Review: Jason and Monique’s Wedding

SOMEONE told us the wedding started at 2:30. Always keep your invitations so you don’t show up there an hour ahead of time.

Jason and Monique’s wedding was spectacular. Mike, Vero and I arrived not knowing what to expect, but once you enter Bean Town Ranch it’s like you’ve entered a movie set. It’s an entire ranch with lakes, and barns and overall goodness.

They had a horse and carriage bring us over to the spot where the ceremony was going to be. Pretty cool!

The ceremony was beautiful, outside and sunny. Jason is the biggest crier (cryer?) in the world and proceeded to bawl when he thought he would see Monique. I don’t mind when a dude cries during his own wedding but there’s no excuse for further crying when you’re delivering a speech to thank everyone for coming. Step up to the plate man! Show them what you’re made of! 😉

The pastor was amazing as he reminded me of a cross between Guy Smiley and some game show host. I felt like I was at a movie and this was some badly scripted dialogue. There were some parts where Vero and I could not stop laughing our asses off.

After the ceremony, we walked over to another barn where they had cocktails and numerous snacks. Annie saw us and whisked us over to a table (she was part of the bridal party, much like her husband Eric who was the best man) and we hung out for awhile, meeting a few good gents in the form of Joseph and Darcy. These guys were good times. Coupled with the fact that they had a pianist and a flute player playing for us, the atmosphere was fantastic.

If there’s any indication on how cool geeks can be, it’s when you discover that everyone loves Star Wars (no, I did not bring it up). We actually wanted to request the Mos Eisley Cantina song from Star Wars. I proceeded to leave a napkin with our request when they musicians had a break but no dice. We were pretty bummed.

With a ring of a church bell, that was our indication that supper was on so we moseyed on over to the hall, and realized that our new friends were actually sitting at the same table as us. BONUS! After loading our glasses with wine, we noticed that the nametags at the table were from UNICEF and indicated that our gifts were made in the form of a donation. The funny thing about this is that they first sentence on the name tag said “The Gift of Health has been given to the needy from Tables 12-14”. But mine was off-center so it read “The Gift of Health has BEER given to the needy from Tables 12-14.”. Here I thought we hit the goldmine and were getting free drinks for the rest of the night, but alas, only myself and Christina had these magical Willy Wonka tickets in our hands and someone had to ruin our night by proclaiming they were off-center.

Salad was served and someone was mentioning how someone at the head table had gone into labour. WHAT THE HECK? Mike, Vero I start freaking out as we know this can only be our good friend Annie and we look frantically around to see where the heck she is. We end up getting Vero to go talk to the bride and it turns out that they have left the wedding to head for the hospital. Holy mackerel…this was a sobering thought. You know, I’ve seen people have kids before, but I haven’t been entirely close to them, so for my friends Eric and Annie to have a kid on the way…it just shook me up and make me realize “Whoa, Annie isn’t just getting big all of a sudden for no reason.”

Considering the drive to the hospital would have been an hour long, we figured we would call the hospital later considering no water had been broken; only contractions that were 5 minutes apart.

The rest of the wedding party stepped up to the plate to read Eric’s speech as he had to rush off with Annie. It was an excellent speech and it was interesting to hear Eric’s words being read by others.

The highlight of the night came from the first dance. The sun had gone down, there was a campfire outside and we all stood on the edge of this pond. In the middle of this pond was an island where the bride and groom danced the night (or 3 minutes) away with spotlights on them and fireworks going off in the distance. Pretty slick I must admit. I’ve never seen a first dance this crazy before. Afterwards, we entered the hall again where the pianist and flute player had been joined by a drummer/singer and they played some old school music where Jason and Monique showed off their ballroom dance lessons.

After watching some dances, we called the hospital and found out that they didn’t know what was really going on as the doctor had to do an evaluation. So we figured we would call back later to find something more concrete.

The dance was decent. The trio played for a good hour and then they brought in a DJ for the rest of the night to spin some tunes. Overall, not many people were up dancing but I would have to note the following:

• The stereo kept cutting out to the point where you would wait five minutes to hear another song. Must have overheated?
• The DJ blew. I’m sorry if Jason and Monique are reading this and taking offence but the fact that he would slap a CD on once in awhile and leave the dance area is not a bad thing, but it is when your CD is full of slow dance tunes and 10 songs later he comes back in.

In fact, when we were leaving the wedding later that night, I kind of said “Man, the wedding was awesome, but the DJ sucked.” and Mike proceeded to say “Yeah. Sucked donkeyballs!” and then I noticed that sitting alone by the campfire was the DJ who definitely heard us. Do I feel bad? Maybe a little. But come on! It’s your job to be in there DJing buddy!

Highlights of the dance floor include me doing a running leap into a guitar rocker stance on my knees in front of some woman I didn’t even know. I slid at least a good four feet onto my knees and was very impressed with the slick floors. I didn’t bother looking up but I heard this woman was a little bewildered at why I was playing the guitar solo to “You Shook Me All Night Long” on my knees but then she gave into the the rock gods and realized she should be honoured. Please note that after the wedding in the car I realized I had split my pants to the point where an entire fist could reach in down below. I can only imagine that this is the event which ripped those pants. 😉

Also, Vero and I decided to have a dance-off since there was no one on the floor dancing. I must admit that she kicked my ass bigtime because I proceeded to have a very lame move in which I was pretending to golf. However, I redeemed myself later where I was pretending to bowl and then I woudl run to the opposite end and pretend I was the bowling pin and get knocked down. Definitely should have been the winning move but Vero beat me with her re-enactment of the shopping cart.

Two thumbs up for the wedding and two thumbs up for Bean Town Ranch. We were very impressed and we’re pretty sure that everyone had an amazing time. Jason and Monique, you were beautiful. I hope you have a good time in Vancouver and that last Alaskan cruise!

***To rewind a night, Mike and I hung out with his family who were up for another wedding this weekend. It was good times and we jammed a bit and came up with an impromptu song called The Wedding Day Jitter Blues. I cringe to listen to this tune sober so the next time I’ve had a few glasses of wine, I’ll play it back to see how it was. Thanks to the Losiers for showing us a good time!***

Now, I suppose I should write an entry about whatever happened to the best man and his wife that night…