Best Wedding Ever: Part II

Alright, Saturday morning. As I mentioned in Part I, I spent a good portion of the night sleeping on the floor unaware that one of my bunkmates had pulled some tail and slept across the hall. Realizing this at 5am and cursing his name, I pulled my aching body into the unused bed in the room and drifted off for another few hours.

Everyone who had flown out from the East Coast the previous day was jet lagged so we all woke up at around the same time. After obliterating the continental breakfast offered by the Coupeville Inn (the rest of the guests were not happy about us having drank all the coffee by 8:30am) seven of us sat on the floor of the second-floor hallway staring out the balcony window and trying to piece together the events of the previous night. It was about the time we got around to Sean’s exploits that the groom-to-be wandered in after finishing his morning run.

Scratching our heads trying to figure out where Sean was Diepold (the groom) says “Check Erica’s room” and pointed to her door across the hall. At that very moment poor Erica walks out of the room to see Diepold pointing at her and seven open-mouthed faces on the verge of hysterics. She made an immediate 180 and ran back inside and no doubt heard us scream with laughter a split-second later. A good five minutes later a tired Sean rolls out of Erica’s room wearing a sheepish grin and his clothes from the night before. Needless to say we all burst to our feet in a raucous round of applause which again, I’m sure that Eric heard. But she was a very good sport and eventually came out to take her medicine like a trooper.

Saturday afternoon was a slow hung-over trek of sightseeing around the island. Whidbey Island really is a beautiful place with a lot of natural scenery to explore. Deception Pass (a span bridge that connects the island to the mainland with a beautiful gorge beneath it) and Fort Ebey were the highlights. And it was just what the doctor ordered because by the time the shuttle arrived at the hotel to take us out to the ranch for the wedding at 4pm, we were ready to rock.

The ceremony was extremely well done. It was held outside with a view of Penn Cove and the Olympiads setting a backdrop for the happy couple. The service was brief and soon after it was time to celebrate.

While the wedding party took photos the rest of us were shuffled off to drink wine and play croquet and bocce. It was all very high-class and an unusual situation for most of us to be in. But we were pretty well-behaved having made a conscious effort to not repeat the previous night’s debauchery…until after the dinner service.

Dinner and Reception in the exciting conclusion…