I was the last of our crew to get married and had always thought the bride and groom missed the best part of day - the after party. We scheduled our wedding for 11AM so we could get the reception out of the way and still have plenty of time for the party. It was an incredibly cold and windy November day, which prompted my best man to remind me just before the ceremony that I had always said it would be a cold day in hell when I got married.
I arranged and paid for the catering for the reception as my wife's mom didn't have any money and her dad was basically a shit. As the reception was winding down I asked the lead waitress how the liquor was holding out and was amazed when she said it was almost gone. I dispatched one groomsman to the liquor store with a few hundred dollars and another to a grocery store to buy a bunch of beer. One of my brothers stuck around at the end of the reception to bring whatever was left of the booze back to my house for the after party.
The waitress was mistaken about the lack of alcohol as my brother showed up at the house with a dozen full bottles. Added to what the groomsmen had purchased and my reasonably stocked bar, we had about three fifths for every party attendee plus several cases of beer (and a lot of recreational drugs). It turned out to be the party within our circle of friends that all others are measured against. The dinning room table was wiped out three times (one guy did it twice), I remember my uncle hitting on my wife's aunt (both married) while my best man was hitting on the aunt's daughter (both single). Some idiot flicked a cigarette butt off of the front stoop and into some leaves, which started a small brush fire. Thankfully, that was in front of the living room picture window so it was noticed pretty quickly. At one point I thought the party was going to die when one of my wife's cousins decided to sing "Misty" to us, but my brother returned from the drug enjoyment room with a cigar in hand halfway through the song and started howling with laughter. I've forgotten her reaction, but it couldn't have been too bad as I ran into her later in the drug room and she seemed happy enough.
By 9 PM I was giving people fifths of liquor as going away presents to get them to leave. We had partied the night before until 4 AM and were pretty damned tired, plus we had to clean the place in the morning before we left on our honeymoon. The last couple left around 11 and we finally went to bed. A couple of hours later there was someone beating on the front door and I had to get up. The only thing I could find in a hurry to put on was my wife's short feathery robe. I opened the door to see one of the groomsmen who had left his wallet at the house and had gotten halfway to Richmond before he realized it. He took one look at me and thought he had interrupted some kinky role playing, wedding night sexathon. It was an awkward conversation with him apologizing and me explaining that it wasn't what it looked like.
Quite a day. We went to The Homestead for our honeymoon and found the place practically deserted. I think there were less than 30 rooms occupied for the first several days. They screwed up our reservations and had us in a room with twin beds. When I objected, they put us in a three room suite that had a couple of fireplaces and a wet bar. The bellman brought some firewood up from the lobby fireplaces and kept us supplied for the week. 10" of snow fell the second day, which apparently made some people cancel their reservations. We ended up having the indoor, warm spring-fed pool with two story, arched windows to ourselves during the storm.
One last thing - the Catholic priest who married us quit the priesthood the day after our wedding.
I arranged and paid for the catering for the reception as my wife's mom didn't have any money and her dad was basically a shit. As the reception was winding down I asked the lead waitress how the liquor was holding out and was amazed when she said it was almost gone. I dispatched one groomsman to the liquor store with a few hundred dollars and another to a grocery store to buy a bunch of beer. One of my brothers stuck around at the end of the reception to bring whatever was left of the booze back to my house for the after party.
The waitress was mistaken about the lack of alcohol as my brother showed up at the house with a dozen full bottles. Added to what the groomsmen had purchased and my reasonably stocked bar, we had about three fifths for every party attendee plus several cases of beer (and a lot of recreational drugs). It turned out to be the party within our circle of friends that all others are measured against. The dinning room table was wiped out three times (one guy did it twice), I remember my uncle hitting on my wife's aunt (both married) while my best man was hitting on the aunt's daughter (both single). Some idiot flicked a cigarette butt off of the front stoop and into some leaves, which started a small brush fire. Thankfully, that was in front of the living room picture window so it was noticed pretty quickly. At one point I thought the party was going to die when one of my wife's cousins decided to sing "Misty" to us, but my brother returned from the drug enjoyment room with a cigar in hand halfway through the song and started howling with laughter. I've forgotten her reaction, but it couldn't have been too bad as I ran into her later in the drug room and she seemed happy enough.
By 9 PM I was giving people fifths of liquor as going away presents to get them to leave. We had partied the night before until 4 AM and were pretty damned tired, plus we had to clean the place in the morning before we left on our honeymoon. The last couple left around 11 and we finally went to bed. A couple of hours later there was someone beating on the front door and I had to get up. The only thing I could find in a hurry to put on was my wife's short feathery robe. I opened the door to see one of the groomsmen who had left his wallet at the house and had gotten halfway to Richmond before he realized it. He took one look at me and thought he had interrupted some kinky role playing, wedding night sexathon. It was an awkward conversation with him apologizing and me explaining that it wasn't what it looked like.
Quite a day. We went to The Homestead for our honeymoon and found the place practically deserted. I think there were less than 30 rooms occupied for the first several days. They screwed up our reservations and had us in a room with twin beds. When I objected, they put us in a three room suite that had a couple of fireplaces and a wet bar. The bellman brought some firewood up from the lobby fireplaces and kept us supplied for the week. 10" of snow fell the second day, which apparently made some people cancel their reservations. We ended up having the indoor, warm spring-fed pool with two story, arched windows to ourselves during the storm.
One last thing - the Catholic priest who married us quit the priesthood the day after our wedding.
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