Surprise Wedding in Apalachicola

Two weeks after the Bryan reunion, we headed back to Mexico Beach-for a surprise wedding between Monica and Becky.

At the reunion we found out that Becky had planned the entire thing and the wedding would be in Applachicola on Saturday October 22.  We'd wanted to go down for our anniversary anyways to have some time alone. That didn't happen (the alone time), but we had a great weekend. 

That weekend was also the Singers and Songwriters Festival in PSJ/MB. We went up to Lookout Friday night and surprise-ran into Monica, Becky, Paula and Janet. We/they all had excuses for why we/they were at the beach. 

We met some cool guys in the country music scene and heard some great music.  But then Donald found out the guy who wrote Garth Brooks major hit "Friends in Low Places" was going to be there and he basically lost his mind.  Truly, he was so excited. Then the guy sung "Friends in Low Places" and Donald became starstruck really. It was one of the coolest things he's experienced, I think. He couldn't stop talking about it.  "I mean, the guy wrote friends in low places." This was repeated all night by him. It was cute.

Saturday Donald and I and Daniel and Jaycie went down to the beach for a bit. We just brought chairs to sit and relax before getting ready for the wedding. We just sat around bullshitting for a while.

Jaycie and I had Mr. G's for lunch and then got ready for the big surprise wedding. Becky chartered a bus for everyone. It picked us up at the Veterans park next to their house and drove us all into Apalachicola.  So basically the plan was-Saturday was Becky's birthday. Certain family members were in town to celebrate that. They were all supposed to go to dinner in  Apalachicola and Monica and Becky were going to stay in a hotel. But Becky had secretly invited 60-something people, hired a band, secured a venue, caterer, etc...  When Monica and Becky got to the hotel, Becky told Monica what she wanted for her birthday-to marry her. They'd discussed this before many times, but whenever Monica started planning stuff, wedding anxiety kicked in and didn't want to go any further. So Becky asked if she could plan it and just one day tell Monica where to be. They agreed to this, but apparently Monica had NO idea this would be happening that particular weekend. I love surprises. So glad this worked out for the two of them perfectly.

Bus ride over....

Me: (Pointing) "Hey, look at that parrot."

Random Dude: "That's not a parrot, it's a macaw. Her name is Tater."

Me: "Oh, ok. Hi Tater."

Then this happened on the streets in Apalachicola before the wedding.

A day short of being married to this guy for six years.

So Monica bursts into tears when her immediate family busted up in the hotel room. Christopher and Alex were going to walk her down the aisle, Justin was marrying them and she had two hours to get ready. Becky had even gotten a dress for Monica based off of her measurements they'd taken for a fitness program. Sneaky, sneaky.  The ceremony was intimate-just very casual and quick on the pier/dock beside the water. Everyone else was waiting impatiently for their arrival at an art gallery down the block.

The reception was great.  You could really feel the love.  So happy we could be a part of it. The food was excellent too.  They had a guy there from Shipwreck shucking oysters. Donald said there should be oysters at every wedding.  And that cake they are getting ready to cut above despite what it looks like? It was Italian Creme Cake. At one point, a few of the ladies may have been shoveling in bits and pieces of it into their mouths. I may have been one of those ladies. So.good.  Jaycie and I got out on the dance floor and shook our groove thing. Me and Donald too. I've found the older we get the more we dance at weddings and events. Funny to me.

Pretty much everyone passed out on the bus ride back to Mexico Beach. Donald and I got in the very last seat and Justin was in front of us. There were a few people hollering out stuff here and there-mostly "Fireball?"

El Governor was decorated for Halloween like they usually do. I sent this picture to Kristi and told her Jason had booked them a room there.  Funny thing is, the hotel is divided by the elevator and to the right of the elevator there aren't any huge spiders scaling the walls. Guess they know not to do that otherwise they might not have a lot of business during that time of the year.