the time of my life

Holy cow. I am officially back. I am beyond exhausted. I am seriously struggling to reconcile the fact that I'm back to the grind. But...I seriously had the time of my life! It was hands-down one of the best weekends of my life, and I loved every single minute of it.

For sanity's sake, I'm going to break this up into 3 posts:

1. Thursday (the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner and the after party)
2. Friday (lake day and cocktail party) and
3. Saturday (wedding ceremony and reception)

Rehearsal
As I said in my last post, I headed down to Austin Thursday afternoon to make it in time for the rehearsal @ 5 PM. I made pretty good time, and was there to get the skinny on my duties as a reader. The chapel was absolutely beautiful, and I got to meet most of Ed's family that had just arrived from Virginia. There were so many of them! When they walked into the church, it was like they just kept coming. He has 4 brothers and 3 sisters - God bless his mother. Anyway, the rehearsal was pretty painless and their priest (Father James, AKA the bomb diggity) made sure we didn't waste time on things that really didn't need rehearsing, i.e. who really needs to practice walking up and down the aisle 3 times? Is that really necessary? I digress...

Rehearsal Dinner
As soon as we were sufficiently "rehearsed," we rushed right on downtown to continue the merriment at Clay Pit. I had never been there before, and I don't even think I've eaten Indian food before then? Nonetheless, I was excited to try everything, and definitely ready to let loose and have a good time. Feeling adventurous, I started the night with a "New Delhi" cocktail which was unlike anything I've ever had in my life. It was champagne with a spice-infused vodka. The vodka was infused with ginger, mango and chiles. Whoa nelly! It was like a firecracker went off in my mouth...crazy and so unexpected. Suffice it to say, I stuck with a much milder (but certainly tasty) mango-champagne cocktail for the remainder of the cocktail hour.

fousins!

We also had some really yummy crab cakes, fried zucchini and chicken appetizers that I inhaled...errr...daintily enjoyed. As an aside, it was actually quite lovely to have a cocktail hour prior to being seated as it provided a great opportunity to mix, mingle and meet all of the peeps from out of town (mostly VA). Twas a great idea if I do say so myself.

the bride and me

a rare pic of Sean and me

Once we were seated for the actual dinner, they served a couple of starters and I devoured about 20-25 mussels that were in a creamy tomato sauce. In between the starters and main meal, it was speech time. Ahhh...I love a good speech. The usual suspects (best man, maid of honor and maid of horror - that was for you Elisa) delivered speeches, but many other members of the wedding party also gave toasts to the (future) bride and groom. It was a really special time, and there were many tears shed.

Once the sob fest was complete, dinner was served and I happily helped myself to several servings of 3 different curries, which were so unbelievably good. I also had my fair share of naan bread and finished the meal with a tasty slice of 3-layer chocolate raspberry cake. (Are you keeping track of all the food I consumed?) I was stuffed! Sadly, I was the worst blogger ever on this trip and didn't take any food/drink shots. They would have photographed lovely...such a shame.

elisa, me and her naan

The after party
When we finally left the restaurant (we were there from 6:30-11:00, true story), the group headed over to Sean's house for the after party. Wow, I am definitely a grandma compared to these kids. They were still going strong and ready to par-tay! As for me, well, I was completely reclined on the couch just trying to will myself to stay awake...ha. I think I was in a food coma, but whatever it was, I was totally spent. I did my best to hang in there and did really enjoy getting to talk to some of the wedding party that I did not know previously. Everyone was super nice and friendly which made it so fun to be a part of all the festivities. Lucky for me, the bride needed her beauty rest, so we were actually the first of the group to leave the rockin' shindig. Us "party poopers" didn't get home until after 1:30 in the AM - way past this granny's bedtime.

remind you of college?

the fab four

My two highlights for the night would have to be:
1. The priest reading Song of Songs using his very best Barry White impression.
2. Me mistaking a bottle of vodka (or was it tequila) for white wine at Sean's and taking a pretty big sip out of my wine glass...feel the burn...

All in all, it was a great night and so much fun. Stay tuned for the next 2 posts.