Mega Wedding Blog

This blog is a few weeks late, but it should be worth the wait. In June I attended three weddings on back to back to back weekends. These weddings couldn’t have been more different either. The first wedding was the son of one of my parent’s friends. The second wedding was two of my good friends and the third wedding was my sisters.

The first wedding was at my parent’s church in Fredericksburg. It was at 11am and the guys were rocking morning coats. This may be the only reason to have a wedding this early in the day. Although if you are not serving alcohol at the reception this is another reason to have an early wedding, alcohol was not served. The ceremony was nice and the highlight of the ceremony was when the Father of the Bride turned to go to his seat he did a military turn, but didn’t plan on the Brides train being in the way of his foot. He put the brakes on so fast to keep from stepping on his daughters dress he almost bit it in front of everyone. The reception was short and to the point as well, which is key when there isn’t dancing or alcohol. Then it was 1pm and it was time for my brother and I to head to our future brother in law’s bachelor party. The evening was a blast. We went to a Nationals game and watched them lose, big surprise. We got to meet some of Matt’s friends and they were a lot of fun to party with. We also met White Ford Bronco for the first time at the pre-game bar, The Bullpen.

The second wedding was AWESOME! My friends Spencer and Nicole were getting married at the Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, VA. If you don’t know where that is then you are out of luck because there is nothing nearby to point you in the right direction. After getting off of I 81 I drove for around 90 minutes and then out of no place a giant brick resort popped out of the mountains. It was amazing looking. I arrived on Friday before the wedding and the rehearsal was at 5pm. The rehearsal was outside and it was hot. I have never had as much fun at a rehearsal in my life. We were allowed to drink and the minister knew all the groomsmen and bridesmaids had to do was walk in and walk out, so we practiced that once and he talked to the bride and groom for a few minutes and then it was on to the party.

The rehearsal dinner was also the best food I have ever had at rehearsal dinner. While talking to Nicole she told me that the theme was Spencer’s favorite foods. The menu consisted of chicken and waffles, beef brisket, grilled trout, roasted corn, and pork chops (which almost didn’t make the menu according to Nicole Newman, but as she said, “It was SO good”).

“But the best part and highlight of the night… was the Chicken and Waffles. This was a hit for everyone! Even my [Nicole’s] grandparents loved them! Spencer and I were lucky enough to have Chef Todd. Who is the Head Chef [at the Homestead], personally attend our rehearsal dinner because he was so excited to make the Chicken and Waffles – he is from Texas.  Chef Todd even made maple syrup butter.” ~Nicole Newman

They also had Texas and Carolina style BBQ to cover the brisket in. Sides included fried okra (also known as southern pop corn and was Nicole’s favorite thing to eat that night), green beans, festival bread (Nicole said that Spencer and her first tasted this in Jamaica and requested that the Homestead make this for them), and to finish it off they had a baked potato bar. Nicole explained to me that Spencer and she wanted to incorporate the mothers tastes into the menu as well. She said they had Key Lime Pie for Spencer’s mom and Italian Soup for her mother. Nicole said, “we opted for a buffet style for the rehearsal because this allowed more talking among friends AND then people could choose what they wanted to eat.” In case you were wondering what my ranking of top 3 rehearsal dinners are they go like this, 1) Newman-Harrison Wedding, 2) Barel-Lawton (Mexican food, they had homemade tortilla shells and margarita pitchers), 3) Lamb-Holt (Texas BBQ). This was also the first wedding where there was a party at the rehearsal and on top of it there was an open bar.

“The wedding coordinator at the Homestead was Tricia and she told us [Spencer and Nicole] we had the longest running open bar during a wedding weekend in the history of the Homestead. Four hours for the rehearsal and 6 for the wedding day. Mind you- The Homestead is the longest running resort in Virginia.” ~Nicole Newman

