The Wedding and after...

8 minutes. From first notes to "Come up and congratulate the happy couple." It was awesome. For what it's worth, Jen looked beautiful in her dress, and us men cleaned up rather presentably. I was semi-sort-of satisfied with my tux, after some refitting was done on the last day. The jacket and shirt were much nicer than what I started with, but the pants were hopeless. Apparently I ride the fine line between comfortably plump and disturbingly obese, because the first size they gave me wouldn't close with a gun to my head, and the second barely stayed up. A few safety pins helped that situation out remarkably however.

I couldn't find The Jewel Box for the life of me. Unfortunately, there is a roundabout in the park, and while the sign said straight ahead, it really meant, follow the roundabout straight ahead until you have turned 'prox 45* left from your former heading.

Eventually, Matt found me.

Getting ready was quick and interesting. Ad Hoc weddings are the wave of the future, I swear. With no plans, nothing can go off-plan, and some really serious amounts of stress over inconsequential things can be avoided..

The ceremony was quick and painless for most involved, except everyone with cameras, recording the entire ceremony from every angle. It might be kind of interesting to see if we could make one of those matrix-esque time-stop and rotate things, if we get copies of all the pictures. Speaking of which, some of the pictures were moblogged via cell phone to Eric's Moblog (Click on the moblog pic), courtesy of JDB. At some point, the rest of the pics should show up at EricAndJenGetMarried.com. Eric's first entry as a married man can be found here.

No rings were forgotten, no lines were forgotten, and when Someone hit the SMITE button, S/He missed and hit the minister's glasses. They broke on the walk down the isle (sp?). The minister managed to keep them on his face until he hit the part he knew by heart.

Nothing else went weird/wrong until after the whole thing was over, and bride and groom were both safely away from the rest of us.

The reception was wonderful and well received, and most of the people there had a jolly old time. After all this got done, we went to the park to pick my car back up.

(*Cue DOOM3 voice* And then things went terribly wrong...)
At which point, I realized that I had given my keys to Matt, because I couldn't carry them in my tux pockets, with the everpresent danger of them falling down. Which I am certain Jen would have killed me for. (It's tough to run away with your pants around your ankles.) Of course, I was riding with Don. Who didn't have Matt's number. So we called up Hippy, who was going back to the café to pick up JDB.

Eventually we got ahold of one of them, who tried to call Matt, and Clone1, who was riding with him. At some point, they got back to us, and turned around (they were heading back to Rolla via De Soto, and going the completely wrong way). They were out somewhere along Ballas when we got to them, then they turned around and came back to Forest Park. Anyways, they came back and gave me my keys and such, and in return, the house credit card, which I had accidentally kept after a shopping run when I visited last weekend, was returned.

Finally able to perform substantial independent movement, I drove home and got the hell out of the penguin suit. A well-fit suit is surprisingly comfortable. One that doesn't is sheer hell. This was a rental, you can guess.

After this, I drove to Don's for the after-wedding get together. An event, that while not planned, was still quite well received. As I pulled in, JDB was pulling out with the entire crew in the tahoe. So I jumped in and we went to the store to get grilling supplies and booze. Mostly alcho-pops, cider, and amaretto.

To digress from the story for a moment, the K cider isn't very good. The Hardcore cider is very tasty.

Anyways, eventually Jen and Eric show up (after some sort of family time torture), and later Rezny, Carrie, and Eric (Wix). Much conversation was had. At some point Don and JDB went off for some type of discussion away from our loudness. Eventually, Matt and I headed over there. I think Matt was curious about the subject of their conversation, and I pretty much wanted Don to pay attention to the rest of the people for long enough to throw us out. And thankfully, he did. I should apologize to both of them for interrupting.

I gave JDB directions to Lukas Liquor Superstore at some point. I hope he found it, the prices it sounds like he pays for booze down in 'bama is just insane.

Right as we were leaving, the following (entertaining) conversation took place with Carrie. (From memory)

Carrie: "So, has Kelly noticed that you are hitting on her yet?"
Me: "I certainly hope so, I'm interested, and I think she's interested."
C: "I wonder if she would still say that she hasn't been hit on in Rolla"
M: "Well, I don't know if I can make it any more obvious without being rude. I generally suffer from the inability to tell if people are interested, she might be the same way.
C: "You really can't make it more obvious."
M: "I would ask her out to a movie or something, but I'm not in Rolla, and I refuse to ask someone out over IRC."
C: *nods*

Matt and Clone1 (who were planning on going back to Rolla that night), crashed at my house. When we all finally got up, we were entranced by TechTV (a wonderful geek channel full of shiney buttons and blinkenlights). We don't get TechTV in Rolla, which is a shame. We should start a campaign. Eventually, they took off, and that was the end of The Experience of the Sigler wedding.

Best wishes to Eric and Jennifer Sigler!