Elope Your Heart Out

Friday night’s pre-wedding reception was a great success, when viewed in terms of just about everyone in attendance. All three sets of parents including mine, AJ’s dad & step-mom, and AJ’s mom & step-dad were very pleased with the beautiful atmosphere, bountiful gifts given to their offspring, and the general pleasant and celebratory atmosphere inside the Holiday Inn meeting room where the event was hosted. All the other guests seemed to be having a good time chatting and watching AJ and me squirm a bit in the spotlight of about-to-be-marriedness. The bride and groom to be had a wonderful time entertaining guests, first in a sober "thank you for the presents" kind of way, and later, in a tipsy "let’s do one more shot" kind of way.

It was a really great time. All the shades-of-green decorations turned out very well, and the calla lilies looked elegant and pretty just the way I wanted. Even though my dear Aunt Brenda accidentally dropped the top - and arguably, most important - tier of the cake, we managed to salvage it and camouflage the damage caused by the fall. There were a couple other snafus that night, but they were nothing we couldn’t handle. For instance, we forgot to bring anything with which to cut the cake. We ended up using a plastic knife. It might look a little funny in pictures, but I can live with it.

While playing "the newlywed game," I won by a landslide, but the odds were skewed a bit. AJ apparently doesn’t know my favorite food is steak even though that’s what I always want when we go out. In his defense, that was his easiest question. I got all the other easy ones. AJ’s favorite color? Black. His favorite drink? Bud Light. And so on. Someone in the audience also gave me one of the answers. So, I cheated a little in addition to having all the piece-of-cake questions.That was the only game we had time for. People were already starting to leave, and we hadn’t even opened the finger foods-n-cake buffet. The food, by the way, was really great. And what little I ate of the cake was good too.

I would post some pictures, but they aren’t developed just yet. Later this week, perhaps.

As previously noted, the "after party" with those willing to stick around in room 106 was a happy event as well. Mark the Cousin Bartender kept the keg a flowing as many sloshy, well-meaning pieces of advice were handed to AJ and me. Since nearly every single one of the men who stayed to play were AJ’s co-workers at the activated carbon plant, the conversation naturally steered to the fact that all these men see one another naked (in the plant showers) all the time. And, also naturally, this led to a "whose got the cutest butt" contest, as judged by those fellow male co-workers. Gary won. Gary is, yes, my uncle and - along with his wife (my aunt) - he is also the reason AJ and I met. The on-going joke that night was "what happens at the Locust Grove Holiday Inn stays at the Locust Grove Holiday Inn."

Also, we got a dining room floor full of new appliances, bath & kitchen linens, charcoal grill, weed-eater, cash, and other assorted registry items. We are set.

My man and I have top-notch friends and family, and I’m not just saying that because of the presents. It was nice to see them all in the same room, swirling around each other, sniffing one another out (not really). I think we’re all gonna get along just fine.