Mucky Declarations

And now, presenting.... THE OFFICIAL WEDDING POST!!! (yes, it does deserve three exclamation points) To those few of you that read this that weren't there, you missed a lot of fun. hrm, where to start? Well, we arrived in the majestic town of Fulton, MO at about 10pm Wednesday night. Upon arriving at her sister's house, I immediately noticed the ever increasing stress levels of both Val, and her family. The tensions were not assuaged by the impending medical results that her family was going to recieve the next day. As per usual, Murphy's law reigns in the Day household (this is something that I have basically resigned myself to, as I have married into this family. It is quite contagious, as my life has attested to of late. There are varying ways of approaching this constant impending situation. You can either get bunched up in knots about every little mishap, or you can learn to laugh at all of the twists and turns that life throws your way. I think that I have learned(or at least am slowly learning) the latter.) We were also dealing with the atrocious planning that had basically been unavoidable due to the distance from the wedding location, as well as being bogged down with school, and not having Christmas vacation to plan, due to her other sister's wreck. There were tons of little pieces that had to fall into place, and thankfully, most of them did. Thursday was fairly uneventful for me. Val arrived about noon to take me all over town for last minute shopping for all sorts of things. I then learned that her mother had hoped to spend some time with her, and was under the impression that she would be an "interferance" of our time. I then suggested that they just take the day to themselves, and leave me behind, which they did. (always good to get in good graces with the mother-in-law) My family started to arrive about 5ish, starting with Beth's fiancee, Tim, who was driving up separately. Val's family is huge on first impressions, and being completely prepared for people when they arrive. Unfortunately for them, my parents forgot to call that morning, giving an approximate arrival time, leaving them with nothing but my guess of about 7pm. We finally contacted them, and the fun times navigating the extremes of the small town began. Val's family lives on a back country road on the far east side of town, while the hotel was on the extreme northwest side of town, with about a twenty minute trip, full of everything from curvy crazy roads, highways, and a cobblestone downtown, laden with stoplights in travelling from one to the other. We did finally get everyone where they were supposed to be about 6:30, which was survivable. Now, this was the first time that my family and Val's had had the opportunity to meet, and was the part of the entire event that I was the most nervous about. I figured that most of the actual wedding details would fall into place acceptably, I just hoped that the two families were not grappling at each other's throats in the meantime. It worked out just fine. There were many amusing moments throughout the evening. The most funny was probably my little sister, Hannah's encounter with Val's youngest sister, Carla. Hannah is one of those kids that it takes a significant amount of effort to get down, while Carla is aptly described as antisocial. She had brought a book for the evening, hoping to calmly and quietly settle in a corner somewhere, and let everyone else mind the casual chatting and storytelling. But Hannah quickly found her, and started up quite a one sided conversation with her, much to the rest of Val's family's amusement. Carla was amicable enough, but those of us that knew her realised that she was quite uncomfortable, and would not be disappointed to be removed from the situation for any reason. Another fun encounter, which I pretty much expected, was the meeting of my dad and Val's mom. After dinner, and a good bit of chat, my dad decided to take his few clubs outside, and chip some whiffle balls around the gorgeous countryside that graces that area. Val's mom eventually arrived, fashionably late as always, and met him and Hannah, and proceeded to converse. They are a perfect match, as they both are more than willing to discuss almost anything, and also love listening, and getting to know people. They were out for the better part of an hour before Val's mom was even introduced to the rest of the family. The evening went on without mishap, and my family all finally retired to the hotel, where my parents were pleasantly surprised that they had been given their own room for the weekend. Due to the ever incresing length of this post, I think that I will split it up into another one (or two) installments. I will endeavor to do so before the fond and funny memories are too hazy in my mind. Here are a few pics as a teaser: