It's been quite a long time since I've been part of a random wedding adventure so it's been a long time overdue.
Now that I've lost the car in a multistory carpark, made friends with a classic rock music loving security guard close to midnight and found out my son can't dress himself, those long overdue boxes have well and truly been ticked this weekend.
T-MINUS THREE HOURS TO KICKOFF
My wife's car is somewhere in the Sunshine Plaza Shopping Centre, but I have no recollection of where I parked it. So my son and I spend the next solid hour exploring elevators because we know we took one to get into the center from the carpark but are now vague on which one. A helpful cleaner sees us looking on the other side of the center, miles away from where it actually was. After consulting the local information center stand for any clues, they directed us to another elevator which was half full of some very confused teenagers, not really going anywhere.
'Are you guys just hanging out here?'
'Yeah kinda.'
Fair enough then. We found the car shortly after and just in time to solve the next problem that's popped up.
T-MINUS TWO HOURS TO KICKOFF - WE'RE OUT OF TOWELS
The entire time we'd been roaming the shopping plaza, I had been waiting for confirmation that the house we'd rented for the night was cleaned and good to go. And my wife got the green light...after she called them looking for answers.
'Oh didn't Booking.com send you all the necessary information?'
They had not. And lo and behold 3 lengthy text messages suddenly appeared explaining everything. And in the middle of them was a guide on what we needed to bring, which included sheets, pillow cases and towels. Which wasn't great finding out two hours before we needed to be somewhere important. #thankyoucovid
So along with a family friend staying with us, the hunt for towels at least began because we couldn't roll up a wedding smelling like we'd just spent an hour trying to find a lost car. The tourist shop next door to the house had them...for $30 a pop! That was a no so we jumped into the recently found car of wife and raced off to the nearest supermarket, managing to land in possibly the only Coles ever that does not sell them.
'No we don't have them, maybe try the cheap store on the corner?'
Disappointingly the cheap store did not stock towels. Until the lovely lady behind the counter suddenly remembered that they did stock beach towels and they were right over there. $15 a towel later and we now had something to dry ourselves with.*
*Of course they left you covered in new blue beach towel fluff and would have benefitted from a wash first but having no time to do that, we took what we could get!
FIVE MINUTES INTO THE WEDDING CEREMONY
'Dad I think I have a hole in the back of my pants!'
A quick investigation reveals my nine year old has managed to put his pants on backwards. Of course he ignored my suggestion of swapping them round to the correct direction and so they stayed that way the entire time. Personally I'd be mortified if that was me but I'm 31 years older than he is so there is that..
FIVE MINUTES INTO THE WEDDING RECEPTION
'We have XXXX Gold, some other XXXX beer variant and there's also a Summer beer.'
-The helpful waiter explaining the beer choices.
Since I've never been much of a XXXX fan, I opted for the Summer beer for starters. Which turned out to be a XXXX Summer beer. I did think about switching to wine but knowing me, it'd be likely I'd cop a XXXX Pinot Gris.
'DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT WRITING A SONG FOR THIS ONE!'
My wife forbade me from writing a song on those 'wedding memory cards' where you share nice thoughts and sentiments for the wedding couple. Of course I had no idea what she was talking about until she reminded me of a time where I wrote out a song set to the lyrics of Macarthur Park at one of her other relations unions. I barely remember that! (But that sounds exactly like something I would do...)
So for this one I wrote down the recipe for Sizzler's Fried Cheese Bread in amongst some nice well wishes. Which confused the MC to no end when he read some of the cards out over the microphone. He took one look at the recipe, furrowed his brows in bewilderment and then put it back in the box. Well points for trying.
CAN YOU COME AND PICK US UP?
Uber was having some dramas getting to the venue so after dropping the kids and Trevor back to the house, I was back in the car and on the way to pick up my wife and another bridesmaid. However I just had to get past security first.
Apparently the Melbourne Storm NRL team were also staying at the hotel which explained the security guard out the front when we first arrived for the wedding and now Dave the other security guard and his golf cart, positioned out the front as I rolled in close to midnight. After explaining that I wasn't an Uber driver (the 2010 dirty lancer was probably a good indication of that) I had to sign in and get a temperature scan to prove I wasn't plague ridden. While chatting away, I made the mistake of mentioning I originally lived in Richmond and suddenly a hearty chat about the woeful performance of the Tigers last night began in earnest.
Then chat led to music and Dave was thrilled to share some great stories of Aussie bands and skydiving to Tom Petty. I think Dave was thrilled to finally have someone to talk to that late at night and it took a full fifteen minutes before someone else arrived at the venue (possibly an actual Uber driver) before I could get back in the car and go and pick up my passengers.
Thankfully the next day was completely drama free! (Here's hoping the next wedding is uneventful too!)
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