There are wedding crashers, and then there are honeymoon crashers. Which are you?

As promised, the tale of the honeymoon crashers. I will preface this post with, though a surprise, it could have been worse. Our friends could have found us, and tormented us mercilessly for days. But no, these crashers were the more welcomeable kind and now it's a big joke between us all.

So we left PV around when we expected and headed for Manitou Beach, the "Carlsbad of Canada". It was a 3+ hour drive, so we were pretty tired when we got there. First things first, find the hotel. Well... that was easy. But figuring out how to get to our room, a little trickier. There was no night desk person, no note, nothing. So we went to the Hotel and Spa, and phoned. The manager tells us to look under the mat for our room key. How small town can one get? Thankfully it was there.

Sunday afternoon, we're walking around the quaint town, when we hear our names being called from a far. It was a couple from my church assembly, who happen to live 5 mins away. They had decided to come to the beach for the afternoon, being the weather was so great. So we visited with them a little, and went our separate ways.

Fast forward 2 days. We're sitting, have lunch by the beach. Errol spots this black Jetta with a red license plate, exclaims "oh, no" and ducks his head in just enough time to see my parents and the lady from Sunday, drive by. Well... Manitou is not a big place, so we ended up seeing them all again. Mom and dad had come there to go berry picking. They knew ahead of time that we were going there, but had made plans to come pick anyways.

Awkward. Really, whose parents crash their kids honeymoon? In all it wasn't that bad. But totally gives us license to tease them for a very, VERY long time.

Wedded Bliss

It's official. Errol and I married on July 19, in front of 200+ friends and family.
Despite the glitches, hangups, problems and rain, we were able to have it just the way we wanted it. It couldn't have been a more perfect day. It rained Friday afternoon, all night Friday, Saturday morning, to green things up, and managed to clear off in enough time to set everything up for the outdoor ceremony.
The sun even poked it's head out to heat everyone up!

My highlights of the day:
1) The valet parkers. Complete with white gloves, ties and rubber boots. Did I mention it rained so much before? The parking lot was veritable mud hole.
2) Seeing most of our family come out, even the ones that live far, far away.
3) Getting the Teen Girl Squad together once again. Like family, seems the only time we're all together is for weddings. I was too sad when one of our members had to leave before we could say hello.
4) Mudding after pictures. Bent my tiara a little when Errol went through a deeper than expected mud hole, and I went flying through the cab. Remember kids... always where your seatbelt when mudding.
5) The food and desserts and cakes. Everyone did a wonderful job. Kudos to the caterer for having never catered a BBQ before. They made a fine meal.
6) "You might be a redneck if your uncle marries your cousin". Tears streamed down my face, I was laughing so hard. For those of you who just stumble upon this blog... we were not related before, but do have some common, through marriage relations.
7) "Earl has to die". Again tears. This time down Errol's face when my dad retold the story of how he came to remember how to say Errol's name. For the longest time all he could think of was Earl from the Dixie Chicks song.
8) Getting to say hello to everyone when we cut the cake. We unexpectedly ended up cutting and serving it to everyone. I was thankful we did though, and had that chance to say hello to so many more people.
9) The wedding party. Everyone cleaned up so well, and a wonderful job helping get everything ready. And the kids were too cute, all day.
10) Lame as it may sound. The whole day was a highlight. I'm not a picky person, and had trouble making some of the decisions. But everything fell into place, and I can't thank those that helped out enough, for all the work they did. It was a community project, and everyone pitched in and "got 'er done"

Now... for some pictures. Our photographer, Guy, has posted a bunch of his formal pictures online. They are awesome. He's so good. Check them out!

And... apparently, it is going to take waaaay too long to get the picture attachment feature to pop up. so you will have to wait a little bit longer. This high speed satellite internet is great, until you ask it to attach pictures.

Next post... the tale of honeymoon crashers