A little back story: Heather is my half sister from my dad’s first
marriage and as a family, we weren’t very close until about 6 years ago because of her
mom. She also has a half brother, Justin from her mom’s previous relationship
that ultimately was put into my dad’s care. Heather’s mom has had resentment
towards my dad for it ever since, even though she made the decision to do so. The
groom, Corey, and his mom also have a rocky relationship; his mom has a major
drug problem and after she got into a physical altercation with her parents
(his grandparents basically raised him), Corey told her that she was uninvited.
Friday at the rehearsal and dinner: Heather’s mom was an ass and
made Heather feel so bad about asking our dad to walk her down the aisle that
he backed down and let her walk Heather down the aisle. He felt bad about it
and apologized to Heather, but didn’t want to fight with her mom and ruin her
wedding for her. We waited for a long time before
the pastor finally called my mom and said that he did a lot of soul searching
and decided he could not marry a couple who has two children before marriage.
So here we are, waiting for this pastor for over an hour, and he decides he
can’t do it because they have two sons. However, he said that he would be more
than happy to come and bless the meal at the reception. Corey had a friend who
was ordained who agreed to do it for them. The dinner was fairly uneventful, but it was cold as shit out and nobody was allowed inside the house (Heather's mom and husband #5) except to get food, and the food was kinda shitty. Not many people stuck around for long.
Saturday at the wedding: The wedding was in a field by a lake
and it was really pretty out. However, the mosquitos were so bad that people
were being eaten alive. It was casual (jeans and a button down), but I guess the memo wasn't really relayed well because some people were way overdressed. Personally, I was kind of confused, but she's my sister and I just asked her what to wear. Heather was also 50 minutes late because she got into a
fight with her mom. She ended up calling my parents to come bail her out of the
shitfest with her mother (she still walked her down the aisle though). When she finally arrived on her horse-drawn carriage
she was beautiful and the ceremony was nice; you wouldn’t have even known that
their pastor backed out at the last minute with as good of a job as Corey’s
friend did.
Reception: They had mason
jar cups with hand-painted designs on them that you kept for the night (some of
the paint on mine rubbed off, but that’s fine since they had their name and wedding
day on them. FI and I use mason jar glasses at our house). They had a nice
selection of music and everyone seemed to have a good time. The pastor didn’t
show up to bless the meal and nobody really missed it. The food was decent; it
was a buffet that had pulled pork, chicken, pasta, potato casserole and veggies
with salad. The pasta and potato casserole were probably the best...the pork
was cold by the time I went through, and my mom and younger brother said that
the chicken was dry. The cake was neat; half was a white wedding cake and the
other half was a burning building (Corey’s a firefighter). A few people
complained about that but I didn’t give a shit – it was some of the best cake
I’ve ever had at a wedding. They contracted with the farm to do horse-drawn
carriage rides through the village during the reception and that was really
cool. At the very end they did a dollar dance, but by that time, a lot of
people had gone home and it was really just their friends that were there. Not
a lot of money I’m sure, but they had a good time doing it.
All in all, it was
a pretty good time; a few bumps and bruises along the way but nonetheless,
still pretty good.