Tim and Kellie Got Married!!!! - Day 3 - Saturday (Wedding Day)

Saturday - THE DAY HAS ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!

So after seeing these two from their beginnings as a couple freshman year of college, to them becoming more serious, realizing they will probably get married, and then finally the engagment....here we are. Tim and Kellie gon' get hitched!

As much fun as I had the night before I was in no way prepared for the ridiculous amount of fun I was to have on this day when two of my best friends have decided to spend the rest of their lives together.

Here is how the day went down:

10:30 - We all get up to make sure we have enough time to recover from the previous nights shenanigans, and then get ready for the epic shenanigans that will take place in just a few short hours. Tim and Kellie Hasken - ETA - 4 hours

We were instructed by the groom that we needed to be at the Church at 12:45 to make sure everything is ready to go for the wedding at 2:00, following which we will take a cruise around my absolutel favorite city in the world to take pictures at the many picturesque places around the city, including my favorite, the arch.

My friends gf was gracious enough to buy all of us coffee to make sure we were able to wake up and sober enough to get ready on time and make to the Church. After everyone gets showered up and ready to go, the best man head to the Church, our friends house is only 15 minutes away so we make it exactly as instructed....

12:45 - There is a huge crowd outside the Church, are we late? Is my watch wrong? Did we screw this whole thing up? With a glance the best man and I park the car and bolt for the doors as we are ready to run down the aisle Dustin Hoffman style to ensure the wedding would not start without us.

It only took a couple of seconds for us to realize we did not recognize anybody in the crowd which led us to realize this was another wedding. A collective *Phew* between the best man and I ensued, which then led to...wait a tic, why did the groom tell us to be here at 12:45 if we are the only ones here? Hmmm...what to do...wait is that....YES, Milo's Bocce garden was open for business. No words had to be spoken as we both made our way to the bar to start the day off right with a drink....its 5 o'clock somwhere righ-ah who cares, Tim and Kellie are getting married, we dont need an excuse to have a beer at 12:45

The best man and I make our way to Milo's and have ourselves a beer (drink count: 1), it goes down smooth and we know...this will be a good day.

1:17 - The best man and I have finished our drinks and head over to the Church. Still no sign of the Groom, but we call and are assured he is on his way. Apparently the previous wedding has free reign on the Church until 1:30....Apparently Churches can have more than one wedding in a day...who knew?

1:21 - The groom arrives with the rest of the groomsmen in tow....we are ready to get this started.

The guests start to arrive and the nerves start to show up as the time is growing nearer and nearer. After calming the groom down by assuring him that this will go off without a hitch, the bride and bridal party arrive. As the groom cannot see her we partition the vestibule and stow the bridal party in there (unfortunately the "you can't see me"* taunt does not actually prevent people from seeing you so that would not be appropriate here).

* The "you can't see me taunt" is a favorite of the groom in which you repeatedly wave your flattened hand back in forth in front of your face, so nobody can effectively "see you"

2:00 - WEDDING TIME!!!!!!!!!!!! The groom walks down the aisle and assumes his position as he waits for his bride to take her place at his side. Once the groom leaves we get the distince pleasure of seeing the bride as the partition is removed. After being flabbergasted by how stunning she looks, I realize that since she is one of my good friends I should probably say something, to which I say..."you look stunning" and give her a hug. Which is followed shortly by "Let's do this thing"

2:07 - The procession music starts and the wedding party takes their marches down the aisle and assumes their correct positions.

2:15 - Now comes the time, the bridal music plays and the door is opened as the bride is escorted down the aisle by her father. This is typically one of the more emotional parts of the wedding and much emotion was had by all and I couldn't help but have a smile on my face seeing the start of this wedding.

The wedding goes off without a hitch and everything was perfect. Now comes the picture time

Tim and Kellie Got Married!!!! - Day 2 - Friday

Friday - Only 1 day remains!!!

So I knew there was a big day ahead of me as I was informed as much by the groom the night before when he and the bride decide to cut the shenanigans short and go home at 10:30. That notwithstanding, I agreed to help the groom pick up tuxes and set up the reception area during the next day starting at 9:30, I figured it was the least I could do for one of my best friends on the most important day of his life, right? Right.

Also on this day was the rehearsal dinner and the offcial start to the weekend for all those suckers who did not take the entire week off like yours truly. This start to the weekend promised the arrival of even more friends and the start of much more shenanigans after the important things like rehearsal dinners were over.

