Nick & Emily's Wild Wedding Weekend (Day 1)

Ahh, the big Nick Stevens/Emily Hall Grand Wedding Weekend had finally arrived!

This was easily one of the craziest, most frantic, whirlwind long weekends I've ever experienced in my 25 years. And somehow at the end of all of it, Nick and Emily were able to get married, quite happily, I must add.

The weekend started in Thursday for all of us. I had improv class the night before and skipped going out with the gang afterwards because I had a lot of packing to do. I got back to Brooklyn and went to work, trying my best not to forget anything I'd need over the next 4 days. With 4 hours of sleep, I woke up Thursday morning and made my way into work. Earlier in the week I had brought my boombox (which I'd later learn I didn't need to bring to Westport) into work in my suitcase earlier in the week, so I had to pack everything into my 2 backpacks and my gym bag. It was a HOT, HUMID day. I had one of my backpacks hanging in the front like a Bjorn baby holder, and by the time I stepped into my climate-controlled office, I was DRENCHED from head to toe. The tshirt and polo shirt I had on never actually dried. When I finally took it off once we pulled into the Norwalk Hilton Hotel at 7pm, it was still wet.

Luckily my boss was out all week on vacation, so I was able to put the finishing touches on the rehearsal dinner invites (originally my parent's responsibility, then taken on by Nick, which was then passed down to me), print them out, and cut them.

Around 11, I took my break and saddled on over to the Men's Wearhouse a few blocks away by the Empire State Building. Apparently some of the other groomsmen who went to different locations had a satisfactory time getting measured and picking up their tuxedos, but this wasn't the case for those of us who opted to patronize the 34th Street franchise. The tux department was staffed by two of the surliest, unfriednliest, and helpless women I've ever encountered. I thought it was just me, but Oscar went there to get measured and he was ignored for 10 minutes before they decided to notice him.

Anyway, I was just there to pick up the tux, so I didn't think it would take more than 10 minutes. I was wrong. They had me try on the entire tuxedo, and the jacket didn't fit too well. They gave me a 40S, which will fit sometimes depending on the cut of the coat, but this one was really tight when I buttoned it up. I wish I had never mentioned it to them, because what followed was a complete waste of an hour in my life as one of the women called Men's Wearhouse in Texas to see if they could ship a 42S up to New York in time for the wedding (in short, they couldn't). The only replacement they had on the premises for me was a 41R, which looked like a zoot suit jacket on my short frame, and I staunchly told them I'd rather have the original coat instead. She ended up having a tailor move the buttons over a little bit so it wasn't as tight when I buttoned it, so I still had to return later in the day to pick it up. In the end, I never buttoned the jacket at the wedding anyway since we all had black vests underneath.

If you ever need to get a tux at Men's Wearhouse, avoid the 34th and Broadway location AT ALL COSTS. I can't stress that enough.

After I scarfed down a small french fry and a whooper junior, I settled back into my desk at the office. Fortunately, there was zero work for me to do there today (and my boss was gone) so nobody noticed the 90 minute tux run that I had originally figured to take a half hour AT MOST.

The original plan was for Nick and I to take the 3pm metro north train to Norwalk and get picked up there by our parents, who would drive down from Braintree in one car. But plans soon changed when Nick had too much luggage to haul up to Grand Central and Mom realized she had too much to do in Braintree to leave with Dad in the same car. Nobody's really sure what she had to do besides drop Rollie off at the dog kennel and buy a few snacks at the hotel room, but she didn't end up leaving Braintree till well past 3 o'clock. Apparently she had stressed herself out over Rollie having a cough in the days prior, but come on now.

Instead, Dad launched from Braintree in his van around 10:30. He planned on picking me up first (where he could also pick up the free used computer I got from Hazen and Sawyer that's been sitting underneath my desk for the last 4 months), and then scooting across town to pick up Nick before turning around and darting back up to CT.

Dad got in some Friday afternoon traffic on I-95, which was to be expected, but the coup de grace came when he received a $90 ticket from a police officer in Manhattan for not wearing his seat belt. He actually had it on driving down to NY, but he unfastened it to reach into his wallet to pay the Triboro Bridge toll and didn't bother putting it back on. He was stopped at a light a few blocks away from me when a cop, walking on the adjacent sidewalk, hollered at him to pull over. The policeman told him he'd only get a warning and not to have fear, it wouldn't count against his MA insurance rates, but I've never heard of a $90 warning before. And I see people driving around Manhattan all the time without a seat belt, and my Dad, with his MA plates, just so happens to get pulled over. He got slapped with a $170 no standing ticket the last time he visited (and he was in the car with the motor running, no less!), so he doesn't have a lot of automotive luck here in NY so far this year.

Finally, at 3 o'clock, I got a call from Dad on my cell phone that he's waiting outside on the corner of 36th and 7th. With the computer, I have to take two trips, so I went down first with my bags. I got to the intersection, and wouldn't you know it, I don't see Dad ANYWHERE. I called him up and said, "Dad- I'm here. Where are you?"

Yelling loudly, he barked, "I'm right here! 36th and 7th! Right in front of Pronto Pizza!"

I responded, calmly, "Dad, I'm looking around, and I don't see your car anywhere. And there's definitely no Pronto Pizza on 36th and 7th. Can you look around and find the street sign, because you're not at the right intersection."

