Toast & Tracy's Epic Ireland Adventure
August, 2006
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Day 
Four
The phone rang for our 7:30 AM wakeup call. Blearily, we dragged ourselves into our sweats and headed down to the hotel restaurant for an early breakfast. We had a long day in store. Nineteen hours, give or take, of full-tilt wedding activities lay ahead. But first, some important business. I excused myself from the table and ran downstairs to the lobby and the public internet terminal. Fired up CBS Sportsline. Scanned for the previous night's baseball results. Please, oh please let the Yanks have at least earned a split in the double-header at Fenway.... what? No shit. New York won them both? Ha ha. Heh heh heh. Heeeeee...
Promising start to the day. Yep.
On the way back to our table I deliver the news to my mother, aunt Loretta, and Toni-Marie. 'Cause, you know, I figured they'd want to know. (Grinning evilly.)
Having fueled up, we headed back to the room and got dressed for the ceremony.
Tracy borrowed the shawl she's wearing here from Toni-Marie, who bought it while in France. Toni, if you're reading this, Tracy still covets that thing.
The ceremony was to be held at a church back in Templeboy. To facilitate things, Tom and Kristin had hired a bus to take all the guests who had stayed at the Knockranny on Friday up to the church and back. This was a beautiful thing.
The 3 hours we spent on the round-trip bus ride were, without a doubt, the most stress-free we spent on the roads of Ireland during our trip. Owen, our driver, was thoroughly in command of his vessel. And, uh, if he wasn't, what the hell, right? We were in a bus. Who's gonna mess with us?
This guy here, the one hauling the giant dumptruck, driving 20 KmPH under the speed limit and taking up two-thirds of this particular strip of the Irish Interstate? Our man Owen smoked his ass! Fifty passengers roared their approval as we rocketed by the behemoth and resumed our prior pace, our on-time arrival no longer in jeopardy.
We arrived at the church right before noon and took our places.
Here's a close-up of Tracy, sitting in the pew in her wedding garb. What's that, you say? The curious head-gear she's sporting? Why, it's an antique hat with a lace veil and some, um, things sticking out of the side. Tracy picked it up, along with her dress, at a local consignment store here in Simsbury. She had emailed Tom to get the low-down on Irish weddings, and he had informed her that it was traditional for women to wear hats.
Guess how many of the fifty or so women in attendance wore hats?
Four.
Four women. That's how many. And the other three were all from the older generation.
Yes, lame, we know. It took an American girl to show the rest of the younger and ostensibly hipper ladies how to rock an Irish wedding Old School.
But I digress.
The ceremony started on time, by Irish standards. Like, maybe 15 minutes late. Not bad at all.
OK, ready for some wedding pics? Here we go.
First, my aunt Bon, mother of the bride, escorts Ryan, her grandson (Kara and John's son) down the aisle.
Kara: Sister of the bride, mother of the Ryan, cousin of the Toast.
Kim: Sister of the bride, cousin of the Toast.
Some of you are probably thinking, having seen that picture of Kristin earlier, "Wait, these three are sisters? Your aunt and uncle hit the genetic lottery much?"
Yes. Yes they did.
Mary Jr.: Sister of the Groom.
The bride, my cousin Kristin, accompanied by her father, Joe, my uncle.
This was an especially special day for my Uncle. Kristin was the last of his three daughters to wed. Kim had married her husband, Neil, last year, and Kara had married John back in 2002. Kristin's marriage to Tom was, in a sense, the end of an era, as the last of his daughters officially spun off to fuse into a new family unit.
Confession time: When I first sat down in the pew and read the program, which was approximately 138 pages long, I blanched. It looked like they were going to read the entire Bible. This was a full mass with all the trimmings and several side dishes. Not suitable for my ADD-riddled self at all.
Butcha know what? They blew right through it. Bang-bang-bang! One minute Kristin's walking down the aisle, the next minute the hardware is being installed. I was one happy attendee.
Oh and, yeah, by the way, it was a beautiful moment.
The Signing of the Wedding Contract.
And, rounding out the dramatis personae, on the right we have the groomsmen, Tom's brothers, Gordon and John.
To the left of the doorway to the church is the vintage silver chariot that carried Kristin and Tom down to Westport. Now that is travelling in style.
Oh, you'll note how the car on the right has ribbons crossing it's hood? Local custom has it that, after a wedding procession, all the cars carrying the attendees are festooned with ribbons and drive through town beeping their horns. I wish I had known this the night before, in Westport. See, we're walking about town and suddenly we hear a cacophony of horns, which was odd because drivers in Ireland don't seem to beep at each other. Looking over at the disturbance, I saw a car with a ribbon across its hood. Only I didn't know it was a ribbon. I thought the dude had been in an accident and the thing was there to hold his hood on. And, like, he had just almost caused another accident and that's why people were beeping at him.
Ryan really wanted to drive back to Westport but, luckily for all involved, Owen was back at the helm after a short break.
The ride back to the Knockranny was uneventful, except for the slow build of anticipation as we approached party time. When we finally arrived, Tracy and I took a few moments to freshen up in our room while the remainder of our clan checked in. We then headed down to the hotel bar/lounge to mingle and socialize and make ourselves available to the paparazzi.
Socializing can be so taxing, especially when one is burdened with interesting people, copious amounts of cocktails, and really tasty appetizers. Somehow, we managed. The highlight of cocktails for me was meeting Ben, a college friend of Kristin's. Why? Well, it turns out he's a Blazers fan and a UConn Huskies fan. See, I'd thought I was the only one. Who knew?
In any event, it was soon time to head into the reception hall. Terrible, terrible experience, herded like cattle into that place. Look at that bar. Does that look like an establishment fit for man or drunk?
And this? They expected us to eat this??? You have to be joking.
(No, really, zoom in on that schizzle and check it out. Torture, I tell ya. Torture.)
OK, so we gorged ourselves. We ate ourselves silly. The food was exquisite. Course after course, it came at us, a wave of flavors and textures and... (belch)... wonderful fullness. And wine. Oh, there was wine. Champagne. Beer. Whisky? Sure, a little bit. No doubt.
(sigh)
Life was good.
Whose kid is this? Beats the hell out of me. Tracy thought she looked like a Precious Moments figurine, so she stole my camera and took a pic.
Now, you're wondering where the rest of the evening went, no? Well, someone took pictures, but it wasn't me. If I get any additional stuff, I'll update this entry, I promise.
Here's the long and the short of it. There was a band that played for several hours. There was more drink. Then more food. Then, for good measure, some drink. Oh, and then there was a DJ.
We danced and drank and danced and talked and drank and danced and discussed the Red Sox's meltdown against the Yankees earlier that day (3 and 0!) and then we drank some more.
Suddenly, 2:00 PM had turned into 2:00 AM.
It had been a hell of a run, but Tracy and I weighed the situation and said... Discretion? Valor? Eh.... Bed.