1128

Well… you’d think this is the wedding blog, but it’s not. Nope. While Robert and Nichole are soaking in St. Thomas, the rest of us are left to process photos and wonder if he’ll forgive us for decorating his car.

I drove to Savannah to pick up a very travel-loopy Mike at the airport on Friday morning, then an hour back up 16 to Statesboro where I discovered that it was pretty hot outside. Somehow I had missed this in the prior five hours. We gave our tuxes a test drive and set out on a search for fake teeth. The rehearsal was that evening, and Mike wanted us to have fake teeth to break out.

After 1 1/2 hours we still had good teeth (My theory is that Statesboro doesn’t find fake buck teeth to be particularly funny) so we retired to our rooms to suit up for the rehearsal. Decked out, the Groomsmen (band name?) arrived at the church to meet the rest of the wedding party — Melissa (Robert’s sister), Brandon (Nichole’s brother), Courtney, and others. My strongest memories of rehearsing steps in churches come from Boy Scouts; as such it felt a bit odd to be perched at the front of the church without a Class A uniform on.

Then it was off to the customary Rehearsal Dinner at the local country club where we dined on a fine beef filet and mashed potatoes. There were also green beans. Dessert was an unspeakably tasty pudding sort of thing, which I didn’t finish due to growing nervousness over my anticipated toast.

Robert’s cousin Trip had prepared a hilarious and touching video collage of stills of Robert and Nichole’s childhoods, intercut with video of Robert, who is perhaps eight in the clips and wearing huge silver frames while babbling about his sand castle. Oh, that I had a clip to share with you here.

After the video the toasts began. I took the plunge after Robert’s father, followed the other Groomsmen and members of each of the families. Many wonderful sentiments were shared; I wish this portion of the evening had been video taped. (My own performance should be preserved, at least. Hah.) I particularly enjoyed Jon and Mike’s toasts, as well as Melissa’s, and then Robert’s grandmother’s closer — marvelously un-grandmotherly in its sharp humor. We retired to the Morris household for drinks and stories.

Saturday began the Out of Towner’s Luncheon. Mike, Jon, and I visited with Lin and Jennifer’s son Grayson (one of three — triplets). Fueled with miniature cheesecakes we set off to Walmart for supplies.

Supplies for what, you ask? Why, supplies for car decorating. Robert had been pretty firm on keeping details of the wedding logistics secret in the hopes of preventing any undue loss of sleep or car decoration, which really only served to enhance my desire to find his car. I’m not into sleep deprevation, but I do like a good challenge. It was readily agreed upon that no damage would be done, nor would suitcases be filled with sand, or car interiors turned into rice cookers. No, we would simply decorate the exterior of the car. With this in mind we bought streamers, pool noodles, toilet plungers, string, “Glass Chalk,” and 8 cans of Guinness. The Guinness was my special touch; I thought Robert would rather seen Guinness cans tied behind his car than, say, Natural Light. (We found fake teeth at Walmart, where we had been they day before, in a gumball machine, and bought about 8 sets while trying to get the assortment we wanted.)

Returning to the room with four cans of Guinness to empty, I telephoned Joel. He and Ashley had arrived early, and so they came down to my room to assist in emptying the cans. We (Joel and I) took care of three of them, deciding it best to serve the third to the sink. Feeling quite a bit looser than before, I donned my tux and went to Mike’s room for instruction on the button covers, which apparently he learned to operate in high school marching band. This was my first time in a tux. Yes, really.

Then it was off to the church for pre-wedding photographs. The wedding party posed for several with the groom before it was time to take a few with the bride. The time had come to bring out the fake teeth.

In my mind the plan was to smile goofily at Nichole, have her be surprised, laugh, and then take them out. Apparently we weren’t all in agreement with that, and it became pretty clear to me as she was coming down the aisle that she had enough going on in her head that fake teeth probably wouldn’t be helpful, much less noticed. So I took mine out, and Jon did the same right before the first picture was taken.

Mike didn’t, however, nor did Brandon (who was wearing foil on his upper teeth), and so the first several were taken with Mike sporting a twig extending from his gums, and Brandon with his Bling. I think Brandon’s mom caught him, though, and the jig was up. The photos done (or retaken), we escaped to the Fellowship Hall to kill some time and eat grapes, trail mix, and cheese sticks with Robert, who seemed incredibly cool. In an hour he would be married.

Mike and I jammed on the V-drums and electric piano for a while, and before long it was time to stand by our post at the entrance to the sanctuary and lead guests in. At 7:00pm the church clock bells sounded, Robert and his father appeared from the side, and we walked down the aisle to our places at the front. The music stopped, and when it resumed Nichole was at the entrance to the church, walking forward down the aisle. It was really a heavy moment from where I stood. The rest of the wedding was rather surreal, but when the organ came in on her first steps I really felt it. They’re getting married.