"I'm right here! 36th and 7th! Why can't you see me? Here, I'll honk the horn."

All I heard was the honk coming over the cell phone.

"Did you hear that?!"

"Yeah, Dad, but I only heard it over the phone. You're not on 36th and 7th, so let's try to figure out where you actually are."

Turned out he was on 36th and Broadway, an avenue away. It took him some time to figure out how to backtrack his way to 36th and 7th, and in the end, the closest he could get without popping a blood vessel was 35th and 7th. At this point in the day, the roads were crowded and the sidewlks were jammed, and everyone was sweating bullets from the heat. I made my second trip back upstairs to get the computer and then we navigated our way downtown to Nick's apartment on 18th and 3rd.

We arrived, very late, and Nick still wasn't ready, either; there was something he was furiously looking for in the apartment that he couldn't find. I got a coffee at the corner shop while we waited because I was ready to fall asleep at any moment, and then I got scolded by Nick for not getting HIM one after he loaded his things into the van and we had driven off.

"Here, I got a medium. You can have some of mine."

"No, it's fine; I don't want any."

Huh?

It was no 4:30 and the northbound FDR lanes were at a near stand still. Nick started yelling and venting his anger about the traffic, but eventually it loosened up. Once we got on I-95, it was smooth sailing for a while until we hit CT, where the electronic road sides above the highway warned us of delays from Exit 4-18. Awesome!

We arrived at the Norwalk Hilton Garden Hotel a shade after 7, and Mom hadn't arrived yet. She had called us for directions a while ago while we were on the road, but she misheard them and ended up driving in the wrong direction. Dad went inside to check in and he soon re-emerged from the lobby to tell us that the Hilton had no record of our reservation (even though it was the FIRST reservation made over 6 months ago) and that the rooms were not paid for or held under a credit card, either.

Dad didn't have a credit card (?!) and Nick, attempting not to forget anything, left his wallet, his bank card, his driver's license, and his neck ties back at his apartment (luckily a friend of his from CA, Chadd, was staying there for the night and could bring them Saturday morning). I gave Dad my credit card and he went back in to find us a room. Turned out our reservation was there all along, but the guy at the front desk was just incompetent and couldn't find it. He stuck us up on the 3rd floor in the boonies, the farthest walk possible from the front desk (not good for my Mom who can barely walk), while mostly everyone else in town for the wedding was down on the first floor. When they discovered their error the next day, they asked us to move, after we had already unpacked and had a million things to do, and we told them "NO WAY."

While we were unpacking everything from Dad's loaded van onto the luggage carts, Mom finally arrived, her car filled with...groceries?

"Mom, when are we gonna have the time to eat all this?!"

"It's for when you have people back to your room."

"I don't think anyone's coming back to the room. We have a pretty full schedule."

(silence)

Once we finally got up to the room, we only had a few minutes before this 8pm dinner that friends of the Hall family were throwing in Nick and Emily's honor was schedules to begin. And none of us were nearly ready to leave. Mom was exhausted from the drive and in a bunch of pain, and for other reasons I can't write about here, she decided not to attend the dinner. Nick got furious, went into a mini-breakdown, and we were all bent out of shape and we didn't know what to do, but we pulled ourselves together, got out of our stinky, sweaty clothes, showered, and got ready as quickly as we could while Mom fell asleep in her bed.

By the time Dad, Nick, and I left the hotel, it was past 9 o'clock, and a group of 30 people were all waiting for us to arrive before they ate dinner. We felt horrible and terribly guilty, and we tried to get there as fast as we could. It started to downpour outside, and I mean DOWNPOUR. Before we made it to the beach dinner, we still had to stop at a minimart and pick up soda and ice for the party, delaying our incredibly late arrival even further.

We showed up at 9:30, if you can believe it. Miraculously, nobody was mad at us, or at least they didn't voice their displeasure, and we were welcomed with hugs, open arms, and a delicious spread of food. The party was held at this house with a sp[rawling front porch directly on the water. They filled the interior with tube lighting, giving the room a warm, mystical glow. Before we ate, they had us all join hands in a giant circle, and they all sang a song (some sort of blessing or lords prayer, perhaps?). It was just...amazing. It felt like something out of a movie, us all in a circle, singing a beautiful song in the candlelight while the rain stormed down into the ocean water all around us.

The only downside to the evening was Dad, who decided to single out a pretty cousin of Emily's who was there by herseld since her heart surgeon husband couldn't make the trip. He did his Dad-thing and talked to/flirted with her the entire night and barely spoke to all the other family members he hadn't even met yet. Looking back on it now, Nick and I should have intervened or said something to him, because it was a little embarrassing and it did not go unnoticed by the Hall family. Nick and I were talking about it afterwards, and we both thought, "Can't Mom and Dad just act like normal human beings for just a few days without doing something weird?!"

Looking back on this day and the whole weekend, I think I was by far the most rational and level-headed of the family. I'm not gloating or anything; that's just the truth. I rarely lose my cool, unlike others in the family. Nick's temper can be wicked at times, and he can fly off the handle pretty quickly, while Mom and Dad start yelling at and blaming each other at the drop of a hat. Me, I hate yelling at people, and I hate being yelled at even worse.

So yeah, all this, and that was just Day 1.