A Great Wedding is hard to come by!

Kristen and I at the wedding.

This past Saturday, I had the priviledge of being invited to my close friends' wedding.  I've known the bride and groom for about 10 years now and from what I know about both of them, I knew this wasn't going to be a boring affair.  After walking a 5K the morning of the wedding, my aderaline was pumping through my system so I had a pretty good endorphin high going on when I got to the church.  I hadn't seen the bride or the groom in quite some time so I was very happy when I got to see them.  Another close friend of mine, Neal, flew in from Colorado, where he is working for the U.S. Air Force.....at least I think it's the Air Force, lol.  Anyways, I had went to college at Penn State with the bride's sister, Kristen, so me and her hung around each other most of the day.  When it was time to go into the church, I figured I would just sit somewhere in the middle.  Kristen had asked me to sit in the front pew with her and her family during the wedding.  Of course I said yes, and proceeded to sit down with the family. 

Dustin and Jen at the altar.

When the ceremony started, of course, the family paraded down the aisle.  Mom was crying, dad was crying....practically everyone related to the bride was crying.  When the bride came down the aisle, she was wearing a white wedding dress, with an "Elvira-ish" raised collar and had 6 inch stelletto red heels on her feet.  When she got to the alter, the priest started to officiate the wedding.  The first words that came out of his mouth were, "Well, I'd like to welcome y'all to God's Hawse."  He had a true Pittsburgher's accent.  While most conventional weddings where the priest officated from a bible or some sort of written text was thrown out at this wedding.  He basically put his own stink on the service.  But one thing was for sure, this was a trademark Dustin and Jen wedding.

After the ceremony, we all went through the receiving line, hugged the family, congratulated the bride and groom and waited to see where everybody was going to spend the downtime before the recpetion.....we had about 2 hours to kill.  Kristen, our friend John and myself stood outside with some other friends just talking for a bit and we all settled on just going to the recpetion location and chilling there until it was 4:00.  I had met John there and we sat in the lounge with two other women who attended the service.  Once the reception started, I had to make small talk with the people at my table...."What's your name?"  "How do you know the couple?"  Things like that.  After dinner, the dancing started......and went on and on and on.  I had been talking to Kristen for a short while while all this dancing was going on and it felt like it had always been when we were in college.  The numberous dances we both were at, it just felt the same.  It's weird how deja vu works sometimes. 

The Best Man, Neal and myself.

I'm a very situational person.  My memory works in tactile ways usually.  Being around old friends and family helps spark things in my head that I hadn't thought about in years'.  But that night it felt like none of us had grown up....like the last 10 years didn't even happen.  We were just doing and acting like we had always done.  Had a damn good time.  CONGRATS JEN AND DUSTIN ON YOUR MARRAIGE!

Jen and Me

Jen, the blushing bride:)

Everybody was feeling lovable that night!