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RSSWedding Tales: The Cadillac and Double Dutch Bus
Feb 18
Relationships Wedding Tales, Weddings Comments Off
Continental breakfast cracks me up. A danish, a muffin and a banana walk into a bar…So I’m at breakfast and it’s Saturday morning. My roommate for the weekend, another groomsman, is still blissfully snoring away and a handful of wedding guests are sitting in the lounge, munching on the complimentary breakfast and sipping coffee, talking quietly.
If you’re keeping track, you’re thinking, wait one second – what happened to Friday? It happened, keep your shorts on.
The hotel is really stellar. The staff is friendly and helpful, and everything is clean and hotel-new which is the illusion of clean and brand new. The hotel room is long and actually really spacious for a basic, one king and one couch that folds out to the bed. I originally wasn’t sharing the room with anyone, so by the time I knew it was a room for two, they wouldn’t switch us out. Since we couldn’t get two doubles, this turned out to be a good alternative. I won’t say sleeping on the couch was any big thrill. It had an apex in center of the mattress and a pretty substantial slope heading into the couch base. Hell, the fact that it has an apex at all…The room had a coffee maker, a safe, free wireless access, I mean what other perks do you need?
The bridal suite was about twice the size. The bedroom area was divided into two parts by a central dresser with a widescreen flat panel television facing the wedding bed, on the other side was a couch and what passed for a small living room (with another TV – you could watch both at the same time pretty much.) The bathroom was double the size of mine. The view was somewhat unspectacular, but we were in the middle of Long Island off of a busy highway; it didn’t seem like there was much nearby to have a view of.
Friday’s itinerary besides the drive to LI was to check in, pick up some guests arriving that day, and make it to the church for the rehearsal. I met up with the groom and we drove the Cadillac to Brooklyn to pick up a groomsman who was waiting for us on a street corner on some random block. I guess someone in his family left him there, and we sat in traffic so he waited a while. On the radio was a song called ‘Double Dutch Bus’ by Frankie Smith. It was hysterical. The song can best be described as funky, a little Artist Currently Known As, a little They Might Be Giants. I am so going to find a copy of it for my collection. Thank God for XM radio because it listed the artist name and song title (one button purchasing power and XM would be for me!)
Now, I should probably explain that of the groom’s friends (those in the wedding party and other invitees), I know all of them, have met them before during our mutual college years. So the weekend was a lot of catching up, how are you, where are you working, what city do you live in. Things like that. There’s a lot of camaraderie in our cohort because we were all connected to one other either through UNLV or Niles North (shout out!)
The Cadillac was a shade of purple. Not the overwhelming kind, just more like a purple highlight. It was not ostentatious at all. I drove the Cadillac to the church with some members of the wedding party in tow.
To the rehearsal alone, about twenty-five people must go. The deacon was a nice guy but it was clear from the get-go that he was not a good fit for the groom. He would say, “It’s okay, it’s okay, nobody will know if we screw up” and the groom is freaking out saying “I’ll know if we screw up.” The deacon’s laid back attitude was rich enough to keep the groom fired up for hours after the rehearsal. But in addition that, the ceremony itself was a little confused. We worked through it and pretty much the groomsmen were instructed to follow the cues from the bridesmaid, no thinking independently please. Fine by me. The deacon told us to relax, smile and have a good time.
The rehearsal dinner was a night at an all you can eat sushi restaurant. We were a party of 50 strong, family and out-of-towners. I sat at the cool kids table and stuffed my face with raw fish. Afterwards, the five of us men staying at the hotel planted ourselves at the hotel bar and played Texas Hold ‘Em for a couple of hours.
And one weird moment I have to report: Mr. Belding was there in our hotel; hanging out in the bar that night. He graciously allowed the bride and a few others to take pictures with him and shook everyone’s hand and made some chit-chat. The thing is, nobody could remember his real name (Dennis Haskins, if you need to know). People were salivating to meet him, well who didn’t watch Saved By The Bell? He was super cool with everybody, though I half suspected he wanted to charge an appearance fee.
If yesterday was the fever, I expect today will be a full on flu.