Here is how the day went down:

8:32 - The groom calls, I glance at the phone, notice it is not 9:30 and promptly silence the ringer and head back to sleep.

9:00 - The groom calls again, this time I decide to answer "You're early." Apparently, when you are only a day away from your wedding and you have about a million things to do you tend to want to get an early jump on things....who knew?

9:28 - The groom arrives to pick me up so we can (get some coffee) make some last minute adjustments to the slide show, pick up tuxes, etc. With my friend in tow we head to the coffee shop.

9:45 - Arrive at the coffee shop where before any editing is done, I get a preview of the slideshow which contains pictures of both bride and groom from their early years to present, which I assure was quite awesome. It is quite amazing that a face someone makes when they are 12 they can still make EXACTLY the same face at age 24. What is also quite awesome is learning the inner workings of PowerPoint. With the expertise of our friend we were able to make the cue slides "pop" with a multitude of accent colors. Excellent work.

10:41 - We leave the coffee shop and head to the tux shop to pick up our tuxedos. The drive to the tux shop gives me two thoughts, could I pull off wearing a vest in every day life? It is the same as a sweater vest right? And I hope everything fits.

10:57 - I try on my tux which leads me to a few thoughts that I will list out in bullet point format

1. I could totally do a rockin' John F. Kennedy pose in this thing - Proof -->

2. Wow, JFK pose or not I look REAL good in this tux, point 1 for the groom for the good tux choice.

3. Actually, this vest looks like it might be just a bit too big. I wonder if they have another one.

This is when the day really started to take a fun turn. So as is common knowledge, or so I thought, most weddings are held on Saturday's. So it would stand to reason that most people would pick up their tuxes the day before (Friday) so as to not add to any of the craziness of the day itself. This wedding was apparently alone in that logic because there was only one single, solitary person at the tux shop. ONE PERSON!!! The line was at least 10 people long. So after finally getting the girls attention she said she would call the other shop that was "just a few minutes away" and have the vest ready.

Tim and Kellie Got Married!!!!! - Thursday - Day 1

In the words of the great Bill Simmons "you have your close friends who go way back, and then everyone else." Along with that, every once in a while one of those friends will get married and it will be a special event that will bring everyone together for the first time in a while to flashback to when you were all together in college. And every once in a greater while one of your best friends will get married to your de-facto sister and the wedding will reach epic proportions the likes of which the average lay person could only imagine.

What follows is the run down of my trip to St. Louis and the ensuing wedding that literally scarred me for life as I will never be able to have as much fun again (with the possible exception of future weddings and at some point, my own).

Thursday 2:36 - Arrive in St. Louis.

Thursday 2:37 - Reminded of my immense hatred for the upside down "U" everyone refers to as the arch, which is relevant if for not other reason than people say it is relevant. However, these ill feelings are tempered by the anticipation of getting to see the friends I have not seen in such a long time and relive the old days if only for a weekend.

2:53 - Arrive at my friends house who graciously allowed me and two others to stay there for two nights to save us the trouble of paying for a hotel room for the entire weekend.

After the obligatory man-hug greeting we began to catch up and talk about what has been going on in our lives as of late. After a short while I remembered I had not eaten and needed to get something. This brought to my realization that it is not quite a trip to STL unless a visit to White Castle is made, so I promptly got back into my car to make the trek for glorious-ness.

When I got to White Castle, little did I realize that I was in for a treat and it was not a slider. No, no, when I pulled in to go through the drive through lane a little girl was in the middle of the lane and walking towards my car. Naturally, I stopped so she could get out of the way, at which point, she also stopped and stared at me. I gave her an inquisitive look which in my head asked her "Didn't your mom teach you not to walk into oncoming traffic?" but she must have read my look as something else altogether for I was fully expecting spiny frills to extend from her neck as she spit poisonous liquid at my car turning me into the skinny version of Dennis Nedry. Thankfully for me, my windows were rolled up and I didnt have to endure such things are have to hear what obscenity she screamed at me as I slowly drove past.

Following this incident I sat in the line waiting to give my order for at the very least 10 full minutes. Upon reflection though, I would expect nothing less as I would not want White Castle to sacrifice any quality by rushing through this process. I will wait for my sliders and I shall enjoy them ever moreso. Long story short, I obtained the sliders, had one on the way back to my friends house and ate the rest there, putting me into a short food coma for about two hours after my friend left for work.