h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I always do that too, MR!

Another more cloudy than sunny day in the offing. Some heeeuuuuge black clouds came over yesterday evening and I was really hopeful of some rain, but they passed over without shedding a drop. So had to get the hose out again.

We watched The Towers dvd and are all looking forward to December 17th(?) when The Return of the King is released.

Tonight we are going to see s otC.

[p] Wondering what to do with the day...

[BB]

Morning all, well afternoon nearly

[Hyp]

[MTG]

[]

Working on the pictures for next week's talk. Everyone here is being very supportive, and a latter-day ferrotypist even took some pictures of his camera and sent them to me.

The quilt top is done. Now all I have to do is put the batting and back on, and then bind it all. But no sewing today; my back didn't like bending over the sewing machine!

MR, the work sounds hard but satisfying. Just think how we owe our emancipation to thr Inudstrial Revolution! If not for those early machines, you and I would be spending every minute of our spare time spinning thread and making cloth...

My chop is at http://www.asterlil.com/chop.htm .

Just in from seeing s otC. Good film, something of a contrast to last week's viewing of T3.

So that's what a chop is, as opposed to a pork or lamb chop!

Hi, everyone !

[mt]

[Hyp]

[LIL]

Approaching obsession level regarding Billy, for the next week

OK, now that the worst of the hangover is gone, I can describe the prior day's events with something approaching clarity.

The day began with me driving to a store to purchase dress socks. Somehow, somewhere I have lost all of my good socks. While at the store, I run into a friend from church who was getting gift wrap for the present that they were bringing to the wedding.

I then procede to the church, where I meet up with the Groom's father. We caht a bit and then start setting up the sanctuary for teh arrival of teh guests. I have to wait for the rest of the groomsmen to arrive with my tux before I can change. Once they show up, I change and then we wait for the groom. The room that we were assigned for the wait is the preschool play-room, which I found oddly appropriate. As we grow somewhat impatient and nervous (the groom and all of my fellow groomsmen) we wander around teh portion of the church which is under construction. When the time for the ceremony grows near, we all make a toast to our friend, using the flasks that the couple bought us and presented to us the night before.

We follow the minister out into the sanctuary and stand by our man. The music begins, and we wittness the brides-maids process down teh aisle. Once the maid of honour enters the room, the doors close and they play the wedding march song. The doors open to the bride and her father. They step down the aisle and make their way to the alter. The minister asks who presents this woman to this man, and the father replies "Her mother and I". All the while, the ladies standing beside the bride are supressing tears while us boys are stilfing laughter.

The ceremony is brief, and filled with scripture and advise. The minister performed a great service (thankfully not too long of one) and the couple are wed.

The wedding party then proceeds back down teh aisle, but this time I had a lovely young lady on my arm. We then make ourselves scarce, as there was no official recieving line.

Many pictures are taken in the sanctuary, hopefully never to see the light of day (the photographer had a twisted sense of humour). We then leave the church and go to the reception centre where the party would be held.

We have a dinner and then toasts, both of the fathers were near to tears it seemed. After the toasts, the bar was opened. After the traditional dance of the newlywed couple, and after the father shared a dance with teh bride, we all started dancing (by all I mean mostly the weddign party). I escorted my mother out on the floor as well as my sister and I danced with all of the bridesmaids. Dancing and drinking were the order of the evening. There is now a video somewhere of the groomsmen dancing together in a line singing Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marraige". We also made a few dedications to the groom, the most notable being "Another one bites the dust".

The evening wore on and the drink flowed freely, and I came to know a couple of the bridesmaids fairly well. It was a great experiance, and regardless of my personal feelings about the institution of marrige of late, I was quite honoured to be a part of that.

Somehow I was spared a momumental hangover from the nights quaffing of alcohol, for which I am thankfull. I think that God allowed me to be well this morning for wearing that bloody tux all night long...

OK, now that the worst of the hangover is gone, I can describe the prior day's events with something approaching clarity.

The day began with me driving to a store to purchase dress socks. Somehow, somewhere I have lost all of my good socks. While at the store, I run into a friend from church who was getting gift wrap for the present that they were bringing to the wedding.

I then procede to the church, where I meet up with the Groom's father. We caht a bit and then start setting up the sanctuary for teh arrival of teh guests. I have to wait for the rest of the groomsmen to arrive with my tux before I can change. Once they show up, I change and then we wait for the groom. The room that we were assigned for the wait is the preschool play-room, which I found oddly appropriate. As we grow somewhat impatient and nervous (the groom and all of my fellow groomsmen) we wander around teh portion of the church which is under construction. When the time for the ceremony grows near, we all make a toast to our friend, using the flasks that the couple bought us and presented to us the night before.

We follow the minister out into the sanctuary and stand by our man. The music begins, and we wittness the brides-maids process down teh aisle. Once the maid of honour enters the room, the doors close and they play the wedding march song. The doors open to the bride and her father. They step down the aisle and make their way to the alter. The minister asks who presents this woman to this man, and the father replies "Her mother and I". All the while, the ladies standing beside the bride are supressing tears while us boys are stilfing laughter.

The ceremony is brief, and filled with scripture and advise. The minister performed a great service (thankfully not too long of one) and the couple are wed.

The wedding party then proceeds back down teh aisle, but this time I had a lovely young lady on my arm. We then make ourselves scarce, as there was no official recieving line.

Many pictures are taken in the sanctuary, hopefully never to see the light of day (the photographer had a twisted sense of humour). We then leave the church and go to the reception centre where the party would be held.

