Saturday 24th, 2016 - Justin's Bachelor Party
Normally, it is a bad idea to have your bachelorette/bachelor parties anywhere near the wedding, let alone the same weekend of the wedding. I think Justin knew this and used the name bachelor party as an excuse to take out his wedding guests to a beer-tastic adventure through Seattle. Yes Justin, I shall drink with you, I shall drink.
For those of you that don't know Justin personally, he and I are cut from the same social, boozy, foodie, ultra-planner cloth. I don't know another person who could rally a group of +20 people, plan a fun-filled, highly activity dense, and very unique experience (aside from yours truly). Justin's choice of weapon, Microsoft Office's very popular Excel.
But folks, awesome planning merely sets the framework for an awesome event. The rest of it is solely dependent on the guests. The people that attend the event will either make your event the best party since vodka was paired with red bull or the most boring party since the Let's All Nap party of 2014. Fortunately for Justin, and the sake of the party, all of the guests were psyched to be there.
The plan is simple. Go to a bunch of hand picked micro breweries, eat some great food along the way, and go as long as possible!
Since I barely landed by the time Justin's bachelor party started, took the ultra cheap and convenient Light-rail, to the super touristy monorail to the Seattle Center, then got distracted by hundreds of celebrating Italians and festival goers, I was pretty late to the party. No matter, plenty of time to play catch up.
First stop was Populuxe. I had a great creme ale here while I began the weekend long process of meeting all of Justin's guests. This is where my first indication that I'm terrible with names and my memory sucks harder than a dyson vacuum. I managed to not stumble on the people I knew who used to live in SoCal (or still do). I even managed to not have to search for the names of Justin's 3 brothers. But it pretty much stopped there. Even when a buddy of Justin's, who I had spent several hours with in a bar tried story after story to try and jog my memory; I drew a complete blank. He was able to recall every story about the time we spent together, including the details of my divorce, how badly I wanted a BMW X5, and that I was a huge UCLA fan. Granted, he drove an X5, and we were watching the UCLA game together, and I was probably very focused on my situation at the time; but I couldn't even recognize his name after he told me! Shame on me! If anyone has tried and true methods for memory improvement, please let me know. That ish is not a great way to show someone you were paying attention during your interactions. Anyways, sorry about that Karl.
Luckily, Justin's spidey sense noticed that we were almost late for our next stop on the brewery tour, and I was released from my the embarrassment of my terrible memory. On to Schilling's. This place is unique because everything was a alcoholic cider. That mean's every alcoholic selection was fermented from fruits into some very unique concoction. I will say that I was surprised to like mine. I normally avoid ciders like one avoids annoying people, but sometimes that's all you got. Luckily, Schillings offering were alcoholic, tasty, and only had pleasing hints of fruit. There was even a cider that was 40% alcohol. Basically it was hard liquor, except it was a cider. Justin's future father in law, Dave, bought Justin a pour of this and ended it passing it around for everyone to try. That ish was potent for sure.
Next stop, Freemont Brewery, where the plan is to set up shop, meet up with the bachelorette party, have some food, and drink more beer. I've been to Freemont a couple times before. Its got a really great open space inside and a really large beer garden outside. It's the perfect post-ride spot for cyclists, a great halfway point for you dog's walk, or a bulletproof reason to drink in the middle of the day. Most of Justin's group were several beers in so we arrived in championship mode to take on the next challenger.
The great thing about weddings, it that people from all parts of the bride and groom's lives meet one another. Its a very special thing to see the connections that stay alive after decades of friendship. Chances are, if the bride and groom are great people with great character, the relationships they keep are with people who are also high caliber. Unfortunately Justin is a jerk face, so all his friends were like a leaking air mattress, super lame. That's not true, all of Justin's friends were great people; Justin is still a jerk face though. :) Let's see how long you guys wonder whether I'm telling the truth or not, or are just confused because I refuse to get to the point.
The next couple photos are of Justin and Bev. Bev is Justin's Illini study and party buddy, the equivalent of Jeff and Brandon for me at UCLA. She and her husband, Mark, now live locally in Seattle, but she came from Illinois and Mark came from San Diego. Mark and I had several conversations on how all the Mexican food in Seattle, and perhaps the rest of the US all pales in comparison to San Diego mexican food. I'm so serious about this people. If you haven't had mexican food in San Diego, or in Mexico, you haven't had good mexican food. I'm not joking; New Mexico mexican food - no; Texas Tex-Mex mexican food - oh hell no; Taco Bell - staple your mouth shut, because you don't deserve real mexican food, unless you were drunk then I'd say "Make better choices". Half of the reason San Diego mexican food is so good, which both Mark and I determined on own own, is the hot sauce. In short, its the perfect spicy accompaniment to any mexican cuisine since the tortilla. Here's how you know you're at a good Mexican place: Everything is served in yellow deli paper, its cash only, they are open past midnight, their health rating is a B or lower, the cashier can barely speak english, they have at least one super outdated arcade game, and they have a horchata, jamacia, and orange bang fountain. Here is what you're allowed to order, a burrito, a quesadilla, rolled tacos (not taquitos), asada/carnitas fries or nachos, or hard tacos. If one of those things are out of place, walk away. Trust me. End PSA (Public Service Announcement) for the betterment of people eating mexican food.
