The Wedding

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  Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States
Friday, October 20, 2006

Medieval Nights

Last night was crazy. We went to Murphy's bar, an Irish theme pub - the one I was at on my first morning here. There, we partook of a Medieval feast, which consisted of: A bread bowl soup, soup inside a hollowed out bread bun, which was great. Then chicken breast (CHICKEN!) which was fantastic, followed by barbecue pork ribs. No cutlery, just tearing off chunks as you eat with waitresses plying us with white, red wine and mead. During all this, there is a guy dressed up as a king with all his maids and what not around, playing the harp, flute and singing ye olde goode tyme songs. rather entertaining, in a freaky sort of way. The frightening bit was the other people who turned up, in full costume, with staves and crowns and pinkerwinkles or something like that. Freaked me out. Will send some photos on soon when the rellies pass them on as I neglected to bring my camera.

A few days

I know I should have been updating regularly, but shit got a little out of hand. Went to the shops the other day and left my cousin here alone. We got back from a fairly uneventful beer run - also rented some body boards and a surfboard, had some fun in the sun. So anyways, we get back and my cousin is asleep on the couch. We try to wake him, and what do you know but he is dead! Stone cold dead, was allergic to peanuts and I'd dropped one in his beer before we left the house. Now, we had arranged for a ton of people to come around and party at the beach house that night, so we were hardly going to call it off on account of a death in the family. Thus we proceeded to attach strings to his arms and legs, and enjoyed a party while my cousin lay decomposing on the couch. At one stage he even hooked up with a chick and....wait, that was Weekend at Bernie's, one of the best damn films made in the 80's. Watched Footloose the other day, and all I can say is "Jump back man" Awesome. But I digress... We had five 30ish year olds here for the 3 days leading up to the wedding, so we went ahead and bought about 16 cartons of beer. Wise. Kinda blurry, there was some boogie-boarding, (which I am a natural at, the hairs on my large feet giving me a great deal of control whilst skimming the waves) and some beer...don't really know for sure. May have missed a couple stories but drawing blanks right now, will fill you in on the way. Good few days though, met second cousin Andy (CHAMPION) Vicky (shes English, sweet as, her name is not Pollard) and her husband Mat, who is sound as a pound, diamond geezer. He is sitting opposite me checking footy scores at the mo, has been drinking for about 12 hours now and still going strong, the man is a machine. Oh well, thats a lot of fun for you to read, time for some more exciting stuff.

