A Wedding, and Some Things That Annoyed Me

Hello again! I got home from Niko and Bryan's wedding today, and I am going to tell you about it. My trip started off inauspiciously, because I was extremely angry for... reasons. I was angry all day at work on Wednesday, I was somewhat annoyed on my drive to Julia's Wednesday evening, I was much less annoyed Wednesday night with Julia (except a little bit annoyed because she made cookies that I couldn't eat and they smelled really good), and then I was annoyed again on Thursday when I had to buy a bathing suit, but that was mostly because I think it would be hard to buy a bathing suit without being annoyed. I really like the bathing suit I bought (even though I didn't get a chance to wear it over the weekend), so I swung over a little bit into manic, and bought myself a manicure after I stopped in a strip mall to pick up a black binder at Office Depot. I got lunch in Minneapolis, did a lot of reading, drove all over Minneapolis to keep myself occupied while I waited for Teddy to get off work, and then drove down to Northfield to meet him for dinner. We went to Chapati, where I was in a great mood, because Chapati is delicious and I thought it was hilarious that they still have the mirror up that our friend John broke freshman year of college. Teddy and I responsibly only watched one episode of a TV show he's been enjoying, instead of multiple James Bond movies, and went to sleep around 8:30. Still, I was very annoyed again the next morning, because we had to get up at 3:15 to leave for the airport. Teddy's dad was kind enough to drive us to the airport, and we were there in plenty of time for our 7 AM flight to Fort Meyers.

The flight was uneventful, but I was back to being annoyed pretty much immediately because we rented a car from the world's sketchiest rental car company. Their office was suspiciously far away from the airport, and they didn't have the car we reserved when we arrived. So instead of a Toyota Yaris or something similar, we ended up with this stupid VW Beetle, which I hated. God, I hated this car. A note on the weather: obviously it was warmer in Florida than it is in Fargo, but it was cloudy and rainy when we arrived, which I was also unhappy about. I was also expecting central Florida to be pretty, for some reason, but it's not -- it's flat and really boring. So poor Teddy was just doing his best not to make me any angrier than I already was -- I was driving down this ugly road, in what soon turned into torrential rain, in this car that I hated. We took a lunch farther away than I think we realized, and that added quite a bit of time to our drive. We also hit traffic outside of Miami (at rush hour, go figure), and in the Keys, so what was supposed to be a five hour drive turned into a seven hour drive. By the time we were close to Key West I was convinced we were trapped in some kind of sadistic version of Zeno's paradox, where every time we would make progress the speed limit would drop so that we were always an hour away. Finally, FINALLY we made it to Key West, and after struggling with the gate at the condo we were staying in for a moment, we were home. Everyone else had gotten in earlier and had gone out to eat, so Teddy and I showered and changed, and went out to meet everyone for drinks in downtown Key West.

Obviously we got lost first, but when we arrived and I saw Niko and Bryan I wanted to cry I was so happy. I had a drink and sat down to talk to Hannah and Niko, and then mostly Hannah as Niko went around to talk to all of her guests who had arrived. Oh my God was it good to see my girls. I have so many wonderful friends, all of whom I'm grateful for, but there's no one quite like these two. I almost never get to talk to Hannah because we both have weird schedules, so we got to catch up, which was great. There were a lot of people there but I really spent most of my time with Hannah. As the evening was winding down, Pat came over and talked to me for a while, and then Hannah, Pat, Teddy and I went back to the condo for the evening.

We all got a good night's sleep, but I was awoken by the sound of a rooster crowing, which I assumed was someone's weird alarm clock, only to discover later that it was actually a rooster. Apparently, after cock fighting was banned everybody just released their roosters, so there are just hundreds of feral roosters all over the place. Very strange. Anyway, Saturday morning we went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of food and champagne for brunch. Pat cooked while Teddy, Hannah and I had mimosas. We all ate on our deck, which was lovely and warm, but also overlooking Highway 1, and infested with feral roosters (pros and cons). After brunch we all got changed and made our way over to the resort where the wedding was taking place.

It was supposed to rain all weekend, but Saturday turned out to be incredibly nice. It was a little overcast, but it didn't rain, and the clouds, I have heard, are better for photos. After a pre-wedding cocktail hour, the videographer, photographer and wedding coordinator gave me some instructions, and the wedding began. I'm not going to go through everything that was in the ceremony, but here's one sad spoiler: there wasn't a single One Direction reference (I'm saving those for Julia and Dan's wedding, get excited guys!!). I also didn't cry at all, which was nothing short of miraculous. Nikoleta and Bryan's vows were beautiful, and they were (and are) both so incredibly happy during the ceremony, and at the reception and afterward. Obviously the reception was amazing -- after dinner we all got a little drunk and danced for hours. All of the speeches were great, but Niko's brother Mike really stole the show. He started things off by saying, "Nikoleta, I'm going to tell you three things every woman should hear on her wedding day: you're tan, you're skinny, and you're hair looks great," and it really only got better from there. It was so nice to be with so many friends, and with people who are so important to Nikoleta and Bryan. Just a perfect wedding, honestly.

Which all brings me to something else I'm annoyed about: now I want to get married again. Haha, you're thinking, oh how the mighty have fallen, or something. Here's the thing about marriage (no, here's the thing about Hannah's and Niko's marriages): the participants are so happy. I have been friends with these two women for more than eight years, and even though they're both (and always were) generally happy people, they seem even happier in these relationships. Ok, so that's great for them, but it still doesn't make it the right thing for me necessarily, especially because I plan on having to move around a lot, one of my favorite things to do is listen to one song on repeat, loudly, for literal hours, and I seem to have lost the ability to form romantic attachments to people (which is probably a whole other blog post, but I'll leave that one alone). But two things have me questioning all that reasoning: #1, boy did I want to get married this weekend; and #2, when I got back to Fargo and was finally alone in my apartment, after having been around some of my absolute favorite people in the world for the weekend, my first thought was, 'this kind of sucks.' I wouldn't call myself lonely, but when you're with people you love so much, it makes being by yourself feel a lot worse. So anyway, that's something weird I have to think about now.

Anyhow, the rest of the trip was extremely mellow and wonderful -- lots of hanging out, lots of delicious food, spending time outside, and gorgeous sunsets. Teddy and I made it back to Northfield after a grueling day of more driving, multiple flights, and extraordinarily expensive airport beer last night, and I drove back up to Fargo today after lunch with Julia and Liz. This weekend was so great and exactly what I needed -- I'm not sure when I'll see this group of people again but I hope it's soon.