A married man

It's done! I'm married!

The weekend was pretty damn awesome, but of course it had plenty of fun snafus. Get ready, this is a long post, because I want to try to remember and write everything now. If I break it into multiple parts, then I'll get lazy and not write about it all. Sadly, most people who read this were there, so they can comment if I forget anything.

Andre and Erin arrived in the Bronx Thursday morning, taking the red-eye from California. (Corbett's mother was already in Rochester.) After getting the car and Maggie heading up to my hood, we got Dante in the car and heading to Rochester. For the most part, the drive was uneventful (though Dante wasn't pleased with being in the crate, and that made for some frustrations). We got into Rochester, and my parents, who had driven all the way from Georgia (the day after my aunt left from visiting them for two weeks), were at their hotel room, exhausted and waiting for me to stop by. Most of the evening was nice and relaxing for the most part, with me stopping to say hi to the folks, then getting dinner with Corbett, his mom, and Maggie, Andre, and Erin.

Friday was when it got really interesting. Corbett's mom and I dropped him off at work, went to the airport and picked up his sister, then to my folks' hotel to get them to bring them back to Corbett's. Then we got Andre and Erin, my mother and I picked up the wedding cake(s),* and all made it back to Corbett's to get ready to head off to the falls, after picking up Carrie and my brother-in-law. Luckily, Laurie and Rick made their way to the wedding site on their own, as did Ellen and Bernie. The rest of us caravaned in three cars, and packed up all the cars and headed off. Then the real fun began.

First, Corbett's car and my car made it through the border (after waiting thirty minutes) with no problem. My dad and mom (with Carrie and Chris) got stuck at the border, and had to turn off to get their car searched. Apparently they looked threatening. We waited for another thirty minutes before they got free, and rushed to the hotel. At that point we had about an hour before the wedding. Rushing to get the cars parked, and checked in, Corbett realized that he had left his shirt and tie back at home. This of course was because he didn't pack it, and we just happened to leave it behind.

So he tried to figure out what to do while I talked to the wedding coordinator about all the details, now 20 minutes before the ceremony. When I got back to the room to change, he wasn't there. I found out later that he had gone downstairs, the valet had driven him to the Galleria down the street where there were no longer any men's clothing store. So he ran back and Larry the Valet then gave him the shirt he was wearing, since it was white. Of course it was short sleeved, but still, it worked. I stole my dad's tie and wore that (which made him happy since he hates wearing ties), so we were ready.

During the ceremony (which of course wasn't rehearsed at all), Corbett asked when he got to say, "I do," and the officiant said, "If you would like, you can say that." So then she ad-libbed the part of "Do you...?" Additionally, the question of "Does anyone know of any reason they shouldn't get married?" came up, so we decided to glare at everyone to make sure they said nothing. Finally, of course Corbett's mom's phone had to ring during the middle of the ceremony, which was honestly as expected as everything else that was going on...

Then came time for the rings, and since Corbett had not yet been able to get mine on before the ceremony, when he pulled the ring out, he had secretly (during the ceremony, no less) loaded it up with lotion, so it was completely white. I burst out laughing, while everyone had no idea what was going on. Some people thought we faked it, where either I already had the ring on, or we just pretended and hid the ring for the rest of the ceremony. Whatever they thought, clearly what happened was not known. Either way, the ring went on with no problem (and hasn't been off my finger since!).

The dinner was awesome, and just a ton of fun. That combined with heading to the casino for a bit and then to TGIFridays (the only real place that was open near the hotel, and it was so dang cold we couldn't go far), we had tons of fun until like 1 or 2 in the morning. The following morning we spent at the falls before heading back to Rochester to pick up the dogs and go to dinner yet again. After dinner, the fam all decided to get to bed while our friends came back and we played a late-night game of Balderdash.

The final morning was breakfast with the fam (although Corbett's sister had already had to leave, sadly), before they all had to head out. The worst was that after all of this, everyone left including myself. So now the newlyweds have to continue living apart. Luckily, this is only temporary.

In the end though, it was a fantastic three-day wedding, and as exhausting as it was, I wouldn't have changed anything!
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* We got some gluten-free cupcakes to go with the wedding cake since two people in the group were off gluten.