So picking up where I left off yesterday before the ceremony. Once everyone was dressed Dan and I killed time waiting for our cue to get going by watching an ancient episode of The Simpsons. I was pretty relaxed during the whole thing. That’s one thing I don’t understand about weddings. Why do people get all nervous when it comes to the big day? Personally I thought it took a lot more gumption to work up a plan and execute it with regards to proposing then actually getting married. As far as I was concerned I had already made my decision ages ago, so what’s to be nervous about?
The minister showed up a bit late(more on that below), then we got things on the road. We got everyone in their places, then walked up top of “Mount Clyde” to the arbor Corina’s Dad had built. This arbor was a marvel onto itself. Her Dad is a mechanic and general handyman, so he took the task of bending and welding steel piping into two 10 foot tall arches, then creating his own design inspired by a sun rise at the back of the structure. It looked awesome.
The ceremony went well, though the heat up top of that hill was blistering. I had been preaching for months about how the weather for the wedding was going to be unseasonably awesome, and that’s pretty much what we got. The power of positive thinking. I had my back to the sun during the whole thing and oddly the only thing that was really hot was the back of my calves. I wasn’t aware of this until people mentioned it afterwards, but apparently I was moving and bouncing quite a bit up there, which really doesn’t surprise me since I’m a near compulsive fidgiter and can barely stay in one place for awhile.
So with the I Dos finished we loaded up the wedding party and immediate family for some pictures at a nearby estate. Now when I was originally told of the mode of transportation to get there I wasn’t really amused by the whole idea, but when it came to the day it definitely proved fun. We rolled out on Corina’s Dad’s pride and joy, his John Deere tractor with a 15 person trailer attached in the back. From what I heard many guests at the wedding nearly had their eyes bug out of their heads when we rolled into sight. It definitely made for an amusing trip. When doing leaving the property we noticed that many of the neighbours had set up lawn chairs in their yards to watch from afar. It was probably been one of the larger spectacles Clyde has seen outside of their annual Canada Day fireworks.
Once we got back we had a receiving line to welcome our guests into the tent and to sit down for dinner. The reception was an absolute blast. We had a candy table setup in the tent, loaded with Sour Keys, Big Feet, Twizzlers, Tootsie Pops, Reese’s Pieces, Rockets, Sour Patch Kids, Blue Raspberries and chocolates. It was pretty badass. We also had our nice cake on display. We ordered 2 cakes, as one of Corina’s big things about the wedding was that she wanted a fun cake, so we had one professionally made for us, using the style I had used on the wedding invites. These things can cost a mint when you have one with enough cake to feed the amount of guests we had, so we opted to get that one for show and consumption later at our gift opening the next day. We then had a fantastic marble slab cake done up for us in our wedding colours. 
Each table in the tent was named after a street Corina or I had lived on, and on the back of the tent card there was a small photo scavenger hunt. We provided disposable cameras on each table and basically told people to go nuts. From what I’ve heard we can expect lots of man nipple and cleavage shots, and that’s just the stuff I’ve heard about. Who knows what else might be on those cameras?
The catered food we got was fantastic. We had roast beef, BBQ chicken, roasted red potatoes, 6 salads, 2 veggies and full compliment of desserts and everything was fantastic. I’ve heard nothing but raves about them and they definitely lived up to the reputation we had heard about. Once dinner was finished we had speeches which were really fun. I think my best man Dan had possibly the best speech, as he managed to needle me pretty good throughout it without being too over the top with it. It’s a fine line and he did a great job of it. After the speeches there was lots of dancing. I did my share of dancing, but I think the most enjoyment I derived from that evening was drinking out of huge half yard glasses and smoking some cubans. My parents had bought me cigars on a trip to Cuba back in February and I had held onto them until the wedding. At one point there had to have been 20 people smoking stogies. It was such a beautiful night too. I don’t consider myself a smoker, but I do quite enjoy a cigar every so often. Makes me feel like a fat cat tycoon. Now all I require is a monacle.
This was a day that to most outside observers went off without a hitch, but for those of us who knew how things should have went down in was pretty near a debacle. Before the wedding had even started we were having lots of issues with power, as the caterer, dj, bar and tent all required power. So during the setup of things there were breakers popping and lots of technical issues with regards to that. The keg of beer and the keg fridge we had weren’t working, so there was lots of scrambling to sort that out. In the end it turned out the fridge was too cold and the line had frozen. The music cues we had sorted out for the wedding went mostly unheeded when it came to the big moments in the wedding, which was what really had me agitated on the day of. The minister was late because the wedding before ours was also running late, so that just added to things. Once we got back from taking pictures we discovered that pretty much everyone had already been into the tent, raiding the candy table and generally having a good time. The original plan was to have the tent entirely closed to everyone and the bar accessible from the outside of the tent because this is what the caterers requested. The wine bottles that were supposed to make it to the table didn’t and others that shouldn’t have been out were. The 3 hours of music comprised entirely of cover songs I laboured over for about 6 months went largely unplayed through out the time after the ceremony and through dinner. But it all worked out in the end and nobody was really the wiser.
The one thing I sorta regret about the wedding is all the lessons learned from the whole experience. Since(theoretically) you only get married once, you really don’t get a chance to employ any of the knowledge you gained from the whole process. So to anyone who is getting married, I’ll leave you with these beads of wisdom. Communicate with people. Our wedding was very hands on, to the point that it might have been too hands on. Come the day of the wedding it’s pretty much entirely in the hands of other to execute, so make sure you’ve got a clear plan of action for what people should be doing. I’m not the greatest communicator when it comes to picking up a phone, as I would much rather email someone details then relay them over the phone. This was probably the biggest failing in the whole wedding process. And if you can get things done early, do it. Everything will be a panic rush if you leave things to the last month to do. My last bit of advice is a little less doom and gloom then the previous. During the whole process of wedding planning, do your best to put your personal touches on things. We went to lots of effort to create and make things unique and use as little pre-fab stuff as possible. Most of the feedback we’ve had about the wedding has been about those small touches, and really that’s what makes me feel the best about the whole experience.
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