I went to a wedding this weekend. I've been to two really large, expensive weddings, and this was the second. There were at least 200 people, possibly closer to 250, and dinner was filet mignon and grouper (loved the filet, the fish was ok, and that's really saying something considering how I usually feel about fish). The participants were James Freedman-Aponte of Puerto Rico and now D.C., and Stephanie Killgore. Both are old friends from college.

I left work Friday in plenty of time to leave for Florida at our scheduled departure time of 1 pm. Unfortunately the car we were supposed to be taking was in the shop getting a new water pump. When we arrived at 4:00 pm to pick up the supposedly fixed car, Smiley, the owner/operator of the vehicle, noticed the hood was open While paying he asked about that. No one seemed to know, and we were about to drive off when someone remembered that they decided to replace the water cap on the radiator and had sent out an employee to go to NAPA Auto Parts for the cap. Damn good thing Smiley asked, or they would have let us drive off without that part, which really tells you NOT to go to this place for car repairs anymore. I also found it strange that when replacing a water pump, they obviously didn't bother to examine the cap until after they told Smiley the car was fixed. If I was fixing anything to do with the coolant system, I would check the cap at the start. The owner came out an apologized and gave Smiley a bunch of pointless concessions. Anything short of free labor on all the repairs would have left me disatisfied, but it wasn't my car. We asked if we could leave mine in the parking lot there so we wouldn't have to waste another hour driving back to the apartment and then south again, and they agreed. Then they woke me up with a phone call Saturday morning asking me why my car was parked in their lot. I'm not sure how they got my number, though I may have gotten an oil change there in the past, so perhaps that's it.

After a couple of hours of watching Smiley drive 80 while I was anxious as hell to get to St. Petersburg, I made him pull over so I could drive. Then we flew. Can't believe I didn't get a ticket! Got in around midnight, threw our crap in the hotel room, and walked the four blocks to the bar where we were told our crowd was hanging out. That crowd consisted of a whole bunch of guys from my frat, and assorted girlfriends/wives. Mostly just guys, though. I had a few drinks, then they kicked us out around 2 when bars have to close there. I had just started a beer and the security guy said I had to leave that floor, but could finish the beer in the outside ground floor area as long as I did not leave the premises. He lied because the guard at the bottom of the stairs rudely grabbed the beer from me and threw it away. There was no arguing. All I wanted was 10 damn seconds to chug it down. Since it was really only 1:55, I should have had five more minutes anyway. Had I ever planned to be in St. Pete again, I may have taken my protest further, but instead I will just boycott the city. Anyway, we walked back the hotel and hung out in the parking lot for a while. One group of friends went to a strip club and then a casino, but I decided to stick around the hotel and get some sleep.

I got out of bed around noon on day 2. I'd already been awakened by the aforementioned phone call, the hosuekeeping staff, who kept coming back even after I signed a sheet saying that I had chosen not to have my room cleaned that day (and later found out that one of the guys I was sharing the room with signed the same form, so obviously they didn't pay any attention the first few times I told them to go away) as well as very loud drilling from the floor below, which was being renovated. Nice of the hotel to put us in such a quiet spot. I went downstairs and found some friends in the pool. Went back upstairs to get my bathing suit, and then swam for a bit. A few of us had lunch in the hotel restaurant, and then it was back to the pool. All of the sudden everyone I knew at the wedding showed up, along with some beer, and we had a fun afternoon. Then it was upstairs to shave, shower, and get dressed. It was black tie optional, so I wore a dark suit with a lavender french cuffed shirt with spread collar and a blue stripped tie. Got lots of compliments. The ceremony was great, mercifully short, and gave me my first look at the maid of honor, who I found to be rather attractive. Though a bit lacking in finger food, the period between the ceremony and the reception did offer excellent pepper jack cubes and along bar lines. I skipped the line by sneaking to the side and grabbing some beers.

The reception was pretty lavish, and came with a nifty story. Stephanie's maternal grandfather was a navigator in the RAF and was slated to be married in late December 1943. His plane was shot down over Germany in early December 1943, and ended up hanging upside down from a church steeple with a bunch of gun-toting Nazis running around below. His main concern was how to explain to his fiancee why he was going to miss the wedding. A couple of years down the road, and several POW camps later (including the one featured in the movie The Great Escape), he got back and got married. Later on he emigrated to Australia where he rose to the level of Vice Air Marshall and was in charge of the Australian Air Force's medical services. He spoke briefly, and sounded incredibly distinguished. Actually the speech reminded me of a recording from the 1950's. He just had this old school dignity that you don't hear too often anymore.

There was one special segment of the evening where every brother from the frat posed for a huge group shot. I'm not sure what the count was, but there had to be at least 40 of us, ranging from one guy who was a junior when I was freshmen all the way down to people who were in high school still when I graduated college. All the girlfriends and wives took a lot of pictures of that one, and then we mortified James by surrounding him and yelling our victory chant, which is full of a lot of bad words. Luckily it's almost unintelligible when 50 people are yelling it, so no one got offended. Dinner, dancing, drinking, and one maid of honor's email address later, my crowd split in to two groups, one leaving for a casino, and my group heading to a room for more drinking and socializing. I ended up passing out around 2.

Got up at 9 Sunday morning and went to the brunch downstairs. YUMMY!! James and Stephanie got their big send-off at about 11:45, and a Rolls Royce took them to their destination (the honeymoon is a Mediterranean cruise, I don't know what happened after they got in the Rolls). We packed and took off soon after, arriving in Atlanta around 7 pm last night.