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This weekend was the best hazy blur of activity that I have ever experienced. I headed straight from work on Friday to Applebee’s, where I met up with most of my bridal party. Some of these people I have not seen in a very long time and it was FANTASTIC to see everyone again. Chuck was so kind as to supply our drinks, because he’s one of the best guys ever.

After that, it was off to the Church for rehearsal. I thought I was cool, calm, and collected about this wedding business, but BOY was I wrong. I was some sort of big quivering jelly product during that rehearsal. Everything went from stupid planning and asinine details to complete reality in about twenty minutes, and that’s a heavy load to bear.

After the rehearsal came the rehearsal dinner. It was at the Pavillion, which (as formerly stated by several) is a hundred year old building in the middle of a public park in Pekin. The food was FANTASTIC, and the company was grand. My cousin and best man, John, agreed to play his acoustic guitar for the crowd, which was received lukewarmly by several hard-of-hearing members of my immediate family. I thought he did extremely well, but he was somewhat upset by the comments he received from others.

I was thrilled that I was able to find miniature replica LOTR swords for my attendants and hangers-on. My groomsmen all got Glamdring, the sword of Gandalf. John, my best man, got Anduril which is the reforged sword of King Aragorn. Our reader Mike Brown received Narsil, the sword of King Elendil. I had originally wanted to give all my attendants aside from the best man the same sword, but the online shop that we found only had enough to keep the groomsmen homogenous. They went over quite well and I was estatic that everyone enjoyed them.

After the reception, Tasha’s mom wanted to take us over to our new house in order to give us our present because it was “really heavy.” She must’ve spent MONTHS on this gift, and it was really outstanding. She had compiled all of Tasha’s favorite recipies along with hundreds of other recipies gleaned from various cookbooks into one massive handmade uber-cookbook. She also supplied us with an ample amount of canned goods to help make said recipies. It was an extremely nice gesture.

After that, it was getting late. I was wired on adreniline, so I decided to take several carloads of stuff over to the new house. I ended up getting to bed about 2 am, which sucked verily because I had to be up to head to a guitar sale at 8 am.

The next morning came early, my sisters fiance Justin and my cousin John showed up exactly at 8 am. We sat and visited a bit and worked out logistics for the rest of the day. Little did we know that the planning would run horribly awry.

We got to the guitar store, which was having a “Penny Sale.” You bought any guitar at regular retail price, and got one of equal or lesser value for one cent. We arrived about 8:30, and were about fifth in line. We stood around shooting the shit and looking at the other degenerates that collect for such sales. There was your obligitory psycho mom that had camped out and was first in line waiting to get a $300 Dean electric guitar, which just seems like a waste of a good sale. Justin and I decided to both get $500 Seagull guitars, mine is an acoustic/electric and his is a twelve string. Both sound like the voice of Christ himself, after putting some +5 holy strings on them.

After that adventure was complete, we had to swing by the tux shop so John could exchange his jacket due to size. They told him that he couldn’t exchange the jacket without having the old one to swap for, so we resigned ourselves to doing it later and headed off to the hotel to check in. I ran into the Ninja while there, he joined me in checking out the room to make sure that it was sufficiently fantastic. It was.

So we headed back to Pekin. We got back to my house, and John put new strings on my new guitar while I entertained the dog. We got done about 12:15, and then my phone rang. It was my dear bride, she had neglected to grab the CD that contained the hard-to-find “Father and Daughter” song by Paul Simon that she was going to dance to with her Dad. So John and I were off to Peoria again, just a scant 1:45 away from the time we were supposed to arrive at the Church for pictures.

We got to the Mall, I grabbed the CD while John dropped the deuce. He took a bit longer than expected (more fiber, man!) so I elected to grab a pretzel dog from one of the venders. It was great, considering I had no food all day long.

So we were back to Pekin. We got back about 1:25 pm. I had to bathe, change clothes, and pack an overnight bag for the hotel. My dad was raging pissed because we were gone so long, and he was sure to remind me at every chance he could. I was quite frantic at this point, because there was so much to do in 45 minutes. Quick bath, change of clothes, some wardrobe adjustments, and it was near time to go. I elected to skip the overnight bag and have someone else put it together for me after the wedding.

