Monday, January 4, 2010

Fredericksburg, Texas


My friends and I woke up January 1 in the year 2010 only to pack and get going for a road trip.

I'll give you three guesses of where we were going or more appropriately, for what purpose.

...

The only reason I go anywhere is for weddings, so if you guessed anything other than that, you must be new around here.

We traveled to Fredericksburg, Texas this past weekend for the wedding of our friend KK. We got there via Secret Service detail (three black Tahoes) which transported us 280 miles southwest of Dallas. We coordinated last week which was helpful because otherwise we would have ended up with about nine cars across the state for no reason at all. If you think that's ridiculous then you have no idea what we are capable of. We listened to enough country music in those 10+ car hours and spent enough time on Texas backroads to twang up our accents and convince a less-discerning ear that we grew up in tiny triple-digit population towns rather than the Dallas and suburbs of our youth.

MK, LB, KR, BF and I were all staying at a B&B for the weekend. The owners were attentive to the point of asking about food allergies and showing us the proper way to close the icebox. We used six-inch voices the entire time we were there, but we had a great time and drank all of their coffee.

So the wedding itself was planned in eight weeks. This is a tall-order on it's own, so the fact that everyone was in place and the couple were pronounced man and wife after all was said and done was nothing short of an accomplishment. While some of our friends had wedding party commitments, the rest of us got to go to dinner together Friday night. Apparently a couple owns the restaurant; the wife is Greek and the husband is Cajun and the it's in Middle of Nowhere, Texas with Zagat ratings, so you can imagine how great the food was. Our friend AH pointed out that we made it through several bread-baskets and a bottle of olive oil with gusto, and likewise we managed quite well through salads, entrees and dessert. The place was very honky-tonk burger place looking, but if you used their same menu in any big city and put white tablecloths down, no one would ever know the difference.

The B&B girls got up Saturday morning and were served breakfast by the owners, which was great, then we went and tooled around Main Street in Fredericksburg for a few hours. The church where the wedding was to take place was about 30 miles from us, in Hilda, Texas, so we were showered and dressed and had our hair did and heels on by 2:15 PM. The church was even more remote than our restaurant the night before, but we found it and parked on the side of a narrowly paved stretch of road next to the church. Amid the gravel and rugged terrain in my patent leather heels I was thinking "why didn't I consider wearing hiking boots with this BCBG dress before?" which suddenly seemed like a valid option.

KK and her fiance had already decided they would see each other before the wedding and AH, the photographer coordinated to have the wedding party out at a family friend's ranch to take pictures the afternoon before the ceremony, so when we walked up they were taking more photos and seemed to be enjoying themselves. We made our way into the church and were shown to our seats by a bevy of 8th grade boys. NS, the groom, has been their Bible Study leader for the past few years, and one of their parents drove them down to the wedding to participate. They were very uniform in their blue blazers and even though were was some confusion over the proper way to escort a lady to her seat, they managed very well for being so young.

MG had an arsenal of bobby pins with her when we were seated because she had been on hair-duty all day with various members of the wedding party. Fifteen minutes before show-time she got another call and disappeared to the parsonage-looking house next to the church where the bridal party was waiting. The ceremony went well even despite a brief moment when the pastor put his left hand on the back of the groom's head and his right hand on the back of the bride's head to pray over them, and every girl on our pew let out a collective gasp because he was bear-clawing her chignon. I mean, thank goodness for hairspray.

We returned to Fredericksburg for the reception where we were greeted with delicious food and blue margaritas. We ate dinner and had wine and of course ended up at the table next to the 8th graders. KK's uncle and his band, who play country music from the 1960's and 70's were the entertainment for the evening. The music was great but the dancing required a partner, so after joking about it amongst ourselves I actually ran into the group of boys after a trip to the bathroom. They were sitting in a semi-circle of chairs and it did not take any convincing for me to get them out of the chairs and back into the reception room after I promised that my friends and I would dance with them. After a trip down middle-school dance memory-lane, complete with sweaty palms and non-reciprocated questions, the boys parents acting as their chaperones for the evening thanked our group saying that the dance "made their week" as the boys were finding the groom to high-five him and yelling "score!" If only guys our age were so easy.



Our night ended with a detour to Dairy Queen and a Mariah Carey sing-along before the carpool dropped us off at the B&B, only we were detained for a few moments by siren lights and a very serious police officer. Turns out MG had forgotten to turn on her lights after the DQ stop, which necessitated research that most likely included her SAT score and blood type because it took about 15 minutes and resulted in only a written warning.

On the way home the next morning CC, MG and I were driving back together, taking the scenic, non-I35 route and explained to every other driver poking along on the road or barreling through blind turns with a trailer hooked up to their Dodge Ram that they needed a seminar on road etiquette. Every time we passed one of them MG accounted for their bad driving by declaring "that explains it" regardless of the driver's gender, age or nationality.

We returned home to regale KS with tales from our weekend before crashing face-first into our respective beds. No one else crashed? That was just me? I would have taken my shoes off but my shoes were actually my Ugg slippers so there was no need. I couldn't help but think that a tornado must have whirled through my room while I was gone because surely I did not throw around the contents of my closet in such a reckless fashion on Friday morning.

I probably also thought I would never dance with another 8th grader after graduating middle school.


I love thee, I love but thee
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars grow old...
-Bayard Taylor

2 comments:

erin - heart in ireland said...

all of your friends weddings are just incredible!!

sounds like a fabulous time!

Andhari said...

First, I lost my concentration when I read the part of Dairy Queen. Hello, yumminess, I haven't had that in a while. Need a quick trip to the mall. pronto.

Second, I've never visisted B&B but always watched movies or shows related to it. How does that work exactly? Like you stay at someone's house or something and they included break fast?

I love the pictures :D looks like a nice wedding.