Miami Wedding

A friend from college got married this weekend. There were alot of good, funny moments and alot of other moments that are by no means related to good or funny. Yet.

We drove to Miami, Florida at 12:30am Saturday morning and left at 12:30pm Sunday afternoon. The wedding was at 6pm, Saturday. So, we were given a time of 12 hours to drive. That means we would get into Miami around noon on Saturday. That would give us time to rest, shower, and go to the wedding. The groom's mother has a condo in downtown Miami that she let us borrow for the weekend. We didn't have the keys or the room number. We didn't know that his mother was divorced so she was not using her married name. We didn't know where anyone or anything else was. We tried calling the number we had and noone answered. We got into town around 10am and we drove around until 3:30pm before we were in the house. So, that gives us a couple of hours before we had to be at the church. The Honey gets a few minutes of shut eye while I want to clean the road off of me. Let me tell you, a steaming hot shower can cure all ills. I wake the honey up and we try to follow directions we hadn't written down and we were about 20 minutes late to the wedding. We found the church by some strange act of God and sat on the wrong side of the church. We left the church to go to the reception and got there an hour later than it was supposed to start, but by some strange act of God, it didn't start until after we got there.

You know how someone gives you directions with abbreviated names as if you know what they are talking about? Well, let me tell you, Biscayne Blvd and Key Biscayne are not the same thing, even if you are told to follow Biscayne out to a resort, You're supposed to go to the island, Key Biscayne, and follow THAT street to the Ocean Club, not Biscayne Blvd, which only takes you north towards Aventura. Which is neither Miami nor Key Biscayne. Honestly, we spent so much time driving this weekend that when we stopped for food on the way home, The Honey wanted to stay inside because he couldn't stand going back to the car just yet. We spent 35 of the past 48 hours in the car. Driving. Trying to find things. Every bit of our time in Miami was spent trying to find something. The Apple Store, The yarn shop, The groom's mom's house, the church, the reception, the way back to the house, the way we came so that we wouldn't go to other cities. We made so many wrong turns, I think the security people started to communicate to each other about us.

When we were driving, we hated Miami. But when I saw my friend's beautiful, smiling face, when I saw how proud my Cuban mama was (my friend's mom and I adopted each other as family), when I saw people I hadn't seen in forever, I was glad to be there. Wilma did so much damage. The clean up, street closures, street lights that are out... it gives Miami a sort of third world country look that doesn't go well with the sleek building and even sleeker people. People are working overtime to get things back to normal, but, as my Cuban poppa says, "In Miami, when the shelter in your back yard blows down, you just go out and buy a new one." He is just grateful that he was in the US when all this happened. For him, he was out of electricity for 6 days, but some places that experience this kind of devastation, or worse, are out for years. He knows he's fortunate and I was glad to understand that.

The wedding was beautiful and almost completely in Spanish. The priest spoke heavily accented english, so that means the entire service was in Spanish for The Honey. The bride and groom had been dating for 9 years and when the priest heard this, he said, "9 years! This is like marrying a brother and sister!" But it was awesome because it was beautiful and not understanding any of it kept me from tearing up too badly and ruining my eye makeup (which might not have been that great to begin with). We did alot of kneeling and at one point, I got to kiss my husband and shake hands with the people around me. I don't know what that was all about, but we did enjoy the kiss. Every marriage reminds us of ours and makes us feel even more like newlyweds (as opposed to old married people).

The reception was beautiful and I got an awesome picture of my friend dancing and laughing (which, when I post, I will delete everything in these parenthesis and put her picture instead). We had great dinner companions and I felt honoured that though I wasn't a bridesmaid (and I am quite fortunate for that) I was sat at the table with the other bridesmaids (most of whom I knew or had heard of for the last 9 years). We laughed and talked and drank too much champagne (except for The Honey, who had to drive - remember 35 hours driving). We took pictures and ate the most awesome steak with red wine pairing I'd ever had, followed by the best chardonnay with giant prawn pairing. Next came the time of sleep that was the most in our time there (10 hours).

We had to wake up early for the wedding brunch, a smaller, family and close friend affair that I was honoured to be invited to and I got to talk with everyone alot more. It was super hot outside and there was enough damage to know that hurricanes are no respecters of person. With another wedding as our backdrop, we got to celebrate, with mimosas and omelets, the fact that two such good friends were also now husband and wife.

Despite how irritated we got when we couldn't find where we needed to be, The Honey was such a trooper. To get to the wedding, he drove like a bat out of hell. I was holding onto the door for dear life, part scared to death, part proud as hell. The fact that we were late had absolutely nothing to do with his driving. Normally, he drives like an overly cautious mother. Then, he was driving like me in Los Angeles. It was awesome. And when we had driven an hour in the wrong direction, he still turned around and took the exits I told him to take even though at this point, he would rather have gone to IHop and gotten a coffee than drive any further to a wedding reception. He did everything I asked him and then more, and I learned just how much my husband continues to love me.

It was a grueling weekend, it was the best and worst weekend at the same time. The things that were inconvenient were very inconvenient. It was everyone's fault that things were as bad as they were (we could have gotten all info earlier, they could have called back) but everything worked out. (I also remember that she drove the same amount of time for the 15 minutes it took me to get married and I didn't offer anything more than a casual reception that lasted less than two hours. At least she made it two days of activities for our drive). The Bride was beautiful, the Groom was happy, a new life was started and I am more than glad that I was there for it all.