Well it finally happened. The picture above says it all. The happiness, joy and relief....of getting out of ones wedding clothes and back into t-shirts and football gear. That above picture is me in the middle with my lovely sister in law, the beaming bride Connie and her new husband Bryant. He likes the Raiders, so we all try hard not to hold that against him. Funny how the first thing they change into after the wedding is a Raiders jersey and a Broncos shirt. Sundays will be fun for the newlyweds obviously.
Well the big day went off about as well as could be expected. Leading up to it, things were not exactly filled with optimism. I did my best to pretty much just try to stay out of the way as I watched these wildly stressed out family members of mine run around like chickens with their heads cut off. It wasn't always easy.
I had been letting my head hair, and face and neck hair grow most of the week. That's because I had this strange notion that I wanted to go to a barber shop and get a professional shave for the rehearsal dinner and wedding day. You know the deal....a straight edge razor, in the hands of a professional meant one of the closest possible shaves you could possibly get. I'd be looking sharp!
Well, my wife drops me off at Floyds barbershop and drives away. I walk in, thinking of course, "It's a barber shop. You just walk in, some barber comes over and gets you and takes you back to his barber chair". That's always been my experience at least.
I walk into Floyds, and it was not exactly what I expected. Blaring hip-hop style music, cute women that worked there--receptionists and stylists, and for all I know maybe even a disco ball. I tell the receptionist that I wanted a head and face shave, and she tells me it will be an hour and a half....the only barber they have that does those isn't in til three. Then I ask how much. She tells me it's twenty five dollars for the shave and another five if I want them to even out my goatee. "Exqueeeze me...come again?" Did you say thirty bucks? Does it come with something extra from your beautiful stylists or something???" I felt like asking. Good lord! The last time I had a shave in a barber shop it was like ten bucks tops.
Needless to say I hightailed it out of there, called my wife, who told me to call my father in law. Kip comes right over, picks me up and we go back to their place. I do a goodle search and come up with another place. Foxtrails barber shop I think, and it's only a mile further than Floyds, so we head back out.
I walk in this place and...MUCH better! I was looking for a place with an old fashioned barber pole outside spinning around. Inside, you have 3 or 4 short Italian guys named Angelo, Giovanni, Domenic and Carmen. They look and sound like they were extra's in the movie "Good Fella's". THAT'S my kind of barbershop.
This wasn't exactly that but it was close enough, and a thousand miles from Floyds. I ask for the guy they told me on the phone to ask for, Scott, and he comes over and gets me. As I am sitting in his chair, he tells me I am the first shave he has done in five years. He tells me no one asks for shaves anymore. I had no idea.
Apparently, when the AIDS scare first hit in the late 80's or early 90's, men stopped coming in to get shaves. Now it has gotten so rare that I was the first one in this barber shop in five years, and there have only been a handful of other ones in the last 20. That made me sad. It's like an endangered species, the professional shave. It is going away, they barely teach it in barber schools, and it will probably never come back.
Because Scott doesn't do shaves very often, he was obviously nervous about it. First of all, he tells me that he isn't allowed to shave my face, according to Colorado law or something. His shop doesn't have the proper license. So he goes over my face and neck with the clippers the best he can and apologetically says, "this is the best I can do". The rest of my head is treated so gently and shakily that the shave was not even close to what I was hoping for.
They charged me $15.25. I gave him a $20 and told him to keep the change, not even knowing why I was doing this. What I really should have done was walk into the shop, hand the guy a $20, and walk back out to the car. It would have saved time. Oh well, a lesson was learned, and back to the folks place I went for a shower and a shave with a hand razor to get as close as I was hoping I would get at the barber.
While I am in the shower, 3 and a half hours before people will start arriving at their house for the rehearsal dinner, I hear my father in law loudly bounding up the stairs, flinging open the bathroom door and yelling in "SHUT OFF THE WATER SEWERS BACKED UP!!!". It was yelled loudly and all in one sentence, so I immediately knew this was baaaad. I shut down the faucet faster than the guy at Sea World when he's being attacked by a killer whale. I then had to use the water pooled around my ankles to rinse off my face and head.
Downstairs Kip is having a time with the folks from Roto Rooter. They are telling him no one can come out right now. My new father in law, with a face redder than a tomato and steam coming from his ears, snarls into the phone, "well you better find someone there who can do this job right this friggin second because I have 20 people coming to my house in 3 hours for a wedding rehearsal dinner that will need someplace to poop dammit! Put your manager on the phone!"
Remind me never to get on his bad side. He was not to be denied, especially since the same Roto Rooter people had been out to the same house for the same exact reason no more than 3 days before this.
The Roto Rooter guy from that time came out of a training class to come back and save the day, the bathrooms were open for service again, and all was well....at least for now.