Okay, I'll be the first to admit that this photo was a touch staged, but really, Justin held his schedule a bit longer for me to get the picture than normal but he was already looking at the schedule with a 5 hour energy emptying into this mouth while he tried his best to focus on the detailed print out of his Excel schedule. Yep, this is where Justin excels, no matter what is going on, he will keep us on schedule; he must have a bit of Japanese train conductor in him.
The next grouping of people are all smart ass M-Effers. Do you know what two people from MIT and one person from USC make? In this case, a lot of consumed beer. Let's draw some lines shall we? The dude in the middle is Garret, Morgan's older brother, and my former kickball captain for many seasons. He works at Boeing, and now heads up the software/programming development for a bunch of classified satellite programs; or so I've been told. Chris Morgan is in the foreground, and has left Google to lead the analytics effort of a start up company that basically looks at what you search for an look on the internet and automatically picks advertisements based on what you would be most likely to buy. Yeah, he's the guy that makes you say, "How did you know that I wanted a thanksgiving themed small dog sweater, Google?" The guy on the left is Carlos, graduate of the Navy Test Pilot School (NTPS). He's a certified badass. You know Tom Cruise's character in Top Gun? Yeah, that's Carlos, except he doesn't battle Russin MIGs, he's short, and brown, he wasn't in the movie Cocktail, and he doesn't have a seat on the Scientology Board of Directors. More importantly, Carlos is among the small percentage of people that can make me look like a n00b on a dance floor. I blame it on his shoes, you can't slide across the floor like Frank Sinatra without a pair of magic shoes. I checked on Amazon, you can't buy them there.
Things start to unravel a bit at this point. We find the pretzels and decide to play some games, a puppy shows up that's cuter than Anna Chlumsky in My Girl, and 4 deep dish pizza's are delivered to us, UN-CUT. What the heck are we supposed to do with this???? Oh, have Rob cut all the pizzas into a million pizzas, with a couple shitty plastic knives??? Okay, let's do that. Despite the pizza place, Windy City Pie, delivering the pizzas uncut, the Chicago style pizza was pretty good. This opinion comes from Justin and the brothers who all grew up with Chicago style deep dish pizza. Take notes people.
Now that the pizza had been all cut, Morgan and the girls arrive from their bachelorette activities to join the festivities. In response, we take Justin to get some water... it doesn't do much to help.
You know how you get to that point in the night where you can keep going or call it quits? This is that point in the night. So the plan is, me and a bunch of the guys get in to Anna's car and she drive us to Edmonds to continue the party, Justin and Morgan jump in the Suburban with Morgan's parents, Dave and Sharon, and a bunch of other people and meet us there, and everyone else follows suit. That is not what happened. We lost most of the party when we left Freemont, we lost a few more when went back to the house, and we lost a few more when we went to the brewery before the bar. Nonetheless, we did run around downtown Edmonds, I got lots of quality time with the bride and groom, and Morgan got piggy back rides from Justin and Anna. Successful night with oodles of shenanigans!
Sunday - September 25th, 2016, The Out-of-Towner's Welcome Party
Do you know what goes well between a bachelor/bachelorette party and a wedding? ANOTHER PARTY! Together, they make a party sammich with party bread and on the outside and party meat on the inside. My kind of weekend... parties and sammiches, though I kinda hate sammiches, unless they are hot sammiches, like panini's. Parties and paninis. Whoa, did we just transport to Ibiza? You bet we didn't, we're still in Edmonds.
It takes a certain couple to throw a party the day before their wedding, in their own home, and supply it with their own wine, and their own scotch, and do the cooking themselves. That couple welcomes the chance to create quality and uniqueness to their events despite the amount of effort it takes from their own selves. Yes we can all drop a bunch of coin and throw an awesome party, but when you see someone's personal touches, it totally puts it over the top. So for that, I say, THANK YOU Justin and Morgan for inviting myself and all these people into your home and sharing what you love with us.
Okay, so you know how I said I was bad at remembering names or whether I knew people or not? Time for it to bite me in the ass again.
I was talking to a guy next to Morgan and I go, "So how do you know the bride and groom?"
He goes "I'm Justin's dad"
"Oh I'm sorry, I'm Rob, Justin's friend"
"We've met before"
"Oh we have? Up here or down in SoCal?"
"Down in SoCal, we've gone to dinner a couple times"
"A couple times?!? Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I have a terrible memory."
So here's the plan, I'm gonna write everyone's name down here and forever have a little cheat sheet! Also, if anyone has any suggestions on how to develop a eidedic memory, please let me know.
First up, is a couple of the brothers. Justin is the eldest followed by Ryan on the right and then Erik on the left. Erik and I have spend a weekend together romping around Seattle with his girlfriend Andrea. He's a police officer back in Illinois. Ryan buys and sells small batch and obscure beer from all around the world. Justin usually gets a few bottles which mean, on a rare occasion, I get to try them. Ryan is also responsible for the wicked awesome brisket that was served.
Next up, Justin's mom, her husband, and of course Morgan and her mom Sharon. I didn't get any time with Justin's mom and her husband, so I have zero stories about them. Sharon however, I have never seen looking her best. Morgan and her mom are super super close. I think its great.
Plus one time! Not really, since both of these girls are pretty much part of the family. Andrea, on the left has loads of personality and has a great sense of humor. In the middle is Kevin, the youngest of the brothers. He recently moved to Seattle to start his career in healthcare. He can rip on a wakeboard. I still maintain that I'm better, but we have to go back into the water to find out. His girlfriend, Grecia, is sweeter than a bowl of maple syrup and has some crazy awesome, crazy huge, and crazy thick hair. It takes real talent to tame that beast. Grecia is going to school back in Illinois and serves in the National Guard.
Here it is folks, this is Justin's dad, Bill. This photo was taken moments before my foot got firmly lodged in my mouth. Justin's dad has a little red runabout boat that he let's Justin use in Lake Washington. I've said it before, boating around Seattle is one coolest ways to experience the city.
"Hey Rob! Take picture of the food!" Okay! The spread was pulled pork, mac and cheese, salad, bratwurst, brisket (which I didn't photograph), and big bowl of candy! I can tell you how good the food was, but I'll let the crowd of people in the pictures tell the story itself.
Enough of Justin! Let's talk about Morgan!!! Morgan did her undergrad at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. While she did, she made some great friends and a couple of them made it to the wedding! You will recognize one of them as the lovely Alex Mann, I'm pretty sure I've talked about her enough in other posts. The other is Phoebe, who still lives in Boston with her husband, Ben. I had to chase these girls around all night to get a picture of them together.
Morgan also had a couple wonderful family friends that she grew up with. The first is Anne, she's Morgans old elementary school teacher who has stayed close with the family. The second picture is another family friend, Karyn. Apparently she has a giant stock pile of pictures of Morgan when she was a kid. I bet there are some gems in there. With her is Jessica, Garrett's wife.
This is Sharon talking to more of the family, Linnea and Harry. Linnea is Justin's aunt. Chris and Lisa Morgan's little girl, Eliza, found a nice warm spot on the floor and settled into her iPad. She was later joined by Liam, one of Ryan's boys who was able to break the spell of the TV with Logan and Issac. Outside I found more of Morgan's family including Morgan's cousin, Joe, who stayed into the night with us.
These two are Russ and Puthik. I know these two really well and Russ and Justin are super close friends. They've got a full family of 3 kids now down in SoCal. You'll be hard pressed to find a picture of Russ not doing Blue Steel. I think he's still working on Magnum, Ferrari, and La Tigre.
Here's a picture of the two prettiest ladies in the room, aside from the bride of course. Rebecca is on the left, her and her husband Jason live in Canyon Country near Magic Mountain. They also have three kids and are super fun and nice people. Jason is Chaci from Chips (a CHP officer) minus the motorcycle and Rebecca is a RN. We spent a good amount of time with them at the party and the wedding.
Name memory improvement exercise: COMPLETE
Alex and I carpooled from downtown Seattle to Justin and Morgan's place in Edmonds via Uber and it came to that part of the night where the crowd was starting to thin out. So Phoebe and Ben asked if Alex and I were ready to go. Alex and I huddle up, confer with Justin and Morgan and decide to stay for the post party shenanigans. If you are the type of person that always goes home before the party ends. I invite you to stay out once or twice till the bars close, or the majority of the people leave, when people unbutton their collars and sleeves, completely let go of their guards, and are just themselves. Definitely my favorite part of the weekend for me, and Justin didn't disappear on me to pass out!
Monday, September 26, 2016, Wedding Day!
