The Wedding Extravaganza

Obvs not mine. My good friend Mouth. Remember back to the Cuse background stories with the East Side Boys? She is one of the West Side Girls, the one who got pushed down the hill by S.dot. Yes Mouth is the bride in this said wedding extravaganza.

Mouth had met her hubs way out west in the desert where they live and they were making the trek to Cuse to tie the knot. I feel like when she first told us the news it had seemed like months away and I couldn't believe it was now upon us. I pondered this on one of my greyhound bus rides (4 in a week and a half). As a sidenote, greyhound bus rides can sometimes be a fate worse than death. The people I was subjected to were unbelievable--an Asian man screaming into his phone for half the ride, a clearly drunk man who kept stumbling to the bathroom, and a massively fat, sleeping woman whose breathing sounded exactly like a walrus. But all worth it for my dear friend Mouth. My first weekend back to Cuse was for the bachelorette party. We had a nice dinner in Syracuse's Little Italy and a classic night out downtown planned. A bunch of Mouth's friends came into town, including Lulu, whom I hadn't seen in ages. Everyone arrived for the fiesta dressed in nice, flowered dresses...except for me. I decided a black dress, gray tights and booties would be perfect, because nothing says "let's celebrate" like black and gray. Dinner was a feast and I almost threw up from laughing when Lulu told a story that I have no memory of but could definitely picture--apparently me, her and Mouth went for dinner one summer during college. On the drive back home Mouth and I made the executive decision that Lulu's doggie bag of food was too smelly and proceeded to throw it out the window to her dismay. Luckily we have both matured (slightly) and refrained from doing this to her again on the short drive downtown. Upon our arrival we were greeted by the usual trash--too tan girl in short dresses and stilettos and more chin straps than should be legal. We made our rounds and even met up with some old friends--S.Dot, Malpal and my friend Botch, whom I went to Mardi Gras with last year. He is a loud idiot and kept touching my hair right in front of his girlfriend, who is no fan of mine. After the bars closed we decided to keep the party going and head up to Mouth's sister's apartment on SU Hill (very fitting for us). I had decided that buying a bunch of 4loko for the occasion would be an awesome idea. And it was--until we tried the blue raspberry flavor. It was as bad as a blue raspberry lollipop laced with acid. We could barely finish one can of it between three of us. After hanging out for awhile some loser Syracuse hipsters crashed the party and since the birds were chirping outside we decided to take our traditional drive back across the city to the West Side. Mouth's last night out in Cuse as a single girl.
Exactly a week later this changed--Wedding Day. My greyhound bus had pulled in pretty late the night before, so not only did I miss the entire rehearsal dinner, I also rolled into Mouth's house for wedding prep late. Now I haven't been to too many weddings but despite everything that was happening around her, Mouth was the calmest bride I have ever seen. It seemed that everyone in the world was running around the house, looking for something, asking when we were doing what, and asking her any other question they could think of, including me. She just sat there calmly as the girl did her hair and makeup and informed us all to do whatever the hell we wanted. Not long after this we headed to the church to do the damn thing. We gathered outside waiting for whatever was being done inside and were able to witness the guests coming in. CB from Astoria walked up, accompanied by an unfamiliar man. We chatted for a min and finally I decided to ask who the hell the dude was (note--right in front of him). Turns out it was her exboyfriend from college, whom I had met on several occasions. Oops. But the best faux pas came a few minutes later when one of Mouth's husband's friends walked up, whom apparently she had not met before. In front of everyone she says loudly "Hi! You must be Black Rob!". He looks at her with a mixture of confusion and annoyance and replies "No, I'm Jeremy". Oops again.

We barely had time to recover from laughing, as the ceremony was about to begin. Me and my fellow bridesmaids stood in our places, while Mouth quickly swallowed some prescription painkillers. When it was my turn to walk down the aisle, I wondered when was the last time I had been inside a church all the while trying not to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation. We took our places on the altar and witnessed what was a beautiful ceremony. But the best part for me was during Communion. I didn't know that it was a part of the ceremony so I was surprised. Having no other choice, I walked up to accept the wafer from Mouth (she and her husband were doling them out to the guests). I held out my hands and when I looked in her face I saw a familiar mischievous gleam in her eye. Instead of greeting me with the traditional words one is supposed to say, Mouth said "Who wants snaaaacks??" very quietly. I shoved the thing in my mouth as quickly as I could in the hopes that it would prevent me from laughing any harder.

After the ceremony: party time. After some pictures where I literally could not keep my eyes open we all trucked to the reception. While the bridal party waited to make our entrance my groomsman, whom I had never met before, tried to convince me to do a crazy dance when we walked in. I flatly refused and informed him I was far too white for that. I think I pissed him off, as he did not say anything to me for the rest of the reception. Fine, I was busy feeding my face with Dinosaur BBQ, champagne and plates full of homemade cookies. I was like a disgusting animal and after it was all over I was seriously afraid I was going to split my bridesmaid dress. Then I went back for more. When I had recovered a little bit, Lulu, Mouth and Mairey (who had been spotted earlier in the evening walking around with a champagne bottle in one hand and an entire pitcher of beer in the other) dragged me and CB to the dancefloor where we danced our faces off to the Killers "All these things that Ive done", which is basically our theme song. Other highlights I noticed, despite my food coma, was Lulu catching the bouquet and her long-term boyfriend catching the garter. They then reversed the situation and Lulu very non-sexily put the garter on his leg. It was precious. The whole experience was fun but also a bit surreal; I didn't actually think I was involved in a wedding even when I was walking down the aisle. Hopefully I do not feel this way on my own wedding day, if that day ever comes.

We rounded the day off with a classic blowout party at Mouth's family's house. All of her gigantic Irish Catholic family was there, the Arizona reps courtesy of her new husband, and us, the usual suspects. We moved back and forth between the house and then giant tent outside, eating tons of food, drinking beer from the keg, singing along to Mumford and the Postal Service being played by her uncle on the guitar and telling each other ridiculous stories, including a joint venture between Mouth and her husband of how they met, which was pretty f-ing cute. Later in the night we busted out the old VHS tape of our senior year of high school and bored everyone present, while the Crew laughed hysterically. Leaving the party was bittersweet, as I knew things would never be the same. But how could I let this bother me when Mouth was clearly so happy? We then split up and headed in our seperate directions, which is fairly representative of our lives at the moment and the changes that our about to take place. Mouth headed to the hotel with her husband and Mairey and I to the bar, which were both coincidentally located in the same neighborhood. So you better believe later that night, as Mairey and I were walking back to the car, we passed the hotel and yelled "You're having sseeeeex!!" as loud as we could.

Happy Wedding Mouth :)