Tag: wedding

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Gratitudes 2018, Day 39

  1. Rick and Tasha’s wedding. Yesterday gave us a wonderful and joyous event and I’m super happy for both of them.

  2. The amazing venue (aka, her sister’s family’s backyard). They took an industrial-sized lawnmower… at least that’s what I’m assuming. They had to clear the brush somehow and I didn’t see a gigantic herd of goats anywhere. However they did it, they cleared enough space for a path, cleared the space here for the wedding arch and a bunch of chairs… the stream was already there and the sunshine was a gift from above.

  3. Sunglasses. It could have been yucky and rainy outside, but the sun was out and I was really, really glad I brought my sunglasses from the car. Bringing the car’s A/C unit might have been nice as well, but I’m grateful for the sunglasses.

  4. Bluetooth technology. “Here comes the bride, turn on the music!” Tap on the iPad a few times… a few more times… hold up the iPad and point it toward the audience because the speaker’s not— “BLUETOOTH CONNECTED.” Okay, the speaker’s working fine now.

  5. Three-day weekends. We woke up on Saturday morning, spent a few hours getting ready, left home and got back about 5:45 on Sunday. A few hours here, go to bed, wake up and start the work week anew. Except tomorrow is Labor Day, so we can sleep in a bit longer, then start cleaning and doing laundry and other chores around the house… okay, so it might feel like part of the work week, but at least we get to sleep in.

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I now pronounce you…

This weekend was pretty crazy and definitely busy. There was a pizza party with games, hiking, dancing, brunch, soccer (I scored my fourth goal in almost four years!) and spending a bunch of quality time with friends and family. Oh yeah, and there was a wedding, too.

April 26th will now and forever commemorate the marriage between my little brother Justin Bakken and Molly Moilanen. Congratulations, guys. Love you both.

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A pocketful of posies

I was at a friend’s wedding on Saturday and they were in the midst of “The Dollar Dance.” For those of you unfamiliar with the tradition, the bridal couple splits up and wedding attendees can pay a dollar to dance with one of them for a certain amount of time. If you don’t mind a slow dance that lasts for 45 seconds and costs you a buck, it’s a lot of fun. As for the newly-married couple, all those dollars help pay for… whatever. Maybe some tequila shots during their honeymoon in Mexico, I don’t know.

The reason I bring this up is because the best man (accepting money for the bride) was letting people dance way too long. Like, a minute or something. (Okay, fine, I wasn’t using a stopwatch to check, but he definitely needed to hurry things up—there was a pretty long line forming behind us.) If you’re in a similar situation and want to help out, I suggest you follow the example of my cousin, my little brother, his girlfriend and me:

We all handed the best man a dollar each. It’s only fair—one of them might have a strong tolerance for tequila. When it was our turn, we walked up as a group and did a little “Ring Around the Rosies” action while she spun around in the middle. Then we all squeezed in together for a bridal wrap—it would have been a bridal sandwich, but there were four of us surrounding her—and rocked around in a “slow dance” for about ten seconds. Then it was hugs for everyone and we left the dance floor, watching the rest of the line slowly creep forward, each person hoping that the DJ wouldn’t run out of slow music before they all got their turn.

Oh, and one final note for safety’s sake: if your friend is the bride and you’ve only met her new husband twice, you better leave the groom wrap to someone else. If not, the emotional trauma he suffers could lead to so many tequila shots that we all fall down.

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Celebrate good times, come on!

I’d like to wish Porter and Marie a Happy Zero-th Anniversary and Casie a [CENSORED]th birthday!

Michael “Porter” Porter and Marie Johnston got married yesterday, which was one of the coolest weddings I’ve ever been to (and not just because I got to guard the guest book…). Why, you might ask? Well, if you did just ask, I didn’t hear you, but I’ll provide a Top 10 list of answers regardless:

1) It was held at the Science Museum of Minnesota, though we didn’t take pictures next to the dinosaur skeletons or the Bodyworks exhibit. For those who have never heard of Bodyworks, it’s an exhibit where dead people have had plastic stuff injected into their circulatory system or muscles or other aspects of the body, then everything else got removed. It might look like a sculpture of a bunch of arteries and veins, but there used to be flesh and bone surrounding them. (If I’m not doing the exhibit justice, well, that’s because we didn’t get to take wedding photos in there.)

2) We all had designated seats for dinner and each table was identified by a certain element. For example, there was tungsten, platinum and silicon (which some people kept calling “silicone”, thus providing a little insight into America’s obsession with boobs).

3) My designated seat at the tungsten table was between two hot chicks! Hell, yeah…

4) It was an M & M wedding. That’s not meant to refer to their first names both starting with M, though it’s an interesting coincidence. Maybe that’s why they fell in love, I dunno… But the “M & M” signifies a marriage between two members of Mensa, which helps explain the Science Museum, the elemental tables, etc.

5) Even though it was an M & M wedding, all of the places at the dining tables had a box of Nerds candy with a “thank you” note on the back and the little characters on the front wearing tuxes and wedding gowns.

6) The ceremony was performed by St. Toby, a local member of Mensa.

7) St. Toby concluded the ceremony with something to the effect of “By the power vested in me by the Flying Spaghetti Monster…” The result was a lot of laughter from people in the know and probably a lot of confused look on all the other faces. For those who have never heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you can find more information on Wikipedia. The Kansas State Board of Education’s requirement for schools to teach intelligent design creationism along with evolution—it happened in 2005, swear to FSM—so someone developed a religion in protest that… well, you’ll have to read about it.

8 ) Dinner was very yummy. Very, very yummy.

9) The reception was entirely dance music, some of which included Young M.C., Vanilla Ice, M.C. Hammer… three cheers for the early 90s! (I wish that there were a few slow dances in there—I would have liked to dance with pretty much everyone except for Porter, ’cause he refuses to let me lead…) And yes, that means I did dance, but #10 provided a little extra incentive:

10) The DJ gave everyone glow sticks to dance with, so there are going to be plenty of good pictures with those things spinning around on the dance floor.

So after having such a good time, I’m wishing the best for Porter and Marie for many, many, many, many years and maybe a couple more for good measure.

As for Casie (pronounced KAY-see) Perry, it was her [CENSORED]th birthday! Way to get older!

We were supposed to have met at the museum to wander around for an hour or two, go see the Bodyworks exhibit before the ceremony started, but she was held hostage by her friends during a birthday brunch. Bastards… (I had to learn about stem cell research and nanotechnology without anyone to keep me company!) Plus my sunglasses fell out of my pocket, so I’ll have to head to the optometrist to get another pair of those. But someone recognized me from Beauty and the Geek, so the afternoon was up and down.

Overall, yesterday was a day of celebration and I hope it’ll be worthy of a big ol’ party from here on out. (Mental note to self: August 27th is now an anniversary, a birthday and a good day to reminisce about how cool glow sticks are…)