Everyone who was supposed to show up showed up and we had a lovely rehearsal and dinner. I met my two other groomsmen, who were very cool I have to say. Chris is a 42 year old car salesman, who works with the groom, Bryant, in the same position in the same dealership. He and I are both rockin the shaved head look, so we are brothers in baldness, which automatically gets on my good side. His other groomsman is Brian, who likes to be called Tucker. He used to be a childhood friend of Bryant, who also moved to the Denver area, and they reconnected after Bryant moved here. Tucker brought his lovely wife Deidra as well, and she was a joy.
We did the rehearsal, which let's face it, is pretty much a waste of time at any wedding right? I mean, how hard is it to walk, or remember where you were in line or something. Has there ever been a groomsman who started walking down the aisle and then turned into an aisle and sat next to the bride's grandmothers aunt in the pews? No, we walk up and stand next to the groom. Same for the bridesmaids. Then we walk out together. Easy. I explained that I was legally blind though just to be safe, but it was a piece of cake.
Right after the dinner, everyone left and my wife, my mother in law and the bride sat down to finish working on the corsages for the bridesmaids and the boutonnieres for the groomsmen. However, when they were pulled out of the folks fridge in the garage, the flowers were FROZEN! Apparently the fridge gets a little too cold in places and the flowers were falling apart and petals dropping off all over.
Expecting a bride-zilla moment, my wife quickly stepped into action. She said, "no problem sister, lets just go right over to the supermarket and pick up some more." She didn't even give Connie time to freak out, and off they went. They were back in a half hour with forty dollars worth of more roses and such and back to the job they went.
Finally, at about two in the morning, we all crashed. I laid down on my rapidly deflating air mattress again, got about three and a half to four hours sleep, and we all got back up. My wife, who is a professional hair stylist (at Beauty Plus salmon in Greece Ridge mall Fridays and Saturdays--free plug--please go see her ladies!) did the bridal parties hair, while a professional makeup artist from the area who I think is a friend of Connie did everyones makeup.
I got into my monkey suit and off we went for this place called "Hudson gardens", which is quite a bit nicer than Hudson avenue in the Roc. It was an outdoor wedding in front of a beautiful vista which included a pond. The reception was in a very nice hall nearby.
The wedding was supposed to start at 11:30 in the morning, and miraculously got underway only about 15 minutes late, which was stunning considering how late everything seemed to be running all morning.
Everyone looked fantastic. My wife and I honestly looked three times better at this wedding than we did at our own just over two years ago. The ceremony was beautiful. Everything went off without a hitch. The ONLY slight issue was with about five minutes left in the ceremony, one of the bridesmaids had some intestinal distress, took a couple of steps back and farted loudly. This made my wife and the other bridesmaids laugh and everyone did their best to keep in full belly laughs. Luckily, I think they were the only ones to hear it, and everything else went flawlessly. We walked back down the aisle, and the newlyweds were transported to the reception in a rickshaw, a very nice touch.
For all the nerves, stress and knashing of teeth, it was such a beautiful day for everyone and couldn't have come off more perfectly. I praise my sister in law for her beautiful vision of her perfect day and it's execution. I praise my mother and father in law and wife and family friends for all their help. I praise myself for nothing, other than showing up and staying out of everyone way.
The reception was as perfect as the ceremony. I sat with my groomsmen, my lovely wife and Tuckers wife. There was supposed to be a seating chart, but on the morning of the wedding, Connie decided not to have one. Good choice. Everyone sat where they wanted, no one was left out and everyone had fun.
Instead of clinking of glasses, people had to get up and sing a verse to a love song in a microphone. I thought this would never work, but it did. I was surprised that well over a dozen people and kids got up and sang, including my warbly rendition of "Once, twice, three times a lady" by the Commordores. The first dance was to a song NO ONE had ever heard of, but listening to the lyrics, couldn't have been more perfect. I even got to dance once with the bride myself.
the bride with her cute as a button flower girl Lilly
Sunday night after the wedding was spent zoning out in front of the TV set while football was on. Not sure how many of us actually watched it. I think there was more sleeping than watching. I had been going on about 14 hours of sleep over the previous three nights combined, and most of the others could say the same, maybe even less.
I was happy to see that the Bills had a nice bounce back win over the Chiefs. They needed that and surprising that they are tied for first in the AFC East after New Englands surprising loss at home to Arizona, who I picked to go 3-13 I think.
That night, we had a nice treat as my mother in law went over to Conie's to spend the night there with her two dogs. That meant my wife and I could sleep in moms king size bed! Sleep was GLORIOUS!
So, one wedding down, one to go this coming saturday. Should be a little different than sisters. It's a wiccan wedding, as my wife's best friend Jessica gets married by her coven of witches.
More on that coming up in my next blog, as well as more farting stories, record cotten candy eating exhibits, dead animals being brought into my sister in laws house and much much more. Stay tuned!
