Irish Weddings

A huge congrats to John and Lisa McCarville, who got married on St. Patricks Day! This was the most fun wedding that I've ever been to (besides my own, of course!). Rehearsal went well. I got to see some friends that I hadn't run into for a while there, so it was a nice reunion time. It continued at the reheasal dinner which was held at the Rock Bottom brewery in Milwaukee. I highly recommend their pretzels with this really great dipping sauce that they come with! Cheesy and kinda spicy, it was really good! Julie and Renee joined us for a while, and then they went back to the Hilton so Renee could go to sleep. I'll be paying Julie back for this when her brother's wedding comes up later this year, but for now, I was having an awesome night out with everyone. Lots of yummy beers, some good food, and great friends. Although we didn't stick with beer for long, since we were here for an wedding on St. Patricks Day, we switched over to Jameson Irish Whiskey quite early on! Then we were playing darts and singing along with the jukebox all night long. A short 3.5 block walk back to the hotel had me in bed around 1-1:30.

Saturday was the big day! All of the guys met for breakfast at the Wooden Goose in Mequon, where half of the guys were too tired to notice the OR in the menu for the "Omlete with bacon, ham, or sausage" and kept trying to order a 3 meat omlete. We all got a good laugh out of that. Then it was a quick run down to West Allis to drop off Renee with Grandma, Grandpa, Kevin, and Kelly (thanks guys!), and back to downtown again to put on the tux! And this is where the fun begins...

It's about noon, and we're close to being ready. We're all hanging out in the Bridal Suite, which was just gigantic and amazing. At least four to five times bigger than our room, and really beautiful with a great view. The limo was supposed to drop off the girls at the church, and then be at the hotel by 11:45 to pick up the guys. So we send someone down to find him and let him know that we'll be there shortly. Except that they can't find the limo. We give him a few minutes and then call to see where he is. After a few calls, we find out that he's sitting out back of the church. He claims to have not known that he was supposed to pick up the guys, but I know there's no way John and Lisa would not be clear about what had to be done. The guy flat out forgot and was trying to cover his butt. The problem was that he was in Whitefish Bay, and we were downtown. The wedding was at 2:00, and it was now getting pretty late. We finally get the programs, and put half of us in John's car to race up to the church. Which of course means that the limo shows up right as we're about to pull out. But of course, the limo takes the last turn too wide, and needs to go into oncoming traffic lanes to complete it. With the small problem that there are cars in those lanes, so he's just sitting there waiting for room to move. So we floor it out of there and let the rest of the wedding party wait for the limo and have them follow us up.

We'll just say that we made remarkably good time on the way to the church and leave it at that, ok? 8-)

The girls, bless their hearts, kept the bride completely in the dark. I believe some flat out lying was involved, but that's fine because the last thing you want right before a wedding is a panicked bride. She did thank them later on for keeping the limo problems from her. Which is much easier to do in retrospect after everything goes off well. The wedding started a little bit late, but it went off just fine. The priest, of course, had to interject a little "If your married life goes even a little bit better than the wedding itself has started, you'll have it made," but then it was all back to normal again.

I'll bring you part two of the wedding story a bit later. I have a feeling it will take a third part before I'm done with this tale, especially once we get into the limo ride from the church to the reception. I'll just say this much right now, 11 people in the limo (although two were sick, and so not drinking much), and the trip started with 6 full bottles of champagne and Jameson. I'll let you guess how much was left at the end of the road. 8-)