Before I knew it I was in a hall with Mike, Robert, Nichole, and Nichole’s mom. The limo had arrived and they were about to make a run for it. The entire wedding party fit inside - groomsmen, bridesmaids, parents, bride, and groom. A bottle of champagne was opened on the way to the reception, glasses shared as there weren’t quite enough to go around. It was nice to be able to be a part of the wedding in this way. I’m probably being overly dramatic, but there’s something cool about spending a few moments in a hallway with the bride and groom, or hustling through the country club entrance, out to the rear patio in preparation for their presentation to the waiting guests. It’s also slightly humbling to be introduced as Adam Preeble (Preble, like Treble!), but I got used to that in second grade.

The reception was, if I may say so, a blast. Robert and Nichole set the tone with their entrance, pausing for a brief second once the rave-up music was faded down. The dance floor was empty as they took their places, and then “Stuff Like That There” came on, a rollicking good, fun swing song. I watched with amazement and yanked out my camera for a few attempts at capturing their dance together. They really aced it, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of them dance like that together.

The music downshifted into tunes I don’t recall as the mingling resumed (and began, for us). I found a few miniature quiches and caught up with old friends. At some point the dance floor opened, the DJ playing some nice 80’s and swing songs in his mix, providing me a few opportunities to show off all five of my swing moves with the help of Ashley, Joel’s wife, who was really pretty darn good considering she claimed not to have danced for five years.

The bouquet was thrown, caught over Melissa by Courtney, and then came the garter toss. I lined up with the rest of the groomsmen and a number of other guys (there seemed to be a disproportionate number of single guys vs single girls). I’ve done this maybe three times before, and two of those times I think the garter fell to the floor. Terrible, huh? This time, though, I watched as Robert fired it back over his head, reached out, and caught it. I think I had some competition from a couple ten year-olds. They didn’t stand a chance.

High on the peak of my hand-eye coordination, I escaped from the floor and posed for a few goofy photographs with the garter. Mike told me later that, apparently, it’s customary for the guy that catches the garter to dance with the girl who catches the bouquet. Oops. (He also graciously blamed it on the DJ.) Courtney and I did dance later on, though, with me trying to teach her swing to not-quite-swing songs. And then all too soon the night was over. We lined up and blew bubbles as Robert and Nichole raced away to their secret location. Well, mostly secret.

With a pretty good idea of their overnight location, Mike, Jon, Joel, Ashley, Courtney, Brandon, and I descended on Statesboro Inn, a charming little B&B conveniently right across from the church. Mounting the pool noodles on the toilet plungers, we attached them to the trunk like giant antennae, adorned the windows with colorful references to movies and characters and nicknames (for the most part), attached balloons to the door handles and eight empty Guinness cans to the rear tow hook.

The next morning I met up with Mike, Chap, Danny, Cayman, Joel, and Ashley for breakfast. After telling the story of the car, we set out to see if it was still there, only to find a heap of pool noodles, streamers, Guinness cans, and 2 toilet plungers. Ten a.m., and already they were gone. We drove to the Morris household, half expecting to find them cleaning up the car in the back yard, but only found Robert’s mom. She hadn’t seen them, but they were already on their way to Atlanta.

Mike and I returned a little while later to pick up the wedding gifts for transport back to Atlanta, and were just about to leave when Robert called his parents’ phone. They put him on speakerphone, and rather than describe his remarks in detail I’ll just say that he wasn’t happy with us. Apparently he had cleaned everything off by hand before leaving. I decided it would be best to remain quiet; this was not the time to ask if Statesboro had any car washes.

Loaded with gifts, Mike and I toured Statesboro on the way to visit with Lin, Jennifer, their triplets, and Jon for a delicious lunch of hot dogs, deviled eggs, and a wonderful dessert of chocolate pie a la mode. We then drove to Savannah and played tourist, wandering a small Revolutionary War cemetery before finding River Street (and a Guinness for me, Harp for Mike) and then dropping by Mercer house, which seems to have become a museum now. Now I don’t feel quite so bad when taking photographs of it.

I dropped Mike off at Savannah/Hilton Head Int’l Airport and headed north to the big city. It really was a wonderful weekend. Wonderful to see Robert and Nichole get married, wonderful to spend time with friends in a strange — and incredibly hot — city. I don’t know when there’ll be another like it.

You can see all of my photographs from the weekend here.

Posted: Friday, July 22nd, 2005 at 1:03 am; Category: 1128, Photograph; Comments feed: RSS 2.0.
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