Monday, September 30, 2013

Wedding Weekend Recap

We had a nice weekend.

Bye.

Just kidding.

We went to my friend's brother's wedding.  There are a whole lot of random observations from it so forgive me, it'll be scattered.  **Disclaimer:  I'm not going for some big religious debate, I'm just going to state a few observations, give some background and tell anyone who may be thinking of emailing me asking if I have a personal relationship with God that yes I do, we both do and we're good with it.  If you can't take some religious humor, skip this one.  I'd like to think God has a sense of humor as well and wouldn't want anyone to get their Spanx in a bunch in His name.  Amen.**

So the Mr and I were both raised Catholic, so even though I stopped going to church about age 8, I still went long enough to know what you were supposed to say during mass and when.  The Mr went through it all for much longer so he knew as well.  Turns out this church either does something different than all the other Catholic services or services are different here.  I used to go to this church when my other friend's mom wouldn't let her spend the night with me but offered to let me spend the night so my sinnin' ass could be dragged to this church.  (Trust me, when you're seven or eight, you're being dragged no matter what)  Their services were the same as the church I went to so I don't know when the shout backs changed but as the only non-Catholics (we're Lutherans now) in the crowd, we flubbed a few lines when they threw us curve balls.  I would notice he would stop the same time I did like "hey, that's not right!"  We thought it was one line but nope, it happened again.  That's when I decided I would leave it up to the pros and let the regular church goers pick up my slack.  I say Amen a lot though so I think that counted.

My attention span has apparently gotten much shorter because while I was listening to what the priests were saying, my mind kept wandering.

"That wine looks pretty pale.  I wonder if it's watered down or maybe they've been hoarding Boone's Farm Strawberry wine from the bottom shelf?"

"Why is the younger altar boy wearing tennis shoes?  He should know better than that.  Damn kids today."

"Ooh, look how the stained glass reflects onto the wall, I should take a picture of that."  

"I just saw the younger altar boy yawn his Amen...surely that's worth one or two Hail Marys.  Damn kids today."

"The maid of honor looks like an attention stealing soul suck.  Sorry God but really...look at her with the sneer on her face and then the look of utter sweetness when the bride looks at her.  Don't tell me You weren't shaking your head up there too."  (Turns out I was right on that one.  Can't go into details but lets say she left the bride high and dry in a time of need and upset her the morning of)

"Note to self:  45 minutes is when your big butt now waves the white flag and goes numb."

There are parts that I was used to being spoken that this dude busted out in song.  I was so taken aback I almost bit through my lip.  I almost busted out laughing inappropriately no less than 8 times.

Yeah so those were just some of the things I thought as I was in church for an hour Saturday.  It was funny to see that old church.  I'm pretty sure the kneelers are the same...not that I used them.  They gave us the option to sit and burying my face into the groom's great aunt Bunny's hair whilst I knelt on my already aching knees was not my idea of wholesome church fun.

A nice pic of the brides bouquet I snagged after the ceremony

When we got to the reception after a nice 3 hour gap (don't ask) we giggled when we saw where we were seated.  I believe they call this the "red-headed stepchild" table.  You know, the one filled with all of the friends of hers your sister made you invite?  I wouldn't have expected to sit anywhere else quite honestly and I was fine with it but if you've been through a wedding, you know your order of importance based on where your seats are and when the emergency exit is at your back, well...hello bottom of the social ladder.  We were seated with one couple we already knew, a guy I went to high school with and his partner.  The others were all people I'd never met but who apparently had heard all about me for years on end and were so glad to finally meet me.  How awkward is it when people are like "I've heard all about you for YEARS!  So good to meet you after all this time!" and you have never heard of these people?!  All I could say was "thank you and I hope it wasn't all bad!"  I thought saying "odd, she never mentioned you" would be a bit arrogant.  HA!  We ate a little bit and drank our waters while the rest of the table drank their weights in craft beers.  For a room full of supposed party people, not many people were consistently on the dance floor.  I even bought some flat shoes because I was eventually going to shake my groove thing but there was never a good enough amount of people up there out of 150+ guests so I never did.

Next time, dance shoes...next time.
Everyone was far too worried about getting drunk on all of the FREE booze.  See people, this is why you don't have an open bar.  People will get tanked, make moves on people they shouldn't (it happened), talk entirely too loud, be entirely too obnoxious and someone always ends up yakking outside too close to the smokers.  We had no alcohol at our reception (even said so in the invites) and we couldn't keep people off the dance floor!  Matter of fact, the dance floor was too small and people were flooding between tables and we had to scrounge through the dollar dance money to pay for another hour for the DJ!  People didn't want to leave!  The amount of drunken speeches at this wedding was enough to reaffirm why that was a good move on our part all those years ago.

