About ten of us dragged ourselves out of bed at 6am to go deep sea fishing (except I didn't struggle to wake up, since I'd already established my wakeup time as the buttfuck of dawn every day). We boated out juuuuuust far enough so that you couldn't see land anymore (this is my nightmare! Titanic is like a horror movie for me) and dropped some lines. Now, my fishing/hunting/outdoorsman skills, or lack thereof, are well documented. So when I caught a fish within 15 seconds of dropping my line in the water, I thought maybe this would be a fresh start for me. Maybe this is a NEW Happy Gilmore. But alas, in the subsequent five hours, I only caught one other fish. As a boat, we caught over 100, and the next worst fisherman probably caught at least five or six. And I got two. Unbelievable. Also, I got a little seasick, so I spent about an hour staring at the horizon and trying not to puke. The only two of us to get seasick were Easy E and me, which *might* have been related to the fact that when we first got on the boat, we had a one-upsmanship contest that involved licking raw squid....but I'm gonna refuse to take responsibility for my own actions, and just blame it on seasickness. Just gotta find the ol' sea legs, mate!
That evening ADawg arrived, and now rolling 18 deep, we had some good clean sober fun: mini golf and go-karts. I can't properly explain how much fun I had at this place. I can't remember which comedian made the joke about how it's impossible to ride a jet ski and not be smiling (Daniel Tosh?) But the same rule applies to go-karting. If you can take a few spins around the track, especially with 17 of your friends all racing at the same time, and not have an ear-to-ear grin plastered on your face, then you're a better man than I. There's been a hole in my heart for the last 15 years or so, and I finally know that the only thing that can fill it is a good mini-golf/go-kart track.
I don't know if there was really an MVP that day; I don't think anyone had more than 5 or 6 drinks all day. Let's call it a 26-way tie and give three cheers to having fun without drinking!
THURSDAY
Thursday morning we teed off at Kelly Plantation, which despite the vaguely racist name that sounds like a scene straight out of Django Unchained, was one of the nicest golf courses I've ever played in my life. Just gorgeous. Once again, my golf game was mediocre, but I was like Forrest Gump at the bus stop: just happy to be there.
After 96 consecutive hours of lesiure time in Florida, it finally hit me Thursday afternoon: Oh yeah, we have a WEDDING TOMORROW. Obviously, beach weddings cut down a lot on the amount of planning involved, but on the flip side, when you have no wedding planner, or set venue, or even a regular pastor to assist with things, you kind of realize how every single detail for the entire day is on your shoulders. That being said, running through a wedding rehearsal is a LOT more enjoyable when you're not wearing shoes and you're drinking beer on the beach-- details or no details.
After rehearsal dinner we went back to the beach house for one of the main events of the weekend: the half-court shot contest between Easy E and Paul to determine who the best man would be. This ended up being even more fun than I originally envisioned. It helped that there ended up being a basketball hoop right next door to our house, so the entire party (probably about 40 people at this point) could watch. Alfonso, Katie, Manada, and Sarunas took it up a notch by making signs. Lane was blasting Jock Jams. Bets were flying around- with the official over/under being set at 16 combined shots. It was phenomenal, all the way around.
The first couple shots weren't very close, as both competitors tried to find the range (it was an 11-foot rim, so we moved the shot a little inside of half-court). Paul back-rimmed his 4th shot, and Easy E followed that up by missing straight-on but just short. They certainly had the basket's attention. The next few shots were off again, and then on his 8th effort, WHAMMO! Easy E buried it. Paul missed his mercy shot, and it was all over but the crying (and 50 years of shit-talking). Kyle got a great video of the winning shot and aftermath, but I'm not tech-savvy enough to upload it here.
Thursday night was a classic case of the Kegger Corollary, which I define as running around all night to talk to different people, and then the next day you feel like you didn't really talk to anybody at all. Easy E celebrated his half-court shot victory by sleeping for 45 minutes. He gets the MVP for the day.
FRIDAY
And then, wedding day was upon us. While the girls were doing girly things, Easy E, Paul, Bird, Gangel, JonJon, Schne, Kyle, Lane and I snuck off for a round of golf at Emerald Bay. The course, unfortunately, was a goat track. It was pretty because it was in Florida, but other than that, the course was pretty much garbage. If you're ever in Destin, don't ever play Emerald Bay. We probably should've hired their website photographer though; that dude did a fantastic job making that course look good on the internet. I feel like I got Catfished by a golf course.
