Wednesday before the wedding found us going out to dinner with the Spratlins and the Cowens at Tecalitlan. Not too intense.

Thursday found Bethie and her friendies going out for mani/pedi’s followed by a big pizza party for any wedding-goers interested in attending. The pizza was great and lots of people were there. The Bears lost. The intensity was increasing.

Friday, I had to go to a meeting and then run groomsmen to the tuxedo store to pick up rentals. Started to run out of time before the rehearsal. Sent groomsmen on the train and booked it home. Had a whisper fight with Bethie over which pants I was supposed to be wearing. The pressure was definitely on.

After the rehearsal, we went to the rehearsal dinner at Riva on Navy Pier. The manager of the restaurant was whispering to all the staff, “that’s the bride, so take care of her” as we were walking in, but nobody knew who I was. I kind of liked that… flying under the radar. Everyone ate and celebrated and some speeches were given. Brian said that I would have their support, but not their help. Michael said that Bethie peed in the car one time. Kelsey said that I tried to destroy the house, burn her toys and kill our cat, but that Bethie was great and she was happy to have her as a sister-in-law. Pete gave a rousing top 5 speech, and Mary Jo told us about “biss-a-biss.” Bethie stepped to the mic and I think started crying right away, so I had to grab it and do my magic. She did that a couple more times over the weekend, either crying or just enthusiastically shouting out one word at a time… “Yay! Love” “Wedding, y’all!”

Super intense now. I didn’t sleep well that night.

Saturday morning, Bethie and I did a walk to get the blood moving and work out some nerves. I drove her to her hair appointment and then spent the last few moments of bachelorhood playing xbox. I then went to pick up some groomsmen and realized Nick had been given the wrong color tie. I had a fraction of a second of panic, but picked up a new tie at the tuxedo store on our way out to the city. Got to Trish and Craig’s and had little sandwiches and beers. Put on a tuxedo. The photographer showed up and had us posing on the golf course. It was going pretty good, but then he told us to walk down the street “Reservoir Dogs” style and look tough. We obliged, but then asked if he could do some where we were all peeking out from behind some trees. That was a little more our style.

Headed to the church. It was all coming to a boil now. We sat in the community room, sanitizing our hands and reflecting on the word “community.” I got a small microphone put on me, and we all had some laughs over the fact that all of our pre-wedding conversations were getting recorded. We popped over to the gym to check out the junior high basketball game.

Then everyone lined up in the hall. Candy got a little teary right away, and I found that comforting. I guess because it meant I wasn’t the only one with a lot on my plate for the day. So we make our way down the aisle, followed by all the rest of the wedding party. I stand and survey the scene.

Bethie enters and I felt so disconnected from the whole place. It was like living in a movie. She looked beautiful and really took her time getting down the aisle.

The entire ceremony breezed by, at least for the folks sitting up on the altar. It was the full Catholic Mass, so I bet it went on for a while.

Afterwards, we did all of our church pictures and that did NOT breeze by. That took forever. And not because of the size of Bethie’s family but because of the seemingly random combinations of people. “OK. Let’s get two cousins, one mom, an aunt and a brother. Great. Now let’s get both moms, one dad, a sister and some nephews.”

Finally, we emerged and everybody stuck around for us (as they were instructed to) and waved sparklers in the air. It was great, but I was mortified that someone might accidentally catch Bethie’s veil on fire.

Everyone loaded their respective busses. We were on our way to take pics and the rest were headed for the reception. I brought my ipod and plugged it into the bus stereo. We had appropriate post-wedding tunes. Bethie had gotten me a six pack of Sierra Nevada for the beer cooler, which I had told her wouldn’t be enough. We were the last ones on, and our wedding party had managed to grab them all up. At least they’ve got good taste. I drank Modelos instead. All those beers made it so everyone had to pee, but we had to get through with pictures.

First stop. Bethie, I and the dog in front of the Chicago theater. At first, I was trepidatious. I thought people would yell at us for blocking traffic and causing a scene. But actually, everybody honks and claps and cheers. We were there long enough for only one crazy person to be bold enough to approach us. “Is this for real or are y’all doing a commercial?!”

Next stop, the bridge at Michigan Ave. We pulled up right behind another wedding bus that had just finished up. The dog didn’t make it in time for these pics. It started to rain, all of a sudden, out of nowhere. Bethie booked it for the bus with us not far behind. The rain screwed with our pics a little bit. Took some more pics in a parking garage for a gritty, urban feel. The dog would not cooperate with the photographer.

Twisted Bethie’s arm and the photographer’s that we might get one more set of the two of us in front of the Millennium Park fountains. Had to hustle. Getting sick of pics, but these would be the last ones. Bethie put on her cool, custom Converses, but I was disappointed with her sock choice.

Finally, we made it to the reception. I had a corned beef egg roll and some gin. The cocktail portion seemed super-fun and I wished I could have spent more time working that room, but it was time for dinner. Everyone files in up there and then we did our grand entrances. Our friend John did a great job doing our intros in the style of a game-show host. The dinner was great. I managed to eat all my food during the speeches. I’m good like that. JimP’s speech was great. Matt’s speech was great. Lynnie’s speech was great. She said I was the Abercrombie&Fitch of husbands. We got up for our speech, and I think I killed it. My only regret was that I started by saying we had some notes but that I wasn’t going to use them. Then I freeformed a bunch of great thank you’s, but I suspect most people thought I had all that stuff written down the whole time. I didn’t.

We worked the room for only a little bit, before dancing started. Time was really flying by now. We (I think) failed MISERABLY at our little couple’s dance, but that was probably the only hiccup on the night. Soon, everybody was dancing, and loving the band.

At one point, I stopped to chat with Dave, Tim, Rich, John, John et al and they were digging in to some scotch. I got one so we could do a toast and then I belted it. They were like “oh, we’re just sipping ours.” I had suspected as much. But I didn’t have time for sitting around sipping scotch all night - I had to circulate! I think I drank a ton, but being so the center of attention, you never really get drunk. I was all keyed up and happy to have so many people there.

Before you knew it, everything was over. We were at the bar downstairs enjoying a couple beers and wishing well along with the last of the well-wishers. I think we managed to send off most everybody into the night.

The next morning, I was exhausted, and I had pains in my back and shoulders I’ve never felt before. I think, from standing so tense for most of the previous day.

We managed to get all our stuff packed and out of the hotel. Bethie’s aunt had decorated her car “Just Married.” Cute. We got home, tidied our stuff, and did final packing for the honeymoon. Pete and Candy came by around 5 to do a handover of the house and the dog. We found somebody’s iphone in the street and I got in a fight with the guy’s mom over whose phone it was and would somebody please come pick it up. The guy came and picked it up.

We went to Bethie’s parents house for pasta and genuflecting on the previous day. Ate the last of the cake. It was SO good. We slept together in the same room(!) Then we went to Thailand.