On Saturday the JD, Brammer and I headed into town to get breakfast. We ran across the local Farmers Market and decided to get breakfast there. The food was great and so were the maple donuts. Afterwards the men got together and headed off to the gun club for some skeet shooting. I can’t think of a better way to spend the morning then shooting some clay pigeons. The lesson learned here is that video games have begun to simulate real life, because two guys who have never held a gun except on their PlayStations dominated and there reason was spending hours playing video game. After shooting we headed back to The Homestead to watch the USA-England World Cup game. Thankfully it finished before we had to show up for pictures. The only downside was during the game some thunderstorms rolled through and the wedding was moved inside. However it looked just as nice inside. It was 5:30 and the wedding was beginning so we all walked in and got in our places. The Bride and Groom came down and next thing I knew they were pronouncing them man and wife. I also enjoyed that each pairing in the wedding had their own entrance music, my song was Fat Bottom Girl. Now the real party began and every danced and drank their way into the night. This wedding being the fourth fraternity brother’s wedding I’ve been too I realized that they are some of the most fun ones I’ve been to. Mainly because it’s the group of guys I spent partying with and whenever we get together fun times are going to happen.

The third and final wedding was my little sisters. Julie was marrying a guy she met from school named Matt. This wedding was different because I was around for the planning so I knew what was going on. Julie asked me to sing in the wedding and she kept going back and forth on the song so for three months before the wedding I would sit at the dinner table and ask Julie if I could sing random songs like “Sledgehammer,” “Before He Cheats,” and “Ring of Fire.” I would sing a couple lines and we would all laugh, but she never liked my suggestions.

I was really looking forward to this wedding, because my cousins and I always have a great time together. A couple of my cousins got into town the Thursday before the wedding and sat around drinking and catching up all night. On Friday we had a wine tour planned, but before we left we got lunch and watched the USA-Slovenia World Cup game. We only ended up going to two vineyards but we tried 40 plus wines so we definitely got enough to drink. When we got back to Fred Rock I got ready for the rehearsal and my cousins and I went to Blue and Gray Brewery to try their beers. Afterwards my cousins dropped me off at the church for the rehearsal. This rehearsal was not better than the previous weeks. There was no drinking and there was way too much explanation of things people already knew were going to happen. Plus I don’t know why it took more than 30 minutes. Anyways we left for the rehearsal dinner at Brocks. The dinner was good and a few people said some things, but the party was going to happen at Hard Times that night. So we headed off to Hard Times to see White Ford Bronco. If you want to know more about them you should read my previous post. Hard Times was fun we partied for a while and were joined by the rest of our cousins who got into town that evening.

On Saturday I had to wake up and drive to Richmond to pick up the wedding cake. The key here was a lack of time. I had to run by my parent’s house to get the order ticket first and then cruise down to Ashland so I could get the cake. My sister wanted a Ukrop’s cake and the Fredericksburg store closed in January. I had to have the cake to the reception hall and get back and dressed for the wedding and ready to leave the hotel by 11:30. I got back to the reception hall in 35 minutes and ended up being the first one ready. The cake made it safely and a few traffic laws were broken. All I know is I was not going to be the one that didn’t get where I was supposed to be at the time I was supposed to be there on this day. All of the groomsmen and a few other people who needed to be at the wedding early got on board the trolley and left for the wedding. Imagine wearing a suit or tuxedo, its 90 plus degrees outside and riding on a trolley with no air conditioning. The downside to getting to the church so early is sitting around for a couple of hours before the ceremony.

The ceremony started at 2:00 and lasted about 30 minutes. Julie wanted a lot of music in her wedding and we all know the Bride gets what she wants. The highlight of the wedding was the Best Man was on crutches because of a beer pong injury. You have to give him credit because you could tell he was in pain but he fought through it and never complained. After the wedding it was picture time, I hate picture time. I just want to get to the reception and start the party. After the pictures we had time to kill so we rode around in the trolley and went to Chatham House, Carl’s Ice Cream, and took a historic tour of Fredericksburg. The last stop was the reception hall. The reception was a lot of fun. A few good friends and my cousins and I hit the dance floor and didn’t leave until the night was over. The highlight of the night was at one point when my Dad’s Brother went out to dance with him in the soul train line at one point my Dad’s pants fell down. Thankfully his shirt was really long and nobody was flashed.

Well that was my month of weddings in June. I had a lot of fun at all of them and they were all amazing in their own way. I wish the Bays, Newman’s, and Weakley’s many years of happiness.