THE REHEARSAL

Now something I forgot to mention about Boston was that Tim and Rebecca (the now newlyweds, a fantastic couple that epitomise the serendipity of random meetings in bars and the sanctity that is marriage simultaneously and most gracefully) had asked me very kindly to light the candle of unity for the Ward house. Apparently a member of each family is chosen to simultaneously light one single candle from two individual candles, the individual ones representing the families and the single candle representing the union. Rebecca had chosen her uncle Kent, who is a man of few words, to participate from her side of the family in this sweet, cheesy symbolic gesture. So I had to go to the wedding rehearsal for about an hour to wait for them to go "Right, then you guys light the candle" which was in fact listed in the program, but anyway, I got to check out all the bridesmaids, of whom there were 8, and one really hot one with curly hair. May just have been me in a mirror, I dunno. So we finish the rehearsal and me and Andy (Tim's cousin on his Dad's side from Hull, good quality) go and check into our hotel, where about 100 other guests of the wedding are staying. We do ourselves up and jump on a bus that was comissioned to take us all out to this ancient house from back in the days when the Confederate flag still flew strong. It has been remade as a theme restaurant, which involves murder mystery theater during dinner. As we get on the bus, the father of the bride, John (Legend, guy who I was doing whiskey shots with at lunchtime on my first day) tells me that they need five people from the audience to get up and join in the theatre part of the evening, and he thought since I was such a champ he put my name down for me. After hearing this news, I had one of three options - a) politely tell him it's not my thing and say I won't do it b) suck it up, get on with it and go c) try to get enough dutch courage to go through with it. I think you know where this is going. So I shotgun 6 beers on the journey there (we were allowed to byo piss on the bus) and get off a bit staggery. We get there and I am still not feeling good about this, so I order a Jack and Coke. Now, in the USA, they do not measure shots, but free pour them. The woman behind the bar apparently thought JD was cordial, cos she gave me about a fucken pint of the stuff, with half a can of coke. It hurt, but was what I needed. Blackout #1. They finish telling us who each of our characters is, and all I can think about is how much I need to piss, so all I know is my name is Ashley. This is all I remember getting into the restaurant, my name is Ashley. So we sit down, and there are about 60 people in there, maybe 10 family, maybe 5 I have met in the last couple days, the other 45 are all part of the wedding party and I don't know from a bar of soap. Then the murder mystery starts, so everyone is sat down amongst the diners, 3 pro actors aswell as us poor chumps, and every guest gets an envelope with a clue in it. They take turns to stand and verbally deliver their clue, then accuse someone (see they have instructions on their clue as to what to do - I have to ad lib every single response with this knowledge in hand "My name is Ashley") The first one does not go well - the hot curly haired bridesmaid asks me a question, I shit myself and try to be funny. Silence. Dead, pin drop silence, until gratefully a tumbleweed blows through and takes everyone's attention away from me. Then we get a break. I order another pint of whiskey with a shot of coke and go chain about 3 smokes out the back, then return. We are away into it again, and sweet jesus, it does not get any better. The idea is, whenever you get accused, you have to try and shift the blame to someone else. Everyone, without fail, tries to shift the blame to me. So every 20 seconds or so I have to stand and defend myself. On top of this I have to try and keep track of the 60 odd clues we are going through, and remember what all the other characters have said so as not to repeat or contradict anything that has already been said. Because I am standing and constantly defending myself from accusations, I hardly get a bite to eat, and let me tell you those JD's are hitting hard. Blackout #2. We join the show about 1 hour later, when I am drunk enough to make a tool of myself. Yet again I get accused, and have to stand up again. I think to myself that enough is a fucken nough. Next thing I know, I am hearing myself claim that I had a threesome with two of the pro actresses (all in character, of course) who in the play are mother and daughter. Silence....and then the place erupts. I step back as people are choking on food with laughter. Pure spun Gold. I take a motherfucking bow and sit down. Blackout #3. I am in the bar talking to curly haired hot bridesmaid, and I don't know if she got a word in, cos I am just talking nonstop, no idea what I said. We'll take a well deserved break here.

The Villain

From this point, I remember Tim introducing me to his ex-boss Moriarty. Moriarty was the name of the super villain in the Sherlock holmes series, so I instantly took a liking to the guy. We are out the front having a smoke together when the bus turns up to take us home. I tell Moriarty to get on, and he goes nah, I'll just get me rental car. He is easily as pissed as I am, and currently double fisting a couple of Coronas. He runs off into the darkness, and mere seconds later we hear the screech of tires and a YEEEEHAAAW as he comes screaming around the bend in a VW bug with no top on, missing the bus by millimetres STILL DOUBLE FISTING THE CORONAS, held high above his head. There is a hot blonde chick steering for him, where he pulled her from I have no idea, but I was very impressed with his work. Me and Andy get in and have a 30 second chat as the bus starts up. I turn to my cousin and ask her how long the bus ride home is. She looks at me like I am batshit crazy, and points out the window - we are back at the hotel already. Out we pile and go to a party in one of the hotel rooms - I have sobered up a bit so I get stuck into the beers again, talking shite with Moriarty on the balcony. We decide this party blows, and I round up a crew to go to Murphy's bar, involving Dave (?) Jay (A sniper in a swat team, nicest guy I ever met) me and Moriarty. We get there and it is deader than Kevin Costner's career. So the guys proceed to abuse me. I tell them I will lighten shit up, and order 17 shots of Jager. Why, I do not know. Luckily, the rest of the party walk in at this time, and we share them around. There is still more shots than people, so I end up doing 3. Then Kent, Rebecca's uncle, orders a round of whiskey shots. I hit one of those and chase it with my JD (Which was in fact in a pint glass, and pretty damn strong) Blackout #4. I get my memory back walking across a road as a guy comes running past me with a Patriots flag, screaming "THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN". His name is Sheephog, this is all I know. Then I see the bouncer, who is about a foot shorter than I am chasing him and telling him that he is a cop. I stop him and try to talk him out of it. Then I remember the bouncer calling the cops. Blackout #5. I am walking down a corridor in the hotel looking for where the party has moved to. I find a room with the door ajar, and partyish sounds coming out. I walk in tentatively. I recognise no-one, figure I should just mingle and see if I am in the right party, and then I see it. A pizza box, 2 slices of pizza left, still steaming hot. I look up and no one is watching me. Minor blackout and I am running down the corridor with the pizza box in one hand and shoveling a slice down my throat with the other, while trying to remember/find my room number. Blackout#6. I wake up at 10.30am in my room, rough as guts with 5.5 hours until the wedding begins.

