Hooray wedding!

Before we start this, I need to say one thing and get it out of the way: holy crap, have you ever seen a cuter flower girl/ringbearer combo than this?

No, you have not, because none exists. And I’m not just saying that because they’re my kids. They’re hella cute. It’s scientific fact.

Okay, now on with the program.

Wedding II: This time, it’s personal

The weekend after Ed’s wedding in Baltimore, it was time to do it all over again. This time, it was a little more involved because my brother was the one getting married and I was his best man. And as you’ve already seen, the kids were included in the bridal party as well.

At this point, those of you who know me offline are thinking: how can his little brother possibly be old enough to get married? Isn’t he still like four years old? Trust me, I know. I still think of him as a four-year old. But apparently he is old enough and he did. This just yet another disturbing sign of how old we’re all getting.

Since I had weddings to attend on both ends, I just took the week off and hung out in the Swamp. On the way down, I took advantage of the fact that my crabby no-fun kids and wife weren’t in the car and finally stopped to take a gander at the big Steve statue along 288. For those of you who haven’t seen it, rest assured it’s the most randomly placed giant tribute to a state forefather in Brazoria County. But I digress…

The wedding itself was not in the Swamp, but rather up the road in League City. That meant we got to stay at the fabulously luxurious NASA Road Super 8, which features not only awesome art in the lobby, but interesting and unique cars in the parking lot as well. I highly recommend it.

Watching dudes score at a bachelor party

Neither my brother nor I are really “bachelor party guys.” The concept of getting drunk to the point of sickness and paying women to do things that can only serve to get your marriage off to a bad start just doesn’t seem very smart. So I decided early on that a traditional bachelor party was out.

My brother and I both have a love for baseball and in Houston, the Astros are the closest thing we have to a professional baseball team in town. Drayton certainly charges major league prices, even if the product on the field has had a decidedly minor league quality to it for the past several years. But anyway…

So I got a couple of tables in the center field restaurant at Minute Maid Park for the groomsmen, my dad, the bride’s dad and a couple of other family members to watch a game a couple of nights before the wedding. Fortunately for the lowly Astros, they were playing the even lowlier Washington Nationals, so we managed to witness a rare Astros victory.

I think everyone had a good time. I know I did. The Boy and got there when the park opened so we could watch batting practice and try to get some autographs. The seats were actually a pretty good value, given that we were right next to the bullpen, the food was great and you had a pretty good view of home plate once you busted out the binoculars. The Boy also approved of the mondo dessert plate that they brought out after dinner.

Everyone had a good time, no one got arrested and we could all look our significant others in the eye the next morning. I declared it a success. Hooray baseball!

This is why we show up for rehearsal, people

The following evening was the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. I’ve always been fairly convinced that wedding rehearsals are unnecessary because all weddings are pretty much the same, right? I mean, there’s a few small details that need to be sorted out, but we’ve all been to plenty of weddings and should know the drill by now. But apparently I’m mistaken about the utility of the wedding rehearsal and we had to have one anyway.

Fortunately, the kids seemed excited about the whole thing. That’s good, because even the best behaved children can find standing around for an hour while the grown-ups do their thing a little boring. The Girl kept herself busy (as usual) exploring the church and trying to ignore another flower girl who was totally fascinated with her.

Adding some sitcom spice to the whole affair was the fact that the priest (whom my brother and his fiancée had spent months working with) was sick and unable to attend. In fact, he was questionable for showing up the next day for the blessed event as well. And for some reason (I never really found out why), the usual backup priest was unavailable as well. That left us with the backup backup priest.

Father Third String was an interesting fellow. For starters, he wore a hat the entire time he was in the church. An odd little stubby fedora like they used to wear in the 60s. Needless to say, it’s a major faux pas to wear a hat inside a church unless you’re a bishop or a pope and you’re wearing an official business hat. Weird hipster hats are never allowed and I’ve certainly never seen a priest wearing one in my 30+ years of Catholicism.

Two more strikes against Father Third String were that he didn’t seem to speak much English and that he didn’t really seem to know much about conducting wedding ceremonies. I’m not entirely sure that he understood that he was there to officiate a wedding. On the few occasions we were able to get an understandable sentence out of him, it usually something to the effect of, “We can do whatever you think is best.”

I think I came out of the rehearsal knowing less about weddings than when I went in. Needless to say, none of us were filled with much confidence about Father Third String’s ability to pull this whole thing off if Father Uno was still out of commission. My future sister-in-law was mulling trying to call around to see if we could locate another priest and my mother suggested several times that I could get myself ordained over the Internet and step in if needed.

Our uneasiness was quelled by the rehearsal dinner, which I thought went pretty well. My parents rented a party facility at a local Mexican restaurant and we all chowed down on tasty fajitas and enchiladas while getting to know the other side of the family. My brother handed out our groomsmen’s gifts, the kids hammed it up for everyone to enjoy and a good time was had by all. Hooray rehearsal dinner!

Time for the big show

Finally the big day arrived. Fortunately, the man upstairs heard our desperate prayers and allowed Father Uno to make a speedy recovery, rendering Father Third String’s dubious services completely unnecessary. Phew!

My brother spent most of the day holed up playing video games with his groomsmen and The Boy and I joined him for the final couple of hours to get ready. Elsewhere, The Wife took The Girl over to the bridal house so she could get ready for her big moment.

And then the wedding happened. The kids walked down the aisle just like they were supposed to, I got my brother to the aisle and stood by in case he passed out or something, and Father Uno conducted the ceremony in hatless, fluent English. A little of this, a little of that, bingo, bango, Bob’s your uncle and we had a newly minted husband and wife.

Having done all the hard work, The Girl was relieved that the whole thing was finally over. She even tickled the ivories on the church organ in celebration. She also joined us outside as well took the obligatory eleventy billion wedding photos.

All that was left was the partying…and party we did. The wine flowed, mass quantities of barbecue were consumed, and there was quite a bit of dancing, including some from myself, The Boy and The Wife. I even managed to improv my way through a decent best man’s toast. We partied until they kicked us out of the reception center and I think everybody had a good time. Hooray wedding reception!

Fries at the bottom of the bag

• My brother’s groom’s cake was old-school awesome.
• If I may so myself (and I may), The Wife was smokin’ hot at the wedding.
• The wedding gave us a chance to reconnect with family members from other parts of the country, which is always great. Between my mom and her two sisters, The Boy and The Girl were spoiled rotten.
• For the first time in my life, I rented a keg. It was less exciting than I had anticipated.
• The Girl proved that she’s not afraid of heights, both on a McDonald’s playground and on the 23rd floor of an office building.
• After the wedding, we headed down to Galveston for a quick day trip and took a ride on the ferry. Hard to believe, but it was The Boy’s first boat ride!
• The end.

For those of you who are still reading, here’s a pair of slideshows with all the pictures. One for the baseball game (also view here) and one for the wedding (also view here).