So folks, the wedding was a blast. Thanks to everyone who made it into such a wonderful, fun day and night. The day flew by! Actually, the whole time we were home was a whirlwind. Let me begin....
The whole wedding/home trip began August 22nd when Agnes flew home to Cincy to finalize wedding plans and arrangements. She flew right into Cincy which worked out great and she was able to get lots of things done. In the meantime, I was in London for work, finishing up some things.
On Saturday, August 24th, Aggie and I met up in Chicago. I had to work at the E&Y office on Monday and Tuesday, plus our friends from Ireland (Laura and Robbie) who were coming in for the wedding were meeting us there. All worked out really well except for the fact that it took Aggie about 2-3 hours to get to the O'Hare airport that morning to meet me because of all the construction on the "L" that weekend. I ended up waiting for her (instead of the anticipated vice versa)! Once she finally got there, we jumped in a cab and headed to our hotel in Lincoln Park.
We got settledin and I went for a jog along the lake. Aggie went for a long walk with Kelly (one of her old roommates) around the neighborhood. Then that evening, we went to the airport to get Laura and Robbie. It took them 2 hours to get through passport control! Our evening plans changed a bit due to this delay, but we did get to meet up with our good friends Darren and Nicole and Pete and Liz. The other great thing about the delay was that it gave us a reason to rationalize getting late night Pequod's pizza....one of my favorite pizza joints in the city!
On Sunday we and the Irish went to breakfast and walked all around the city. That evening, Aggie went to Nicole's for a "trial" wedding hair practice thing (Nicole was Ag's hairdresser for the wedding). Me and the boys, in the meantime, went to Fogo. For those of you who don't know, Fogo is the all you can eat Brazilian meat house. We filled our bellies and basically ROLLED out of the place. We met up with the girls at a bar later that evening for a quick drink and then to bed we went.
Aggie and the Irish went shopping and hung out most of the day on Monday when I went into work. That evening we went to Emily and Nimesh's for Indian food and a few fun games of Nintendo Wii. Talk about a good time and working up a sweat! Bowling, tennis, golf...you name it, we played it.
Ag and I left Chicago on Tuesday for home. While we were home we just relaxed and did a few more wedding things....Ag had her last wedding dress fitting, we finished some arrangements for the reception, etc.
Friday morning was when all the fun began! We went to Dayton to pick up our good friends Steph and Pete, who flew in from Seattle. The car ride on the way back from the airport was far from quiet as Pete and I sat in front and discussed all of ND's football issues. Ag and Steph kept jabbering about the wedding, friends who were coming, etc, etc. We got back to my house and we boys went to get our tuxes. The girls went on to Ag's house. She was suprised with 2 dozen roses waiting for her there! From me of course!
Later that evening we all met up at the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. My parents did a wonderful job putting things together for the evening. We did a "wine" theme to the whole thing, so the center pieces were empty wine bottles with cork candles on top. There was also fruit around the bases of the bottles. Thanks you's and favors to most of our wedding party were wine pourers, wine bottle openers, bottles of wine from France and Italy, etc. Everything went very smoothly and the there was even a slide show of Aggie and I growing up which was great! (Thanks go out to Mike and Kelli!!)
The wedding day came and went....Ag and her sisters were all getting ready at her house and I headed out there for some pre-wedding photos (yes, we saw each other beforehand). She was waiting for me in her dress and veil outside and she looked amazing. Once I refocused, our photographer started getting to work. (We have actually seen the pictures already and they look awesome! We should have them up for your viewing pleasure soon!)
After our "couple shots", we went to the church and took some of the wedding party shots there before mass. Then we had the mass and Fr. Tim did an excellent job for us! After mass, the wedding party and parents all piled into a limo bus and off we went to get a few more pictures at the Fitton Center in Hamilton. Once those pictures were finalized, we dropped the parents back at their cars at St. Pete's and onward we went to the reception!
We were a bit early to our own reception, so we hung out in the hospitality room, had some appetizers and drinks and watched the horrible ND game....just until halftime. We decided to mingle a bit with our guests and so out of the room we went and into the atrium where the cocktail hour was being held. We tried to speak with everyone, but it was tough to make complete rounds!
Everyone was finally seated and we got announced into the ballroom. We did the cake cutting and first dance and then we sat to eat. The food was gggggooooooodddd.....we were very pleased with the service that that Marriott offered. They did an excellent job.
The toast followed and, maybe I am being biased, but Ann (Agnes' sister), Zach and Josh gave some of the best speeches I have heard at a wedding. Both were very touching and funny. All I have to say, is "It must be love!".
The rest of the night was a blur as we walked around saying hello to people and catching up with friends and family. It was such an amazing thing seeing everyone you love and are close to in one room!