My Dad and I made it to the Church very close to 2 pm, and I was whisked away to the area behind the altar to wait until I was told to come out for pictures. For some reason I was more nervous than all of my speech tournaments, black belt tests, and Masters Degree presentations combined. I think it was mostly because God was there this time, and I had to stand up in front of 200 people and tell them how much my fiancee rocks.

I came out for pictures, which were extremely rapid fire. This was a blessing, because it distracted me long enough that I didn’t stroke out. Times I nearly busted out crying, when I: saw my grandparents come in, saw my former boss Karmon come in, saw my Karate friends come in, and saw my Macomb friends come in. For some reason I was fine around my Mom, who is notorious for having The Water Works during such events.

So after pictures, it was back into the back room with me. I stood around, trying not to get nervous. It wasn’t working. Father John came in and told me it was time to start, so I went up to the front of the Church. I don’t remember much of the ceremony, but I can tell you this:

The English language is NOT descriptive enough to explain how beautiful Tasha was. Radiant is kind’ve close, but not strong enough.

For those of you not lucky enough to be married yet, that moment is like having a whirlpool tub of joy centered just above your navel. It causes this numb euphoria that erases most memory of the rest of the next hour or two. A few other things I remember is that we didn’t catch ourselves on fire with the Unity candle, and we didn’t trip, fall, or faint. After those first moments of nerves, it was replaced by complete and general happiness that lasted… well… continues to last.

At the end of the ceremony, Father John made a fair to major gaffe… he finished the High Mass by saying “This Marriage is Over, Go in Peace” instead of “This Mass is Over.” Immediately, he realized his error. I had never seen Father John stammering for words until then, but he worked it out relatively well. I also remember that we had no good cue for The Kiss, so it ended up short and lame.

After the Mass was over, we had a receiving line at the head of the aisle. I have never been more humbled than to see all of the people that showed up to celebrate something like this with us. It was SUCH a great feeling.

We exited the Church to the blowing of bubbles, and boarded the party bus for a quick trip around the block. The hope was that this would disperse the crowd, and it did. We ran back into the Church for pictures, and got that out of the way right on schedule for 5 pm Mass. Then it was onward to the reception.

The reception was a real treat. We got there, and were announced to “The Ring Goes South” from the Fellowship of the Ring. It was truly awesome. Unfortunately, Becca, one of Tasha’s bridesmaids ended up ill and went back to the hotel in between outdoor pictures in the park and the reception. We were worried about her, but we found out she was OK in time to enjoy ourselves.

No one had us practice the cake-cutting ceremony, so we basically winged it. Tasha gave me express instructions not to smear cake in her face, so I didn’t. Apparently, it’s incredibly rude to do so according to tradition, and it was symbolic of our lives continuing on to old age when we might have to feed one another.

John’s toast was excellent, as was Kerstiens. They were short and meaningful, the way a good speech should be. Then it was time for dinner. Without going into too much detail, I ate two beef dinners. They were so good I had the waitress go and get the chef so I could thank him personally. DAMN, that was good beef.

Then it was time to dance. Our first dance was to “Something” by The Beatles, one of my favorite songs of all time. I’ve never seen Tasha beam so much. The next dance was the bridal party dance, and it was to “This Is The Night” by Clay Aiken. Cool song, and we got some cool pictures at the end of the dance.

The rest of the night was outstanding. A few of the high points: Boyle’s spoken word “Man, I Feel Like a Woman”, Boyle’s astonishing rendition of “Ice, Ice Baby”, Matt and John’s “We are the Champions”, the In-Sync dance (where I whipped out my mad crazy white guy moves, replete with Michael Jackson spin that I found out I could do on the spot), all of the men (including Grandpa Dalcher in pink crazy hat) singing “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” to Tasha while she sung the words at us so we’d remember, and last, but not least, my Grandpa’s cousin Carl (who is also quite old) swing dancing up a storm with his wife. I hope someone got pictures of that.

Getting to see everyone was tough, but I tried to meet up with everyone that came at least for awhile. It seemed like the reception was over far too quickly, but then we helped clean up for a few minutes, and it was off to our awesome hotel room for the end of our wedding day.

It was a great night, and I’m sure I’m forgetting details, but I will post more when I get my home machines hooked back up. Thank you to everyone that came and shared in this AWESOME event, Tasha and I couldn’t be happier.