The Wedding
Well, I better write my account of my wedding soon. Honestly, I've written about 3 or 4 different entries but none of them seemed to convey how I felt, so I'm writing this in a gmail draft so I can work on it until it's the way I want.
The wedding was perfect. As I was writing thank-yous I told everyone that we couldn't have asked for anything more, and it was true. Sure their were a few upset family members (trivial things) sure we had a wedding crasher (fortunately, you can't talk much with a mouth full of liqueur) and sure the flowers were not arraigned per Monica's request. It's only now looking back on the event did we even notice those things.
We were surprised by how nice Lake Las Vegas was when we checked into the MonteLago. Although it was dark out, our rooms alone were incredible! Brian, Pete and I shared a 2-bedroom apartment style room complete with large living room, dining area, full kitchen with bar (even freaking granite counters) and a washer/dryer. My bedroom was huge. It had its own bathroom with a separate tub and shower. The guys had a good size bathroom too. Our balcony looked out over the resort, pools, MonteLago Village, and the lake. Not too bad!
We spent some time hanging around the strip as we were there about 3 days before the wedding. It was kind of neat but not nearly as fun as other friends have described nor as cool as it looks on TV. Although the casinos are incredibly huge, the strip really boils down to one casino after another. *Note: We were on a bit of a budget and the cool shows, etc. were not on the agenda this time, which might have influenced my opinion.
Bachelor party was fun, my brother came through and we had a good time. We rented an H2 stretch limo and hopped around. We even picked up Land from his hotel!
I wasn't nervous until the morning of the the wedding. The ceremony wasn't until 1 but I was up early, making sure I had food in my stomach. My family (Dad, Yolany, Victor, Brian, Grandma, Lynette, and Ashlea) took me out to the Ritz-Carlton for breakfast. Afterwards Brian and I kind of sat around waiting to get ready. It's funny how different the guy's experience is from the girl's. They had a schedule, things to do, etc., while we just watched TV and I reminded Brian on the hour about remembering the ring.
The ceremony was on a yacht on the lake. Because of construction in the area we opted to have the ceremony away from the dock in case of noise. Once the boat took off I was freaking out. Funny thing was, it wasn't marriage or Monica that scared me. It was more just being in front of everyone. Actually, I was excited about those other things.
Monica was flat out gorgeous. She was. Completely. I was another schmuck in a tux, but it was ok. The ceremony was nice, the captain had the back of the boat faced into the sun, so we were squinting at the minister the whole time. There was a little wind and our unity candles blew out, but it still worked out great.
The reception was fun. Open bar, good buffet, some dancing, and a great toast from my brother. We went up back on the top deck to throw the bouquet. Monica's older sister caught it. Her sister's son grabbed the garter. Before we left we all danced to Jitterbug. Why George Micheal? I have NO idea!
Our professional photos won't be ours for another month or so, but I'll load them into Flickr when I get them.
-EW
Honeymoon post next...