After the ballroom was shut down, we all headed to the hotel bar. There were about 20 of us there just chilling out. Then, the Irish began to sing some songs! All 5 of them starting singing some of the old Irish tunes and for some reason, Ryan Larkin was singing along with them (he knew the words)! It was a great time. Aggie and I retired to the honeymoon suite after we shut the bar down, but the rest of the group headed across the street to Mesh and BW3 for late night treats.
The next morning we held a brunch at the hotel for all the overnight guests. That was a huge success, the amount of food was perfect and the coffee was refreshing (and necessary). That day we just headed back to my parent's house to hang out and chill. Later that evening we all went to Aggie's for a BBQ. We made a big fire in their fire pit and roasted marshmallows and made smores. This was a first for the Irish and they LOVED the smores.
All five of the Irish left on Monday and we all just relaxed. Monday night Aggie and I made arrangements to stay till Friday, the 7th. Both Aggie and I were so tired and just on a high from the wedding that leaving the next morning didn't seem right. We were originally supposed to leave on Tuesday, Sept 4th to head back to Zurich. Long story short, we made some calls, transfered a few thousand miles and completed a few online surveys to get more miles (even after the miles transfer, we needed a few more...), etc to make it happen. Our new arrangements were to leave on Friday, Sept 7th and arrive in Zurich on Saturday, Sept 8th (today).
Not only did we want to stay to chill, go through gifts, have Skyline, etc. but I wanted to be around to support my dad. Unfortunately, my grandpa hadn't been in the best health and he actually passed away on Thursday. I was happy to be there to help and support my family as much as I could.
So, we then left yesterday for our 24 hour quest for Zurich. Because we changed our flights at the last minute, we only had so many flight options for our return back to Europe. We had to fly out of Chicago, there was nothing they could do to switch us to Cincinnati. Fine. Aggie's mom took us to Indy and we flew on a cheap flight from Indy to Chicago on Friday morning at 10:30am. We got in and landed at Midway. Well, we now had to get to O'Hare....which is about 45minutes -1 hour from Midway.
Our remaining flight schedule was as follow:
Chicago to Detroit; leave at 6pm and arrive around 7:30pm
Detroit to Amsterdam; leave at 10pm and arrive at 11am today, Saturday, Aug 8th
Amsterdam to Zurich; arrive in Zurich around 1pm
We landed in Midway with no problems and signed up for a shuttle to O'Hare. Well, it's a miracle we didn't die on the way to O'Hare! It ended up that we were in the jive and gettho van. One of the passagners whips out his rap CD (actually, HIS...he was a "performer") and the driver was all about playing it. Then the driver managed to weave in and out of traffic like it was nothing, leaving us feeling like bobble head dolls just bouncing around in the back seat. We finally got ot O'Hare about an hour later and were so happy to be on solid ground.
We got ourselves and our bags checked through all the way from Chicago to Zurich and we were set to go. We went to the Chili's at the airport and had some food and drinks. Finally, it was getting close to 6pm so we headed to our gate for our flight to Detroit. Of course, we didn't board till 7pm for our flight and then sat on the runway for 20-30 minutes due to bad weather in Detroit. An announcement came on the plane and said that because Detroit was so backed up and delayed, no one should have issues with connecting flights. Everything was behind schedule. Well, long story short, we finally land at 10:10pm and our flight was set to leave at 9:50pm. We literally sprinted to our gate, hoping for the best. When we got there, we see the ticket lady walking away and the plane backing out of the gate. We were crushed! We were so close yet so far away....
Of course, there were about 10 other people on our flight trying to catch that plane too, so why they didn't radio Detroit and ask them to hold the plane is beyond us. Talk about a mess. We went to the customer service area and there were additional 5-6 people trying to rebook flights too. Long story short, we were put up in the Best Western Hotel and given $60 bucks worth of airport/meal voltures that work with many resturants in the area.
We got to the hotel and went to the over priced and limited selection giftshop. We bought underware and deodorant. (The front desk gave us toothbrushes and toothpaste; very generous of them I must say.) We then went to the hotel bar, the Palm's Lounge. Talk about a bad movie! The waitresses were so bad and you could tell they hated their jobs...and each other! The decor was struggling in the place too. The only good thing was we could get a few beers and take them to our rooms. We then ordered some food from a nearby pizza place and chilled for the night. The best part was that as we were laying on the bed, you could see (and hear) the planes coming in for landings. I thought one was going to come through the window! The highway and the view of the large parking lot outside our room made our honeymoon suite top notch!
Today we went down to the contential breakfast and we had our selection of a few pieces of bruised apples and bread. The coffee was average too. The oranges were delicious though! We are now sitting in the Detroit airport once again. We hope to never return here as we feel our time in Detroit is done and done! We leave in a few hours for Zurich and keep your fingers crossed all goes well....
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