As I've mentioned in a couple of my more recent blog posts, I'm currently on a plant assignment in Minnesota. I'm working long hours (sometimes 12-14 per day), and usually 6 days a week. My wife and kids are back home in North Carolina, and I miss them terribly. Not a lot to be excited about there.
So when I'm done with a workday, I'm ready to kick back and relax sleep, or at least attempt to do so if I'm not too wired up from work. A couple of weeks ago, all I wanted to do was get back to my room, say hi to my wife and kids on the webcam, grab a bite and hit the sack. Someone out there had other plans for me that day, however.
I noticed an awful lot of people dressed up and entering the hotel as I parked my car. There were even a couple of limousines parked by the front door. "Great," I thought to myself. "Someone just got married and they're going to have a reception in the banquet room. Too bad I didn't bring a suit with me, or I could have crashed the party…"
The lobby was packed with people. Where the lobby normally looked like this:
it was instead wall-to-wall wedding guests, all dolled up and standing around chatting. I figured they were waiting for the banquet room to open and were just schmoozing, so I started excusing myself and made my way through the crowd of people to go up the central stairs and get to my room at the top of the stairs. I was about 3/4 of the way through the crowd when I realized they were NOT waiting for the banquet room to open. No, they were waiting for the wedding. Which was taking place in T-minus 30 seconds, just outside my hotel room door.
Literally just outside my hotel room door.
Yes, I was about to make my way up the stairs when the string quartet on the 2nd floor started playing, and the groomsmen and bridesmaids started walking past my door and taking their places on the steps. As people started craning around me to get snapshots of the wedding party, I sheepishly excused myself and went back the way I came to the front door. I stood around long enough to see the bride and groom get set up on the stairs for the above photo, and then went to the bar to patiently wait for the ceremony to be over. Hell, it was either that, or give the bride and groom a wedding memory they wouldn't soon forget as I shouldered my way past them and schlepped my way into my room right behind the entire wedding party!
Luckily, it didn't take them too long to finish the ceremony, and I was able to get into my room after about a 20 minute delay. I even managed to talk to my wife and kids before crashing from the long work-week.
Not to be out-done, the wedding party that visited this past Saturday was just as surreal, but more considerate. They had the wedding outside the hotel. Outside my window, to be exact.
Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of this one, so I'll just have to paint you a mental picture:
- About 150 folding chairs set up on the grass set parallel to the hotel, pretty much all filled with guests with overflow standing behind them
- A horn quartet was playing music before the ceremony. It was all classical stuff, none of which I recognized except for the piece that my daughter sings along to when they play it on Little Einsteins.
- There were 7 bridesmaids and 6 groomsmen. The 7th (or first, depending on how you looked at it) bridesmaid walked down the aisle with a Basset hound. Not sure if it was the bride's or the groom's, but I'm assuming it had more significance than just being the singleton bridesmaid's date for the evening.
- The bride walked down the aisle to someone (sounded like maybe a friend?) singing while she was accompanied by another gal on a keyboard.
- The officiant was using a microphone but with my window closed, I couldn't make out much of what she said – most of the time it sounded like the teacher from the Charlie Brown specials:
– There were golf-carts involved, but I'm not sure if they were used during the ceremony, or just to help drive back some of the folks who couldn't walk well. Either way, it's probably a good thing they didn't hold the wedding in a church – not many have pews spaced widely enough apart to allow clearance for golf carts.
- The receiving line stretched back across the grass towards my window. Apparently the outdoor entrance to the banquet hall is directly under my window, so they all went back inside there and had a rollicking good time. I didn't go down to join them but every once in a while when someone came outside to smoke I caught the strains of old familiar DJ classics like "Celebration", "Electric Boogie" (AKA The Electric Slide), or "We are Family".
I asked the bartender and she said they're booked for weddings/wedding celebrations through the end of October. Looks like I may have a few other interesting wedding stories to witness/relate in the upcoming months!
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