That afternoon, I got some pool time in with the crew at the house, and if Jum the Bachelor was on Death Row, then Paul prepared me a great last meal: tuna casserole, one of our staples in Culligan Manor. Maybe the best piece of advice I got all week from married people was from Kyle, who told me that at some point before the wedding, I just needed to get the fuck away from everybody for a little while. So I went for a quick swim in the ocean, collected my thoughts, and got my head in a good place before I flushed my singledom down the proverbial toilet forever.
I didn't even really get a chance to get nervous, since the last hour before the wedding I was running around taking pictures, talking to the sound guy, going over the music list with Schne, going over last minute tweaks to the ceremony with Reverend Lane, etc. etc. Before I knew it, it was showtime.
This is kind of an obvious statement, but seriously: getting married on the beach is AWESOME. So much more relaxing and fun. There were a couple minor hiccups: I forgot to give P.A. a bro-hug right away after he gave Teens away, so there was a false start to the proceedings; Teens forgot one of her lines during the vows, but handled it nicely by asking Lane "...Line?" Well played. That's my girl. Other than that, it was smooth sailing. Walk down, get married, walk back. Bing bang boom. It can't be stressed enough that Lane did a phenomenal job. He may be able to start himself a little side job in Rhode Island. He already paid the $10 to get ordained-- it's all profit now!
Side note: Guys, I'm not sure I'm emphasizing enough how crazy it is that I got choked up during my speech, while Teens kept it together. Teens cries during EVERYTHING. She mercilessly made fun of The O.C. for the first year of our relationship, I finally convinced her to watch the DVDs....and she cried four separate times in the first three episodes. Marley & Me might as well have been called Teens Bawls For Two Straight Hours While Jum Periodically Checks His Phone And Says Things Like "Is the Dog Dead Yet? Is This the One Where the Dog Dies? Hey Teens, I Bet the Dog Dies."
My secret biggest fear of the wedding- of course I never mentioned this to her beforehand- was that Teens was going to cry throughout the ceremony, beyond the point where it's cute, meandering into the territory where the audience would be wondering "OK, what's going on here? Does Teens really want to go through with this? Is she a flight risk right now? Is Jum holding her at gunpoint? Has she been a kidnap victim this whole time and we just didn't know it?" But instead, Teens was a smiley, happy, composed bride-- and I had to bail on my speech because I was beginning to slide down Cry in Front of My Friends Mountain. Unbelievable.
My favorite random moment of the day: LZE surprising us by singing a song for everyone to slow dance to. Easy E had mentioned a time or two that she was a good singer, but he completely sandbagged us on this one. She is FANTASTIC. Jaw-dropping good.
The rest the night was awesome, except for the cops showing up for a noise complaint right in the middle of 'Apache', completely ruining the song. Personally, I think the complaint was made up, since our neighbors were leaning over the fence and having beers with us, it was a Friday night on the beach in a tourist town, and it was only 10pm. So I told the cop that we'd change speakers to something with less bass, but we absolutely would not stop playing music, as we had been bumping jams every night for almost a week now with no issues. He accepted it without much argument, which contributes to my theory that this was less of a noise complaint, and more of a "we've got our eyes on you fuckers tonight" warning from the cops. Still, it's a cool story that the cops came to try to shut down the wedding reception. Give it a few years, and I'll be telling people about that time I bitch-slapped a uniformed police officer at my wedding, turned the music up and danced the Apache in front of him, and told him to go buy a vowel if he hadn't solved the puzzle yet.
Once again I felt like I barely got to talk to anyone, when in fact I talked to everyone. And just like that, it was 1am, guests were leaving, people were going to bed, and the week was basically over. Probably the quickest and most fun week of my life.
Saturday morning we packed up and left, and Teens and I drove 17 hours straight back to Kansas. Yes, it was an absolute nightmare, thanks for asking.
More pictures are popping up here and there, and once we get our official photos from our photographer, I'll probably do a picture post of the wedding day, since you gotta give the people what they want.