But for being dubbed the "rowdy table" we pretty much stayed in our seats, chit chatted with each other and occasionally got up when my friend was able to make her way back there.  It was a nice time and who knows when I'll ever get to another wedding again.  It doesn't seem any of our family is primed to do so, so I think we're safe for a while for being put at the "lump all the freaks and singles at this table" table.  It's all good and I can't believe that little kid my friend used to fight with and pick on is now a married man.  I'm old.

Now if you'll excuse me, Kenny G's "Silhouette" just came on the smooth jazz station, maybe I'll rectify that whole no dance thing.  (Edit:  Done!)

How was YOUR weekend?

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25 comments:

  1. I had a great time at the wedding. I am glad we decided to go to the reception as well. The old us definitely would have avoided that like the plague so we've come a long way and it was worth it. But wow, where did the weekend go?

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    1. Oh yeah and we probably would've sat toward the back in the church, too. The weekend got sucked away pretty fast. I think we need a vacay!

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  2. Lol. Your observations on church crack me up! Especially the alter boy's shoes - they drive me crazy too!! Don't feel too bad about the shout backs. They just changed within the past two years (maybe three now, idk?) and I still don't totally have them down. Also, my sister in law is Lutheran, also raised Catholic, and SHOUTS all the wrong things during mass. She finally gave up after getting some weird looks when she went to mass at our new church. lol.

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    1. Yeah, I'm sorry but if you're going to be an altar boy and the only part of you poking through from your robe at a wedding are your shoes, spiff 'em up or go to Goodwill to get some "transition shoes" if your kids feet are growing like weeds!

      Oh good, we both thought "now I know we've been out of the formal game for a while but those shoutbacks worked 10 years ago at our last Catholic wedding!" I had to bust out laughing at your SIL. That's SO funny. I kind of say them low anyway but I can only imagine how funny that sounded. Then I'd get a case of the giggles!

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  3. In the altar boy's defense (or really his parents') the tennis shoes may have been the only shoes that fit. Seriously - my kiddo is 7 and every time I turn around I'm buying him new shoes and longer pants. The idea of buying him new dress shoes every time too makes my eye twitch.

    Heck, I'm sitting here in my tennis shoes ready to go to work. A year ago I wouldn't have dreamed of it, but after the trouble I've had with my feet over that year I just don't care anymore. I'm wearing shoes that I can put my inserts in. End of story. Ok, a little off topic there.

    We were a bunch of sickies (not sickos) this weekend so we basically did absolutely nothing. Boo.

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    1. Oh, I get it but they need to make those rubber covers like business men in the 50's used to put on when they went out in the rain. I believe they called them "rubbers" back then. Slip 'em over the tennies and no one is the wiser and they last for say, 2-3 sizes comfortably.

      The last few years of my traditional job I had to wear tennis shoes but that was because those were the only thing I could wear. Sorry to hear you were all sickies this weekend! Feel better soon!

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  4. Oh, you're cracking me up!! I go to a Catholic church on a regular basis and we're still all screwing up the responses (and then we giggle.) And as far as the guy with the tennis shoes? We have a guy here who doesn't wear socks and does wear flip-flops; the look makes you wonder what he's got on underneath . . . . (It also makes you wonder why no one says anything to him.)

    Your account of the wedding serves as a good reminder to me as to why I try to avoid them!! (I think I've got 10 years or so before the next generation of family starts getting married.)

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    1. Okay, so this is a new response thing then? How odd they would change it all these years later! Oh man, nothing like a dude wearing his Old Navy flip flops. Is he trying to look like Jesus in his sandals? Because other than imitation being the highest form of flattery, I can't imagine anyplace outside of California where people would consider that appropriate even in a more relaxed society!

      Don't get me wrong, the wedding and reception were beautiful but the gap in time and hoards of drunks I could've done without. My friend keeps calling us the rowdy table and it's like "uh, we were all stuck to our seats most of the time and by 9:15pm began yawning saying it was bedtime. Rowdy, we were not!

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    2. The guys at the top decided a few years back that the English translation we'd been using for 50 years wasn't authentic to the original Latin (and we all know that Jesus spoke Latin, don't we?? :-) ) It's been almost 2 years since we started this; it doesn't get any easier!!

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    3. Oh wow. Why change what works? You're confusing the people! ;-)

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  5. Haha! This made me laugh! I am not a typical chick in that I don't give a crap about weddings, at ALL. I will never be in another wedding, and I really don't even like to attend them. A lot of it is so fake and overrated, at least to me, and I find my mind wandering when I am listening to boring stuff for a long time. :)

    I did a Warrior Dash this weekend and banged and scraped my body all to hell, but I loved it!

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    1. If I can help it, I don't ever want to be in another wedding again. I know my friend (the one whose brother got married) will likely ask me to play some major part but I've already told her you only make people your maid of honor and/or best man if you never want to talk to them again. This has been the case for me, my parents, his parents and several friends so hopefully she listens and lets me gift her with photography and the Mr be her videographer. (Fingers crossed) Congrats on the Warrior Dash!

