Rita and I were both in the bridal party for our best friends Meli and Chris. Pretty crazy event. Started at around 11am when Jono and I picked up the Subarus that had been kindly donated for the day by the local Subaru dealership that Chris and Meli’s families had bought a half a dozen cars from. Jono got to drive a Forester (non-turbo), and I got to drive a super loaded Tribeca. It was huge, and I towered over even other SUV’s. Coming from a sports car background, it was a little disconcerting to be lumbering over everyone. But it had a back up camera embedded in the rear tailgate, something that I’m now obsessed with and want in any new car that I buy. Considering you can get a kit at Costco for $70 bucks, it’s not that pricey.

We then headed over to Chris’ to get changed while the girls prepped at Meli’s house. We trucked over (in the Forester since it had a rubber mat in the trunk) a whole crispy pig for the tea ceremony. The girls weren’t ready (when are girls ever ready?!) so we had to drive around for 20 minutes to kill time. We were finally allowed to arrive, and we set about bringing the pig in and getting the mini-tea ceremony underway. Meli’s family had never been part of a tea ceremony so we just ripped through it. We cut them some of the pig, and then hurried back to Chris’ for the main tea ceremony.

Since I had the most luxurious of the two wedding cars, I drove the bride and groom along with Rita. We got to Chris’ and brought the pig back into their house for the tea ceremony. We were all starving as we hadn’t had breakfast so after we got through the tea ceremony (of Chris’ dozens of relatives), we chowed down on some Vietnamese subs that Chris’ mom had bought us. I also managed to eat about a quarter of the pig. At this time, Angela Hubbard, Chris and Meli’s fantastic wedding photographer joined the festivities. Oh, I forgot to mention that Rita and I were in charge of getting shots up to that point. Rita took our Nikon D40, while I used Chris’ Canon 20D. I wanted to use his prime lenses since that’s more my style, but Chris wanted me to use one of his nicer zoom lenses. Since we were in such close quarters, the zoom didn’t help me at all, but I must admit, the lens was a nice piece of glass. Rita and I have yet to post-process the pics yet, but we have to get it done this week because we have our San Francisco photographer friends coming up this weekend for another of our friend’s weddings and I’m sure we’ll have an even bigger workload. Last time they were up, there were twice as many cameras as people. Seriously. But mostly the fault of one dude who brought 6 cameras himself. On top of that, Rita and I have 2 other weddings in the same weekend. One is her cousin’s, and another I’m once again a groomsman. Le sigh.

Anyways, back on topic. After a 10 second lunch, we drove with Angela and her assistant to different locations for photos. The first place we hit was 7-11 since it was close, there were free slurpees on the wedding date since it was July 11th (7-11), and also since their wedding was 7-11 themed. 7-11 themed? Yes, I’ll get to that a little later on. After 7-11 we headed over to waterfront to get some nice photos under a bridge, and on the beach itself. People stared, but they all seemed to be enthused about the goings-ons. A couple groups of people clapped, and a lot of people commented on the groomsmen’s shoes, which were chosen by Chris himself. They were Air Force One lows, with a lime green Nike logo to match our green ties and vests. Super proper.

After that, we headed over to Tinseltown where the wedding planners had gotten the go ahead from the theatre to allow us to take pictures in an actual movie room. Fun times…and lots of popcorn throwing. I’m sure those pictures will turn out awesome. I even got up to do a monkey dance, as per my usual custom. What am I, a damn clown people?! We then convoyed over to the venue which was above the gelato place near Science World. We got some free ice cream (mmm…raspberry), and did the obligatory ice cream parlour group shot. It was then off to the actual ceremony upstairs.

I won’t bore you with details, but there was crying and sniffling. I’d be crying too if all my legal rights as an autonomous person were being neutered. Just kidding! We then started letting people in to have the awesome appetizers. Everything was gone in seconds. I never even got to see it. Apparently there will mini portabello mushroom burgers, sushi and there was a nacho fountain that broke because someone shoved a fork into it. Classy. Awesome wedding guests…simply awesome.

Rita and I were MC’s for the night, so we got to control when people got to eat. Hurray for power. There were speeches (of which I delivered a scathing one), dinner, dessert and dancing. Oh, back on that 7-11 theme I alluded to before. There were slurpee machines that the bartenders were mixing with Vodka. There was also a candy table with various gummy treats. All very yummy. Of course, being over the gelato place, there was also a gelato bar with a couple dozen flavours. It was a very nice wedding, and was super fun. We danced into the wee hours of the morning, tiring ourselves out. Eventually Rita and I chauffeured Meli and Chris to their baller suite at the Pan Pacific. I’ll post pictures of the suite later.

In the meantime, here is a link for Angela Hubbard’s photo teaser. Great shots! Rita and I will get our shots up hopefully in the next week or so.