Wedding weekend, part 1

There's so much to tell about last weekend, and I want to make sure I do it justice, complete with my favorite pictures and everything. The weekend went smoothly, and if I had to choose one word to describe Saturday and Sunday, it would be perfection. Thursday, Friday and Monday were all right, but they weren't as awesome as Saturday and Sunday. At least we got the important ones right!


Thursday
I'll pick up from where I left off on my blog on Thursday. We left K's apartment at about 4 p.m. The drive got off to an annoying start. K's dad and brother (His dad is 69 and his brother is 45. I think this info is important here.) thought it was funny to say in obnoxious voices over and over, "Are we there yet?" K's brother, who was sitting behind me, also decided it would be funny to yank on my seat belt from time to time. I thought it was hilarious -- except the opposite.

K and I were still picking at each other, which was frustrating. I felt like he was just being so touchy over everything. I had started calling him crankypants hoping he'd get the hint. Instead, he just laughed about it when he wasn't being cranky.

At one point in the ride, he was talking on the phone to one of his friends, who asked when we were heading up to Pennsylvania for K's leave. K told him the exact dates, which I'd been waiting to hear for weeks. I needed those dates to tell my co-workers so I can get off work to spend time with him. I held up my hands like, "Hello?!" when he said the dates. When he hung up the phone, K said, "No. No. Do not try to tell me you didn't know those dates. We talked about it today."

"Really?" I asked. "When?"

"Well, we talked about it yesterday."

"Yeah," I said, "we talked about where we'd go, but we didn't talk about when."

"Well I know I told you those dates some time."

"Yeah, in June."

"See?!"

I reminded K that their vacations change even the week before (the weekend we were embarking on was originally a four-day weekend for him, but it had been taken away just the week before), so I took the dates he'd told me three months ago as just potential dates to give us an idea of when his leave would come.

Anyway, so we weren't really fighting or even arguing, but things were a bit tense a few times in the car. And the way K and I operate, we get out our frustrations by telling the other person about them. We finish our conversation, sit quietly for a minute or two, and then we're fine. It works great.

Unless you have K's dad sitting in the back seat trying to shush us and play referee. That annoyed me. I had to bite my tongue from turning around and saying, "We're fine. We're not fighting. This isn't your concern. Please stop shushing us."

We got to Florida at about 1 a.m. K and I talked about how tense things had been lately, and we decided it was because we hadn't really gotten to spend any quality time together really since July (He trained through the month of August, so we didn't see each other. Our first day together in September, we got Piper.). We were glad that we'd get some time for ourselves that weekend.


Friday
K and I woke up early and headed to get our marriage license. K was rolling his eyes at me and pretending to be annoyed that I was documenting everything with my digital camera. That's an important step for the marriage, though. And who would I be not to record it?















The woman going over the license with us instructed us to sign our names very legibly and in cursive. K, in autopilot, started to do his standard signature: a big K with a line after it, and his last name. I laughed at him and called him on it. "Well, I sign my name like 300 times a day," he said.

"Oh, I see. You're too important to be bothered with signing your whole name."

He made a face at me, looked at the woman helping us and asked, "What's the form we need to fill out for an annulment?" I think the workers were getting a kick out of us.

As she processed our papers, the woman had us sit down and read this pamphlet the state makes you read before you can get your license. The pamphlet was so negative! It talked about what you have to do to get a divorce, how expensive it is and how long it takes, how hard it is to share custody of pets, how assets get divided, etc. It talks about child abuse and a billion other depressing things, including the fact that the divorce rate is higher than the marriage rate. K and I wondered if anyone ever came in, read the pamphlet and bailed before signing. Was that the state's intention?

After that, we met our minister for lunch at IHOP. K had been hesitant about having a female minister (the whole Catholic thing) at first, but after we both talked to her on the phone, we knew she would be perfect. It was good to finally meet her in person. We discussed the ceremony and told her more about ourselves. When we left lunch, we were both really glad we'd chosen her.

The guys were supposed to play golf that afternoon at 2. I had scheduled a manicure for that same time, so I headed out with Kristin to get our nails done. While we were getting pampered and catching up, the guys called to tell us they didn't get to go golfing because of the monsoon that had hit while we were in the salon. Kristin's husband Tom was really disappointed, and so was my dad (they're both big golfers). Kristin called once the rain had cleared to see if my dad would still want to go, so my dad, Tom, K and my brother headed out again. While they were gone, I was able to call my friends who were traveling that day, see Rachel and her boyfriend (who was one of my friends in college), and finish the last page of K's scrapbook (que singing angels).















K came back to the hotel soaked a couple of hours later. It had started pouring again while they were golfing. He was in a goofy mood and was being silly, so I kept ushering him into the shower so we could head to dinner. I was starving.