We have a dinner and then toasts, both of the fathers were near to tears it seemed. After the toasts, the bar was opened. After the traditional dance of the newlywed couple, and after the father shared a dance with teh bride, we all started dancing (by all I mean mostly the weddign party). I escorted my mother out on the floor as well as my sister and I danced with all of the bridesmaids. Dancing and drinking were the order of the evening. There is now a video somewhere of the groomsmen dancing together in a line singing Frank Sinatra's "Love and Marraige". We also made a few dedications to the groom, the most notable being "Another one bites the dust".

The evening wore on and the drink flowed freely, and I came to know a couple of the bridesmaids fairly well. It was a great experiance, and regardless of my personal feelings about the institution of marrige of late, I was quite honoured to be a part of that.

Somehow I was spared a momumental hangover from the nights quaffing of alcohol, for which I am thankfull. I think that God allowed me to be well this morning for wearing that bloody tux all night long...

Sorry about the double post. I had palsey or something when i doubleclicked that button...

Everything Marv has said was true. I'm just gonna add some filler to what Marv has described.

Pete, the groom, is good friend of ours and has been for a very long time. I was quite honored to have been asked to be a groomsman. Anyway, on with the story.

Aaron (bestman), Pete, and I show up at the church at about 3:10 looking all spiffy in our tuxes. We go back into the nursery, which is normally the chapel, and hand Marv his tux. We help him get into it (all the times Marv has told me he has been in a tux and he still needs help!). This gives us about 35 minutes till the service is supposed to start.

Now, like Marv said, the church is undergoing renovations. The four of us have always been the curious types so, in tuxes, we start exploring the places under construction. We are fortunate that nothing happened and that we all came out with no dust on ourselves.

The youngest of the Groomsmen, John, is also the brides brother, he has the honor of escorting his mother into the sanctuary. When he gets back to the chapel/nursery, that is our queue to proceed, behind the pastor, into the sanctuary.
The music starts and out we go. The right hand side is for the brides family and on the left is everyone that Marv and I recognize as we went to church with them for all our lives. The sanctuary was about 1/3 full.

The music changes slightly and the bridesmaids come down the isle in this order: Kristie (Pete's cousin), Kandy (Sandy's cousin), Noel (Sandy's friend) and then Stephanie, the maid of honor. The doors close just behind Steph.

The music changes once more to the Wedding March and down the isle comes Sandy looking absolutely gorgeous in her dress on her dad's arm.
We all turn slightly when the bride reaches the pastor.

The pastor reaffirms Pete and Sandy's decision to marry and then asks who presents Sandy, to which her father, Dave, makes the reply. Dave then kisses Sandy and places her hand in Pete's.

Marv described the ceremony pretty accurately with at least one noticable exception: The maids were teared up, the groom was choked up. It was all I could do to not tear up myself.



When the ceremony is complete we have the great honor of escorting the lovely brides maids down the isle: Marv has Kandy and I've got Noel (who I am still completely taken with). After this, we have pics taken. Some of these involve: a toast to the groom with flasks (no one drank anything, it was in a church afterall) and the groomsmen showing some leg (to compete with the bridesmaids who did the same).

After the pics are done, we proceed to the reception center. We have a pasta dinner, the Bestman make his thankfully short speech, and the groom makes a short speech that ends with "to hell with it, the bar is now open". The fathers then make their speeches, Dave was very choked up.

The bride and groom have their first dance followed by the bride and her father and the groom and his mother. The dance floor is then opened up to all.

There were three songs that were dedicated to Pete: "Another on bites the dust", "the Bunnyhop", and "I'm too sexy" which Pete was made to dance to, by himself (this is what happens when you don't mash the cake all over your bride's face).

Most of the dances involved the entire wedding party which is fine, it gave us all a chance to get to know eachother better. We were all involved in the Bunny Hop, Marv missed the Chicken Dance.

The groomsmen did our song and dance to Sinatra's "Love and Marriage" we might have even gotten some applause, I really don't recall.

The last dance was to Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World". I danced with Noel and Marv danced with Kristie.

This ended the wedding festivities, I have not had that much fun in a lot of years and I still am wishing that it had not ended.

This is something that I will remember and cherish for the rest of my life. Good food, good drink, a very special and important occasiom but, most importantly: a GREAT time with old friends and new friends.

Glad you could make it here Ben. For the rest of you, Zonker is my best friend Ben. As there is another Ben here, I will heretofor refer to him as Zonker.

Yup, I forgot to mention a couple of things about the blessed affair, but all in all it was covered by our posts.

One thing that we both failed to recognize is that I had to be drug (it took at least four, if not more) out on to the floor when the time to fling the garter into the crowd of victi... errm... I mean Bachelors. I successfully avoided contact with teh accursed thing.

An excellent time was had by the all of us. The groom and bride were both aglow in the knowledge that they had just made one of the biggest steps in their lives. The bridesmaids were lovely and we "Motley crew", to quote the pastor, all cleaned up fairly nice.

Zonker's brother is the next on teh block , as he marries his girlfriend next month. Thankfully, it is a smaller affair and I don't have to wear the moneky suit, though I would if asked, as Aaron is a very good friiend as well.

All in all, I have to say that Pete and Sandy did me a great honour by allowing me the chance to stand by my friend in his hour of need. I do know that if I take leaves of my senses and get hitched myself, I will be having Pete and Ben and Aaron at my side.

Oh, for the record, I have never worn a tux before this event. Suits are one thing, and bad enough at that, but tuxedos suck to wear.

I enjoyed reading the wedding reports and have posted on your page, Marv.

Welcome to Zonker.

I think we shall be spending some time trimming the hedges today, then a walk later perhaps.