The wedding and reception was held at Delille Cellars, a wine vineyard, very Justin and Morgan. Alex had to go help Morgan get ready for the wedding, so I decided to just come with and help Justin with anything he needed. Upon arrival at the venue, I found a very sweaty and seemingly nervous Justin writing cards to his family. After a couple minutes of chatting, I asked Justin if he needed help with anything. He then asked me to check on the bartender because he was having trouble setting up the kegs. OH NO! The keg's have a problem?!? This needs the attention of an experienced keg... handler... person...; that'd be me. So, there are 3 kegs with 2 jockey boxes, which are basically a bunch of copper tubing that is shoved into a cooler that you fill with ice and water. The premise is, cool the beer as it passes through the line. So I help the bartender decide on a bar layout and set up the kegs and the jockey boxes and we're all good. The bartender then asks me "How do you know how to do all this stuff?" I sheepishly reply with "I.... ummm... like to drink?" Whatever man, I helped, be thankful, don't judge me, my doctor doesn't. :D
Right around this time is where Alex finishes helping the bride and Justin and Morgan head out for pictures around the grounds. We decide to do a little tour of the grounds. So the reception area was this really nice outdoor area that was tented with a really cool fabric ceiling that had pleats. It was definitely the classiest tent that I've ever seen, very appropriate for the occasion. Up the hill was a little pond with a fountain and just off to the side was a wonderful gazebo with colorful floral decor. Everything felt very un-Los Angeles. We swung around the pond to check out the actual location of the ceremony and along the way peeked into the bride and groom's photo shoot. The ceremony itself was held in this clearing that was surrounded with tall redwood trees. The bride, groom, and officiant would be on this little peninsula which was surrounded by very flat and calm water which basically served as a mirror. Super fancy pants. Alex practiced the passage from Corinthians that she was asked to read and I set up the GoPro and my camera to video the ceremony. Unfortunately, the fountain from the lower pond drowned out all the audio from the ceremony on my camera, and I only took crappy phone pictures of the actual ceremony. That's okay, Justin and Morgan paid for a real photographer, I'm there just for funsies.
The ceremony was short, which is how every ceremony should be. The longest part of the ceremony was waiting for Kevin to show up since he forgot his shoes at the hotel and had to go back. C'mon Kev! Step yo game up! (Yeah, I can't pull that off).
There was an hour or so of family picture time while the rest of the guests had fish tacos served out of the gazebo. I took the opportunity to sneak a few candid shots in along with a shot of the llamas; by the by, there were llamas there though they could've been alpacas. Oh and look, I'm in a picture too!
With the bride and groom officially hitched and the pictures taken, we all head to the reception for the part of the night that everyone is a pro at. The eating, drinking, dancing part of the night. Justin and Morgan open up the party with their first dance, right in the middle of the dining area. Now that I think about it, it could be pretty intimidating to dance while a bunch of people that you know really well watch you. But I suppose at that point, you're way too overwhelmed with the fact that you just got married to care. Justin and Morgan seemed to be in their own little bubble and could care less what we were doing.
And then the bar opened, jackets started to come off, stories began, and I went to do a lap with the camera.
Look! I got a normal one smile from Russ!
The couple decided to do a semi-served buffet line which ended up looking very presentable. No chaffing dishes or tacky giant platters of food. Everything was portioned and refilled as we went in a elegant way. I'm so used to having servers bring us the plates, that I really enjoyed being able to plate my own food. The food itself was very good. I really appreciated the 4 different veggies selections in addition to the salad; and of course the salmon and beef was good.
At some point while we were eating, Justin gave a wonderful speech where he thanked his guests for coming; though it was all a setup to do a public profession of his deep love for Morgan at the end. Nicely done Justin. I'm pretty sure I mentally said, "Awwwwww shiet, Justin. Way to kill it." Dave also delivered an extremely well rehearsed speech, which covered stories from today to all the way back to Morgan's grandma. Also, well done Dave.
Dinner - done. Next up, dessert by way of wedding cake! The cake was a very nice 4-tiered fondant cake. The was no tom foolery when it came to the feeding of cake. Maybe a bit got on Justin's nose, but still very civilized. Must be cause you're old Justin! Kidding, kinda, cause we're both old... Cake was quickly followed by the traditional father daughter and mother son dances which was followed by the open dance floor. I helped myself to a big serving of "cut the rug." 
Last call for pictures with the bride and groom people! Here's a hint, they are by the bar.
So all in all, a great wedding, a great reception and a great privilege to celebrate the union of two people that love each other dearly. I'm very fortunate to have know both of you, Justin and Morgan, separately and together as a couple. I have a unique perspective of your personalities and your relationship. I congratulate both of you for pushing relentlessly for the life that you two wanted, together, in Seattle, both fully employed ;) in a home you love, with family all around you, pair of cats, and a little red boat. I have no idea if it gets easier or harder at this point, likely it's both, but at the very minimum you will be on each other's team to make your way through life's challenges and adventures. I look forward to watching your marriage grow and being a part of it as much as I can. I love you both. My best wishes for you two and your marriage.