The Wedding

I wake up Andy, have a berocca, we get dressed and go straight downstairs to get breakfast. At the same time, every other person from the 100 strong wedding party has the same idea, and we all meet in the lobby. I walk in to a ton of guys who I swear I have never seen before high fiving me and telling me what a legend I am. Those black outs were doozies. We walk around the corner to a waffle house and get fed. The chef walks out of the kitchen just after we order, he looks like a severely deformed version of a love child made by Chris Farley and Chris Farley. Yes, we are in the south, inbreeding is encouraged. You just know the guy's name is bubba. We order "The Bomb", supposedly a huge breakfast. After our 2 slices of bacon and 1 egg for 12USD, we decide to go go-karting. About 15 of us get into various cars and head out to the go karts, which where awesome. I threw up in my mouth about 6 times but kept it down. The hardest was when Horse (yes, one of Tims mates, I am told he is more than deserving of the nickname) plows into Jay on the mini stock car ring, and we get a seven car pile up. My ribs still hurt. We did this for about 1.5 hours, then get back into the car with Horse driving, who forgets we are no longer in go-karts and is still pretty drunk. I was sober after the 10 minute drive to the hotel (usually 30 minutes) so we go upstairs to scrub up. I havn't shaved for 2 weeks, and the only razor I have is a shitty free one I got from the casino back in Oz. It doesn't so much cut hairs as tear them out by the root, and it takes me 30 minutes of agony to get my face clear. We are now running late. We get to the ceremony on time, take a few photos and take our places. Now, I am hung over as fuck, and with the go karting I have just spent 90 minutes taking diesel fumes straight to the eyes. I look like devilspawn, pure white, sweating and eyes redder than the bank balance of Vanilla Ice. I sit next to my dear old aunt Jenny, as some humorous flashback to the night before comes to me and I chuckle away. "Gareth, have you just had a funny cigarette?" She inquires in her thick northern english accent. Having been in America for some time now, I respond with the local's response "HUH?". "You're stoned!" My 70 year old aunt informs me. "I....fuck no" I tell her. Anyhoo, we get through the ceremony ok, me and Kent light the candle without a problem. Then we head back to Murphy's bar, where the bouncer from the night before ID's me. Cockmonger. I have one beer, then get told that the reception is at a military base and we need passport ID to get in. So I go back to the hotel, get my passport, and leisurely take the grog bog that I have been dying for all day. I get back to Murphy's and Fritz (champ) is waiting for me outside a mini bus. "We thought you were dead! We have been waiting for hours, where have you been?" I think I may have passed out on the toilet. Anyway, we get to the army base and they don't even need ID. I find a bartender who pours triples, and me Horse and Chuck get on the Jack and Cokes. Damn near everything is blacked out, but I'm pretty sure it was awesome. Very nice wedding ceremony, and the reception was great. I also met Tara Reid at one stage. It's now just gone 12pm, been a long day, just trying to polish off the last of a bottle of 12 year Jamesons. Wish me well.