Medifast Status: Day 68, Down ~38.5lbs
This morning, first thing, all of the girls were off to the hair dresser to get their hair done for the wedding. So I was in charge of watching Luciana and Liesl while they were gone. So my morning was pretty busy. It was basically impossible for me to get ready at all since I was watching the kids.
The girls made it back from the hairdresser in record time. I was amazed how quickly that went. Very impressive. I thought that it was going to take several hours. I know how hair is.
It was a bit of a rush to actually get dressed and out the door. The wedding was early in the afternoon and with the kids and everything that meant that there was barely enough time to get there. I have no idea how people would do a wedding actually in the morning!
We got picked up by the limo which delivered us to the church and then took the girls over to Brittany’s parents’ house to pick up the bride and maid of honour from there and would be delivering them to the church when they were ready. We were really impressed with the limo and our limo driver. This was the best limo experience that we ever had. He really worked hard to take care of us all throughout the day.
Joe and Bennie disappeared into the front of the church while the groomsmen took up positions in the front and doubled as ushers until ushers were found and assigned once they discovered that there was no accommodation for the groomsman to be the ushers. There was a bit of confusion going on up there, but we pulled it all together.
It was a very traditional Catholic wedding service. My dad was one of the very first guests to arrive and the first one ushered in for the service. This was, believe it or not, actually his first ever Catholic wedding but not his first mass.
Liesl was the cutest little flower girl and Garrett did great as the little ring bearer. Both of them kept it together and performed admirably. Last night during the rehearsal Liesl had come down the aisle and had stopped halfway to take a bow for her adoring audience. Today she declined to do so and walked normally all of the way down the aisle. Garrett followed suit and everyone was impressed by what a good job they both did.
It was a little difficult coordinating the wedding with so many of us being in it. With Brittany’s sister, both of Joe’s siblings and their spouses, Madeline and Emily as junior bridesmaids and both toddlers all in the wedding we had nearly the entire family engaged in direct wedding activities. Only Clara and Luciana were too young to take part and extended family had to watch over them as there was no one in the immediate family available.
We had a brief period of in-church pictures, but that did not take long at all.
After the pictures in the church it was back into the limo and off to the Hotel Utica for the wedding pictures. I love the Hotel Utica. I wish that we got to stay there more often. It has been years since Dominica and I have been able to stay there. One of these days we plan to check out their restaurant as well. We like the look of their menu.
From the pictures the limo took the wedding party on to Ilion to Francesca’s banquet and catering fall where the reception is being held. I passed by Francesca’s some years ago while on a late night walk from Frankfort to Herkimer and always wondered what events there would be like. Now I get to find out. Francesca’s really stands out in Ilion. Not the type of facility that one expects to see in a town like Ilion.
We had a really good time at the reception. Joe and Brittany’s favourite band, Hair of the Dog, an Irish folk rock band from the Albany area played for a few hours and MC’d the evening as well. Liesl thought that that was great fun and spent the entirety of their performance standing front row, dead center on the dance floor dancing like only Liesl can dance. She did more to get people out on the dancefloor than anyone else in attendance. She is dedicated to her dancing. She was quite adorable in her frilly white puff of a flower girl dress. Everyone adored her.
We all had a good time at the reception and very much wore ourselves out. We partied until everyone was packing up and heading home.
Dominica and Francesca took the kids back to their grandparents’ house so that they could go to bed. I drove everyone over to Brittany’s parents’ house so that those of us looking for the late, late reception party could keep on going until the wee hours of the morning (the “wee” hours being defined as those hours after you have “broken the seal.”) Before heading over to the Gages’ house we stop off at the Toccos’ to change quickly. At this point we discovered that I had no sneakers to wear. Everyone, of course, blamed me for losing them but I was sure that I had not. I had used them this morning just before heading to the wedding and they could not have gone anywhere. I did nothing but dress for the wedding and go.
We didn’t hang out that late at the Gages’. Maybe two to three hours at most. Bennie regaled us with his stories of adventure and misadventure and he torched marshmallow upon the roaring fire pit filled with loose wood and pieces of hardwood flooring. Bennie demonstrated, over and over again, the “proper” way to roast a marshmallow, that is to thrust it deeply into the first, set it alight, put out the fire leaving the marshmallow covered in ash and devour it immediately leaving no time for the searing mallow-lava to cool. I declined to try this Texan delicacy myself but Joe did try it as did Brianna who failed to eat it nearly as quickly as Bennie prescribed although she was still unhappy with the burned tongue and cheeks that she received as it was.
After the late party was exhausted I drove the newly-wed Toccos to their hotel in Utica and dropped them off then drove Bennie back to the Toccos’. All were asleep by the time that we arrived.