As he showered, I called everyone to let them know our plans for the night so they could join us if they wanted. We headed over to dinner, and it turned out there was an OU watch party (we had a Friday night game). There was space left in the room with the big screen, so we sat there. I talked to some friends of ours in the next room for several minutes before joining K and the others in the OU room (there was a flag and everything!).

When I sat down, I was pleased to hear the group of people wearing OU shirts (not with us) doing the Boomer chant: One person yells, "Boomer!" and everyone else follows with "Sooner!" This happens a couple times. Then, if we're playing texas, the person yells, "texas" and everyone yells "SUCKS!" afterward. That part is great -- if we're playing texas.

My friends and I were loudly and happily joining on the "SOONER!" part of the chant, but I hushed when he started yelling about texas. When the chant was over, the restaurant got very quiet right at the time I loudly said, "We're not playing texas!" A moron in an OU jersey (I think he was an impostor fan) turned and said -- to me!! -- "It's an OU thing. You wouldn't understand."

I felt my blood boil. I couldn't believe he just said that to me. I mean, how could he not know? He probably wasn't even from Oklahoma!

"I graduated from OU! I was in the band all four years!" I cried.

Some other idiot from his table passed us on his way to the bathroom. "Well that's definitely different," he said. I didn't know what that was supposed to mean, but I ignored him. How could they not know?

I told my friends at our table that we should all yell "PLAYS TOMORROW!" next time those guys yelled "texas." It was quite a while later before they started the chant again, and I had decided to just keep quiet. Only all my friends were nodding at each other and looking around in agreement. So we yelled it. I saw the guys in the jersey grumble and look over their shoulders at us. Someone had to tell them!

Quite a while later, the guys started the chant again. My friends and I were eating our dinner and minding our own business (yeah, I know -- like the idiots were the first time) when they started it. And they didn't chant about texas this time:
"BOOMER!
SOONER!
BOOMER!
SOONER!
BAND GEEKS
SUCK!
BAND GEEKS
SUCK!"

I tried my best to ignore them and continue as though I'd heard nothing. My friends looked around, confused. "Did he just say Yankees?" "No, I think he said band geeks." "Yeah, he definitely said band geeks." "What a jerk!"

"Just ignore them. It's fine. I started it, technically," I said to them. But they were still trying to be sure he said band geeks. Our friends at another table said, "Yeah, he said band geeks."

Tom, our 6'7" friend, evidently gets pretty protective. He turned toward the guys' table. "What's that? You wanna say that again? What did you say, big guy? Hey 1-8, you got a problem? Do you wanna say something again?"

He kept trying to get their attention. K said, "We don't know that's what they said." Some old guy at their table turned toward us: "They said Vandees." I didn't know what that was supposed to mean. Vanderbilt? We were playing Tulsa. K asked if there was someone on the Tulsa team named Vandees.

"No," CG said from the table next to us. "He said band geeks."

We all tried to get Tom to quiet down, but he was persistent! He'd get quiet for a few seconds, and then start up again. The guys at the other table, who were all much smaller than 6'7" and were severely outnumbered, stared ahead, frozen. "Yeah, that's what I thought." Tom said.

Just then, one of our friends came up to ask me about the flowers, which she was picking up the next day. "Let's go talk about them!" I said to her, and we jumped up from our table and headed toward the bathroom. Just as I told her I was about to start crying, I started crying. Not a lot, but I was frustrated. We were all the way in Florida and stumbled upon a restaurant with OU fans, a flag and a big screen for the game. Why couldn't we get along? I realized it was my fault for (unintentionally) provoking them, but they were dumbasses. They needed to know.

My friend made me feel better, and after discussing the flowers, we headed back to the table. I sat down, and K said to me, "Sorry, we were all picking at your popcorn shrimp."

"It's OK," I said to him. "I'm not really that hungry."

"No. No. Don't even tell me that. Not after all that at the hotel," K said.

Being frustrated already (and having just escaped a breakdown in the bathroom), my eyes flooded and I immediately headed back to the bathroom. The same friend came to talk to me again, and this time, she was followed by three more. We had a mini-counseling session in the bathroom. Kristin and the first girl were both married, and they told me this was all normal -- the picking, the frustrations and the rush of emotions -- before your wedding.

No one had told me this was part of the deal! I figured since it was a small wedding, that wouldn't be an issue. Boy, was I wrong.

After a few minutes, I headed back out to our table again. I was frustrated at myself for being so damn emotional. I felt stupid. And tired. I called it a night not long after that. (I'm sure this makes my Saturday blog make more sense now!)


See Part 2 of this post here. See photos here and here.