 7-Eleven between the rehearsal and the dinner, and ended up moving their car to a paid lot closer to the restaurant. All the people left in the shopping center lot had been towed, even though they had placards in their windows that said "church parking." Apparently the church didn't have jurisdiction to grant anyone safety in that lot, and in Newark the towing companies have a field day to the point where the trucks will sit out in the lots and watch people park their cars, then tow them if they're not back in the allotted time (supposedly, from what we were told, if you parked in that lot for reasons other than to patronize the shopping center, if you weren't back in an hour they could tow your car).
Russ, Karen, Sarah and I retreated back to the Prius and then headed over to the shopping center lot to see if we could be of any assistance by giving people rides or whatever. By this time representatives from the towing company had arrived, at least one of whom was being belligerent to Pete, and a whole scene was unfolding. Pete was naturally upset because it was the night before his wedding and, instead of being back at the hotel bar having drinks with his father and his groomsmen, he was standing in a parking lot arguing over why the vast majority of his guests (including several with small children) no longer had means of transportation. Finally this one woman with the towing company who seemed like she might possess at least half of a working human heart said she'd release all the cars without charging the normal fee (which I heard from a few of the bridesmaids who had been towed before was anywhere from $80-250, depending on who you asked), and Pete's father took all the drivers of the cars that had been towed over to get them back.
So I guess all was well that ended well and Pete might even be able to laugh over all of it 10 years down the road, though he understandably didn't see anything amusing about it at the time. He eventually jumped back in the Prius with the rest of us and we drove over to Pumtiwitt's brother's house to pick up the rings, then went back to the hotel and up to Russ and Karen's room for a quick drink before heading back to our own rooms for bed. At some point along the way Russ realized the bird dilemma still had not been solved, so we decided we'd have to handle that the following morning before the ceremony.
Most of us staying overnight for Pete and Pumtiwitt's wedding were situated at a Holiday Inn around 20 minutes from the church and not far from the reception site. Sarah and I checked in, met up with Pete and then ran into Russ, one of the other groomsmen, and his wife Karen, who had flown in all the way from Arizona. The five of us decided to carpool over to the church for the rehearsal in the nice Toyota Prius that Russ and Karen had rented for the trip.
Karen was driving and while on the interstate came up alongside a car whose driver apparently was unaware his right blinker was going and going and going. Russ, evidently forgetful he was back on the east coast, leaned his head out the window, gestured to get the driver's attention and yelled, "Hey! Hey! Your blinker's on!" We weren't sure if the guy didn't understand what Russ was saying or just didn't take kindly to it, but his face darkened, he gave Russ the finger and then, after Karen passed him, he sped up behind us. This led Pete to bemoan the fact he might not live to see his wedding day, but that was pretty much the end of that little incident and we arrived in Newark without further difficulty (though, "Hey, your blinker's on," did become a catch phrase for the weekend).
There was no parking at the church other than on the street, so we parked in a shopping center lot about a half block down where the church people had told us to go. We walked over and waited outside the church for everyone else who was to be part of the rehearsal to get there, and that's when someone noticed it. Above the entrance to the church, some netting had been put up, I suppose in order to keep birds from nesting up there. Unfortunately, what had ended up happening, apparently fairly recently, was some poor bird managed to essentially hang itself from the netting. We decided the dead bird had to come down -- one, because it seemed like a bad omen; two, because it wouldn't look good if we decided to take pictures directly in front of the church; and three, because we could all picture something awful happening like the dead bird plummeting down on Pumtiwitt's head as she strolled out of the church on the happiest day of her life. We threw around ideas like trying to find a ladder, having a tall person climb up on another tall person's shoulders to try to reach it or just locating a really long stick and playing bird pinata, but eventually had to leave that task for later as it was time to get the rehearsal itself under way.
This was the first time I'd ever been part of a wedding party, so I wanted to make sure I got everything down during the rehearsal, as much as possible, so there were no missteps the next day. It was a little confusing, made more so by the fact the priest for the actual ceremony wasn't present because he had a Saturday night mass, and we had a fill-in. But eventually we were all satisfied with the proceedings and so we headed down the street to the rehearsal dinner, which was quite nice. It had its own cocktail hour and everything, followed by a four-course meal. Sarah and I ended up sitting at a table with Pumtiwitt's bridesmaids, who all went to school with her at the University of Delaware, and it was a fun time. At least, that is, until someone came back in to say their car had been towed.
This news started a steady trickle of patrons out of the restaurant to check on their own cars, and it continued to get worse as it was soon discovered that a handful of cars belonging to people at the rehearsal dinner had been towed from the shopping center lot. Russ and Karen were among the few to be spared, but only because they had decided to hit up 7-Eleven between the rehearsal and the dinner, and ended up moving their car to a paid lot closer to the restaurant. All the people left in the shopping center lot had been towed, even though they had placards in their windows that said "church parking." Apparently the church didn't have jurisdiction to grant anyone safety in that lot, and in Newark the towing companies have a field day to the point where the trucks will sit out in the lots and watch people park their cars, then tow them if they're not back in the allotted time (supposedly, from what we were told, if you parked in that lot for reasons other than to patronize the shopping center, if you weren't back in an hour they could tow your car).
Russ, Karen, Sarah and I retreated back to the Prius and then headed over to the shopping center lot to see if we could be of any assistance by giving people rides or whatever. By this time representatives from the towing company had arrived, at least one of whom was being belligerent to Pete, and a whole scene was unfolding. Pete was naturally upset because it was the night before his wedding and, instead of being back at the hotel bar having drinks with his father and his groomsmen, he was standing in a parking lot arguing over why the vast majority of his guests (including several with small children) no longer had means of transportation. Finally this one woman with the towing company who seemed like she might possess at least half of a working human heart said she'd release all the cars without charging the normal fee (which I heard from a few of the bridesmaids who had been towed before was anywhere from $80-250, depending on who you asked), and Pete's father took all the drivers of the cars that had been towed over to get them back.
So I guess all was well that ended well and Pete might even be able to laugh over all of it 10 years down the road, though he understandably didn't see anything amusing about it at the time. He eventually jumped back in the Prius with the rest of us and we drove over to Pumtiwitt's brother's house to pick up the rings, then went back to the hotel and up to Russ and Karen's room for a quick drink before heading back to our own rooms for bed. At some point along the way Russ realized the bird dilemma still had not been solved, so we decided we'd have to handle that the following morning before the ceremony.