I am in a bizarre headspace right now mostly due to exhaustion but I had some things I wanted to get out before I forget. Last week Wednesday I woke up at 3:00am EST to catch my 5:45am flight from Philly back here to Minnesota. After all of the waiting for an available gate nonsense I pulled up in front of my house at somewhere around 9:00am to run inside and dump the suitcase on the floor to hot swap the clothing I’d need for the nuptials and such. I had to get driving back to Illinois to meet my son so we could try on our wedding rentals among other assignments.
This being my first wedding as a parent there was a palpable layer of stress that no-one really talks about. Like a constant humming. I got used to it, errr, drowned it out, but it was there none the less. Short story longer, up until the ceremony started it felt like there was always something that needed doing… and I didn’t really have that much compared to almost everyone else. I am not articulating my point right now but it was an odd jumble of days and little things that shouldn’t have been that hard.
The ceremony itself was amazing. I am a tough audience but this was great. I did not anticipate crying as much as I did so I’m going to chalk a lot of that up to the tired thing… although I shared a lot of I’m not crying YOU’RE crying looks with old friends and family. Overjoyed with my daughter’s new bride. Gaining a family member that makes your child happy is hard to beat. The party afterward was incredible as well. Weird point of pride: I absolutely nailed the beer order. let me explain that odd brag
I am bad at wedding gift giving. I look through the registration lists and always find a reason why I don’t want my name attached to a particular thing. Cash is king and my goto normally but this is my eldest child so that wouldn’t cut it. Luckily talk of how much an open bar would cost drifted past my attention span and I jumped on that as MY gift. This particular venue only wanted to serve keg beer and went so far as to tell me they weren’t setup for bottles! They tried talking me out of both an open bar and bottled beer to no avail. After digging in to the problem they were worried about refrigeration, to which I countered “let me worry about that.” Then they were concerned about leftovers that I would have to remove from the premises due to some local law nonsense. Again, “let me worry about that.”
We argued about the number of extra to buy and how much more it would cost blah blah bullshit. Two kegs were included with the bar package and unavailable for substitution so they recommended 48 supplemental bottles. Obviously these folks don’t know me or my friends very well plus a whole new family that I could only guess at consumption. The extra bottle count I decided on was 312 (I won’t bother you with the science involved but the Bozoputer was smoking) and there were only 22 leftovers when they closed down the bar. And if you were worried those bottles were taken care of at the after party which I deftly dodged due to other obligations.
The coolers were two of the giant white coffins from Costco and each went to a new home with willing recipients. I didn’t want them nor did I have that much transportation space. I had to make 2 trips to buy the stupid things. I could have left them with the facility but the banquets manager and I went sideways prompting me to tell her that everyone involved was to share in my tip EXCEPT HER. I waited until her team was around and delivered that just after thanking them. She asked to discuss the matter privately but I explained her shit mood and attitude right there. I do love seeing choked back smiles from obviously overworked and under-appreciated staff. Glad I could help brighten their day.
All in all it was a great week culminating in an amazing ceremony and party. I never spent much time thinking about any of my kids weddings but if I had done so I wouldn’t have come close to this. so good.
Sunday was spent driving the boy back to his place, returning the rentals, then trucking my tired ass back to Minnesota. The normally five and a half hour ride taking six and a half due to unmanned construction zones. I had to double up on 5 hour energy halfway through the trip which made getting to sleep a challenge but I am wondering through my day just fine. Tomorrow its back on the road.