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  6. lol...ain't weddings fun? I go to a pretty mellow church ( I think we are reportedly the most mellow of anybody. Nobody says anything except the person at the pulpit, no music except hymns and definitely no shout backs,but we do say amen, only at the end of a prayer) so I'd be totally lost. Attended my cousin's wedding two Saturdays ago and just about cracked up at a very inappropriate moment. She goes to a very liberal, very accepting, very open service church. My mother was the bad one who got me started. When the pastor (or whatever her church calls him) walked in she leaned over and whispered "he looks like a hippy". Queue the giggles. So when he instructed us to "center ourselves", "find that place of love" and "send good Karma to Levi" (my cousin's dog and ring bearer). I almost died. SO inappropriate. The service was beautiful though, once the pastor turned things over to my cousin and her espoused. The reception was excellent. There was a good mix of light drinkers and non-drinkers. I didn't see anyone totally out of control and there was plenty of dancing. Love weddings!!!

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    1. OMG, it could be very easy to crack up in a situation like that especially if you're sending karma to the dog! Sounds like the reception was a good one and especially when you don't have people who are sloppy drunks hanging out.

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  7. Too funny! (BTW...I'm Lutheran too...my husband is a convert after the Catholics changed their "rules" on three separate occasions)

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    1. Yeah, most of my family got married in this great Lutheran church and their beliefs lined up a little more with ours and once the Mr saw he could get the church cheaper if he was a member, he was there! ROFL You can imagine how pleased his parents were after 12 years of Catholic school! D'oh!

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  8. I went to my friend's Catholic wedding which was in a GORGEOUS cathedral around this time last year and I SO remember my bum goin numb! As well as being completely lost on the whole priest/crowd participation exchange.

    Oh, they had an open bar with more liquor than you can imagine and the dance flo' was consistently PACKED! Guess it all depends on the crowd. Bride and groom (having met at a bar) are definitely of the party variety.

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  9. I love churches. Especially ones with big stained glass windows! I think from now on I'll just lip synch.

    See, that's why we were thrown off because dancing is usually more likely when people let their inhibitions down with some alcohol but not these people. Half of them went out front to smoke and gab, some would dance for one song then go drink for 3 songs. Several points in the evening there was no one up there. It wasn't gonna be just us so we opted out. :-)

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  10. OMGosh, hilarious! We went to a one year anniversary of an uncle's death service earlier this year, the mass was said in his honor. Both of us were raised catholic and had the same issues. Thought we were real slick knowing all the answers but were thrown the same curve balls. Too funny.

    And about a month ago we went to a wedding and we were at the back table. They had a bar, though not open, people were still plastered. We were on the dance floor so much everyone was looking at us like "who are they?". We are seriously thinking of going to weddings and crashing the dance floor every weekend. (not really, but maybe, but no, but it would be fun, but I don't have the guts or I would).

    Glad you enjoyed yourself.

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    1. Isn't that funny! I think they're testing to see if people are "old" Catholics or if they've been coming all along. ;-)

      You should totally crash weddings! There was a pair of chairs that were empty at our table, you could've sat with us and shook your M&M favors to make them smooch!

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  11. My son had a mass wedding in June and thank goodness they actually had a program done including all the responses, etc., because most of us weren't raised Catholic and we'd be lost. I didn't kneel either. Heathen.

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    1. Yeah, they did the same in our program telling you when to stand or sit. We always called it "Catholic aerobics" with as much stand, sit, kneel, sit, stand, sit, kneeling was going on! We can be heathens together!

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  12. I loved your post! The best laughter of the day! I'm Catholic (non-practicing) and I was also confused with the wording the last time I went to mass. Things were changed up. When they sing the things that used to be spoken, it pisses me off. The goal of a Catholic is to get in and get out of mass as quickly as possible. Ain't nobody got time for that!

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    1. ROFL!! That is hilarious. I've seen "contemporary" services that are 15 minutes long now for the drive thru churchgoers! Kind of like "just in case The Big Guy" is keeping track, I can say I went! HA!

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  13. Glad to hear you survived! I have to say I am not a fan of weddings at all. I don't like to dance (never could), I can't drink (I'm good with that), and I don't enjoy socializing with strangers (terrible habit). I've always been at "that" table and it's given me a chuckle every time. It'd be funny to alter the gift check to the table location! snort.... As for the Catholic thing, I grew up the same way (refer to myself as a "recovering Catholic" now, just because it pisses off my family). It's quite the workout going to a service, especially a wedding. I haven't been to a family one in about 12 years and I messed up the whole thing back then. Ooooh, the glares I got from the shared DNA in those pews! Ah, good times.... tee hee

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