Weekend Update

I am sitting here in Detroit Metro Airport with a lot of time to kill. I volunteered my seat on the 5:15PM flight to Hartford for a free round trip ticket to anywhere in the US (except AK and HI). I won’t get back to my apartment until around midnight now, but I used to take the late flight back to CT a couple years ago, so I can handle a late night for a free plane ticket. Unfortunately, after weather and mechanical delays, my arrival time was pushed back three hours. It’s 2AM, and my free plane ticket has ruined my sleep habits for the next few days.

I figured that I’d get a head start on my recap of LeftHand’s wedding this weekend. LeftHand is a friend of mine from the MMB trumpet section. Back when I was in college, he was one of my drinking buddies and good for tons of laughs since he is probably one of the biggest space cadets I have ever met. He is not the greatest person at keeping in touch, and I have not been much better with many people from high school and college over the past couple years. As a result, we had not spoken to each other much recently. Regardless, I was not going to miss his wedding after receiving an invitation.

There were quite a few other band alums at the wedding that I had not heard from recently. With the exception of CableGirl, I was basically out of touch with everyone who attended, including my senior year roommate and one of my favorite MMB trumpet friends, PinballWizard.

To my surprise, the wedding ceremony was outside. Yes. Outside. Note to self. If/when I get married, I will not have an outdoor wedding in a northern state in the month of November. Seriously. Outside??? There was a pavilion set up at the last minute so that we were covered, but it was still freezing (I consider 40 degrees freezing for a wedding). I could see my own breath. Ok. I will stop complaining. It’s a minor inconvenience in an otherwise fun night.

Everyone was wearing black coats. At one point, CableGirl turned to me and mentioned that it seemed more like a funeral than a wedding given how everyone was wearing black and shivering quietly. Thankfully, the wedding service was shortened to a brief 20 minutes or so since the bride was especially cold in her strapless dress.

I had only met the bride once before the wedding. Even though she was also in the band, I graduated and moved to CT before she joined. Jason introduced her to me at the reception. The bride then turned to LeftHand and whispered “as in Gary the Jew?”. There were two people named Gary at the reception, and I was referred to as “Gary the Jew” instead of just Gary (or Gary#1) when they were planning who would sit at each table for the reception. Ah yes. I miss the trumpets…

There were very few people staying at the hotel reserved for wedding guests that were not in the wedding party. As a result, I was stuck driving CableGirl from the hotel to the wedding since she wanted to drink. I limited myself to a glass of wine and a glass of champagne for the toast during the first few hours. Shortly before the dancing started, one of the groomsmen came up to me with a message directly from LeftHand letting me know that there is extra room in the wedding party shuttle back to the hotel and that it was requested that I get an alcoholic drink in my hand as soon as possible. Game. Set. Match. I had a glass of red wine in my hand in about 20 seconds and finished several more before the end of the night.

Most weddings I have attended recently are more geared toward the older crowd. By older, I mean people older than 35. Given that, I was shocked when the first song played after the end of the obligatory dances (bride-groom, bride-father, etc) was a song by Usher. Two songs by Outkast followed that. All of a sudden, the dance floor was packed with people who were under 35. I haven’t been to a wedding like this in a long time. Now that I had some alcohol in my system, I was ready to join the fun.

Since PinballWizard was there, we needed to get the DJ to play some 80s hair band music. Once the DJ started playing AC/DC, we rushed over to PinballWizard with a camera and got some great shots of him playing the air guitar. He topped that performance during the song “Foot Loose”. Truly impressive. I missed PinballWizard over the past couple years. He was always good for some laughs and a great friend for football and hockey games. We traded contact information last night and will hopefully stay in better touch going forward.

Sadly, I am not in great party shape anymore. We went back to the hotel around 1AM and started a post party where we were going to kill the wedding kegs with the bride and groom. There was an “open bar” at the wedding, which consisted of alcohol purchased in advance by the bride and groom and served by the reception hall wait staff. Hence, there was some leftover beer that needed to be finished. I showed up at the party a little before 2, but I was ready to crash by 2:15AM. I felt bad because I left before LeftHand showed up at the post party, so he was freaking out that I didn’t have a good time. Thankfully, CableGirl was still at the party and pointed out that I had a blast, as evidenced by a rare appearance on the dance floor.

I didn’t take any pictures with my camera since several others at my table had digital cameras. Once I receive some of the good pictures, I will post them here.

Several of us discussed ideas for a late winter ski-trip out west. CableGirl has been pushing this idea for a few months, but it’s starting to sound like this trip might actually happen. Hopefully we can make the details work and meet up again early next year. Otherwise, I probably won’t see most of these people until Bright’s wedding in July out in San Francisco.