Lynne's Wedding

This weekend, Jess, myself, and the girls all played various roles in the pulling off of a wedding ceremony for ursamajor and hyounpark.

We arrived to CA late night on Thursday. Our flight was mostly uneventful, though I will admit that I figured arriving at 11pm West Coast time, there was a chance that Julianne would... maybe sleep at some point in the flight. No such luck, unfortunately, and I had a babbling 8 year old for the entirety of our 6 hour flight. ("Exciting!")

We stayed overnight in Burlingame, got a late start despite our time bonus, and headed down to Monterey, having realized we forgot only 5 or 6 crucially important items in our hometown.

The drive south was ... long. We took 101 down (the route down 1 is pretty, but there's no argument that it's shorter). (Jess says to mention 'we were in the fires'. I don't know how much of this I understand, as I was just driving, but there were firefighters on the side of the road at one point.) Near 101+156, we went about 2 miles in 35 minutes. It was awesome. The girls persevered -- largely with the help of things like Daria and Futurama, thank god for laptops.

We made it, checked in at Asilomar, and (Jess points out: "Quickly learned they didn't have internet! Wild deer scampering the grounds, but no internet!" I rebut that any deer that I can walk 3 feet from and not have them run away are not 'wild'.) got ready for the rehearsal dinner at Fandango. (What happens if you want to go to Fandango, then to a movie? Do you buy your tickets from Fandango, or is that optional?)

Anyway, rehearsal dinner went well, we ate, established a timeline for meeting up the next day, (Jess: "Pawned our children off on other people", as they sat with the other family with kids at the dinner.) and headed out to crash.

Next day, Jess and I run last minute errands while the kids play with the other family's kids again, including picking up the medications I forgot. (Total idiot tax: $83.) We make it back, gather up the things for prep, and make our way to the bridesmaids and bride.

Everyone gets ready, the photographers show up (the way you can tell a professional? She has a camera lens LONGER THAN MY ARM.), pictures are taken, and everyone does a quick run through of the ceremony. I gather up the bags of all the bridesmaids (I'm toting them around while they ride in a limo), all 8 of them, and cart them and the two girls out to the car. (Jess: "I would like to comment that the problem with picking bridesmaids and groomsmen is that you chose people who are your friends, rather than their drill sergeant mentality.")

We arrive at the park (myself and the two girls), and see another wedding party standing in the place where the ceremony is to be, (the rocks there are where the wedding was held, with chairs on the lawn side and looking towards the ocean), in addition to another bride and groom having photos down closer to the beach. Both move on, but after 10 minutes with no sign of the limo, I get a bit panicky, and try to make phone calls, unsuccessfully. Thankfully, at this point, someone arrives to start setting up chairs, and I confirm I'm in the right place.

20 minutes later, at 2:10, the limo carrying the wedding party does finally arrive, and they being having photos taken with the ocean as background. (Jess explained later that they were being posed to 'act like mountain goats' climbing over the rocks out there.) After about 35 minutes, they finally let them go. During that time, I ran around and helped the mother of the bride organize flowers, set up programs, and introduced and dragged in people who were straggling in at that point. (The groomsmen never took up ushering duties. The side effect of an outdoor, relatively informal, wedding, perhaps.)

Anyway, we let people stream in until 3:15, including Hyoun's father, who had flown back to Korea on a family emergency just 72 hours before, and was then back in SF just in time for the wedding. The wedding went off well, and was pretty. I passed out maps to everyone on how to get to the reception (continuing my role as "groomsman at large" -- all the more effective because I didn't have any photography requirements) and gathered up the leftovers and the girls and we made our way to the reception.

We made our way to the reception, everyone talked for a while, some dresses were ripped, but Jess helped repair them. Our two girls and the two girls of the other family continued to get along well, we sat down, ate some food, etc.

Hyoun and Lynne sang the opening song of the evening, and then she and her dad got the first dance, and then we all came out and boogied.

I did my normal thing, but also spent a lot of time dancing with Julie, trying to get Alicia to dance with me (failed), dancing with Jess, and the other bridesmaids. (My favorite of the other bridesmaids was Jane, for the record.)

Given the wedding participants, it shouldn't be a surprise that Karaoke was offered. Julianne, always loving to be the center of attention, was ecstatic about the idea. She picked Katy Perry and I went "Crap", knowing that if she went up there on her own, she'd get about two words out. So I went up with her, and sang a Katy Perry song. (Hot N Cold.) Note to self: Don't do Karaoke of songs that you don't know.

Anyway, that went okay, and more dancing happened, and Ali and Jane went up and did some other song together, and I met some LJ people (azurelunatic was the only one I actually remember the username for) and hung out and then we went home and it was late and we passed out.

Overnight, Jess tripped on a suitcase that had been left open and smacked the desk with the side of her face going down, so I did a 6am CVS run to pick up bruise pain reduction devices. We were meant to go to the Aquarium in Monterey as well, but with her feeling poorly, not having eaten, etc. it didn't end up working out. We got McDonalds, and headed up CA-1 to San Francisco.

A few notes: When Mapping from Monterey to SF, Google will give you a route it labels "CA-1". In reality, this is *not* the Route 1 route you want to take, as it takes you from Monterey to Santa Cruz on CA-1 -- a pretty dumpy part of the route -- but not past Santa Cruz to SF. Luckily, I'm no stickler for directions (Hooray for decent sense of direction) so I said 'screw it', and we took route 1 all the way up.

I love it. If I lived here, knowing what I do now, I don't think I'd be able to stay in SF at all during warm months. Windsailers, hang gliders, parasailers, all along the gorgeous coast, with ocean views the whole way... I'd be spending my weekly paycheck on gas just to drive up and down that road, it's so pretty.

Julie and I loved it the whole way. Ali was bored by it, Jess was scared by it, and both slept most of the trip, but I had an absolutely lovely time.

We're now staying at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Fisherman's Wharf (which is also super-awesome), and leaving on Tuesday morning.

So, that was my weekend.

How about yours?