wedding – Steve's Blog

A New England Wedding

On Saturday we attended the wedding of my wife’s nephew. The wedding was held at Butternut Farm Golf Course near Stow in Massachusetts .

But of course we had to get there first.

So at 04:45 on Thursday morning we left the house
At 05:15 we took the Coach from Cheltenham to Heathrow
From Terminal 2 we flew to Reykjavík where we changed planes
From Reykjavík we flow to Boston
Then from Boston we took the Concord Trailways bus to Portland
We were collected in Portland by Rick and taken up to Augusta…. arriving about 24 hours after our alarm had gone of.

On Friday we collected our rental.

The rental - we'd booked a car but got a free upgrade — The rental – we’d booked a car but got a free upgrade

Then we drove about 200 miles down to the Golf course for the rehearsal (Rick was one of the grooms-men).
After the rehearsal we drove over to the Embassy Suites in Marlborough and checked in – we were in one of the premiium suites on the the 6th floor.
Then it was over to The Chateau (which despite it’s name is in fact an Italian Restaurant) for the rehearsal dinner.
Then a final trip back to the suite where we collapsed!

So the day itself dawned.. it was sunny but cool (well what do you expect – it is November after all). We had breakfast – it was a help yourself buffet and was quite good, and there was unlimited coffee which was very good – and then went out and dropped Diane off for her hair appointment – we then tried to find the post office and somewhere that sold alcohol (its all rather restricted in Mass), before going back to the suites and getting ready for the wedding.

Then it was over to the Golf course for the wedding – luckily the weather had held as the wedding was being held outside.

Even though the sun was shining it wasn’t the warmest of days and most of the guests kept their coats on. However the wedding party just had to grin and bear it.

By this time the sun was down behind the trees and things were starting to cool off. Luckily the ceremony wasn’t a huge long drawn out affair – just a couple of readings and a nice little speech by the local Justice Of The Peace. But by the end Ashley was looking a little chilled in her wedding dress and she looked very relieved when she could head back into the club house and warm up.

The wedding reception was held upstairs in the club house where there is a very large room and a bar. Matt and Ashley had asked people to request songs to be played so whilst people got settled and relaxed those songs were playing in the background. There was an open bar with some great bar staff who once I’d ordered a couple of beers just knew what I wanted, and a candy bar (each guest had a small Kilner Jar to put candy in) and a impromptu photo booth.

Once food had been served and eaten the dance floor was opened up and after the traditional first dance, grooms mother’s dancw and brides father’s dance the floor was filled with guests dancing.

At 9:15 the courtesy bus turned up and took everyone back to the Embassy Suites where we basically took over the bar until the end of the evening.

A Thanksgiving Wedding

So what did you do on the Saturday following Thanksgiving on Thursday and the madness of “Black Friday”? Did you take it easy and watch some TV, or did you venture out to do some shopping hoping that things would be a little quieter.

Or did you go to a wedding?

Rick and Jill’s wedding was one of the reasons we’d flown back to Maine and with it being on the Thanksgiving weekend it all worked out quite well.

Having recovered from too much turkey on Thursday we all gathered at the church on Friday evening to have a rehearsal which went quite smoothly which I suppose is a good thing, and then we all went over to the Ground Round for the rehearsal supper where I think we almost ate too much food again.

Saturday morning seemed to roll round really quickly and Kathy headed out to get her hair done, having got her nails done on Friday afternoon in the middle of the Black Friday madness. Then the Groom’s party descended on the house to get ready which was slightly less chaotic than when Jen got married the other year, but not by much.

There had been an earlier wedding at the church but by the time we got there there was no sign of them and it wasn’t long before wedding guests started turning up and the ceremony started right on time.

It was a pretty good ceremony with some good readings and the deacon talked well and made everyone feel welcome and relaxed, and even made a joke or two.

There was one very funny moment during the service when Rick and Jill went up to light the unity candle from the two side candles and they’d lit it and were walking back and it went out, so the deacon called them back and they tried to re-light it but it just didn’t want to know. After a little bit of work, and two tapers which were really starting to flare up, they got it lit and made their way back to their places and the ceremony continued.

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I got caught out by the Roman Catholic version of The Lords Prayer which is several lines shorter at the end, and it seems that it caught everyone else who wasn’t RC out as well.

After the service was over and photos were taken we all piled into various cars and headed across town to the Augusta Civic Center where the reception was being held. They’d even put a message on the electric notice board at the Civic Center so anyone driving past it would know.

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The reception was being held in a function room in the North wing of the Center and there was a craft fayre being held in the main auditorium which some of us joked about crashing but I think the arrival of a lot of people in matching tuxedos and waistcoats might have thrown them off a bit.

It was a great reception and everyone seemed to have a good time. So to finish off this blog here is a picture of the happy couple

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The Wedding

Well all the preparation is done, the chapel is decorated, as is the venue for the party afterwards. Its been a couple of crazy days for Kathy with late nights and early mornings.

Not so much for me as I’ve got my wrist in a splint having taken a fall early in the week. Nothing broken but it hurts like hell.

So wedding today, tidy up tomorrow and then on Monday if the weather is good we’re off out somewhere. Don’t know where yet but we are.

Will post some pics of the wedding when I get round to it!

Maine – here we come again

Well we’re off to Maine for nearly 3 weeks. We’ve got my step-daughters wedding to go to (I’m doing the photographs) and we want to spend time with Kathy’s mum and we want to go sightseeing. Kathy wants to go down to Pemmaquid and sit by the ocean for a bit.

[Embedded Canalplan Map for Pemmaquid]

We know that its not going to be easy going back. Because of the weather Kathy’s dad hasn’t actually been buried yet so there hasn’t been any real closure and we know that there are going to a lot of tears during the three weeks we are there.

Kathy wants to know if there is anywhere I’d like to go and there are a few places but it depends on which car we have and how we all feel. I’ll have to think it through and see how we all feel.