the prep, the wedding, the fun afterwards

Last Monday night a cool front came through and Tuesday morning I woke to temps in the 60˚s. It was almost chilly! It eventually warmed up to about 90˚ but low humidity made for a really pleasant day. We opened the doors, I opened the windows in my bedroom that night and woke Wednesday morning to another cool morning and it has continued all week. Down in the 50˚s last night and next week highs in the mid to high 80˚s. This has been such a relief from the brutal summer.

The rest of this post is long as it covers three days.

My sister Pam, niece Denise, and I left Thursday late afternoon for New Braunfels and the little rental close to the event center for my great-niece's wedding. The bride, Vickie, is the daughter of my sister's other daughter, Shannon. Anyway, the rental was a little two story duplex and we had the top story; two bedrooms, small bath, small sitting area that opened up to a small kitchen/dining area. It was very cute, perfect for four people that the rental said sleeps six so we assumed the couch pulled out into a bed but with six it would definitely be crowded. With just us three it was perfect.

My sister had made a large batch of cupcakes for the reception so after we got to the rental, had a very good pizza for dinner, we iced the cupcakes and went to bed. Denise works remotely so that's what she did on Friday until it was time to get ready for the wedding while Pam and I went out for breakfast, topped the cupcakes with half a strawberry each, and delivered them to the event center. On the way back we stopped at an outdoor place that sold Mexican metal art, pottery, but mostly tala vera decorative ware. The place was huge and a maze with narrow aisles that wound all around between high shelves and racks solid with stuff. I considered getting an 8” round ball but they wanted $48 for it which I thought was pricey since I only paid $70 for my tala vera birdbath. 

Then it was time to get ready for the wedding at 3 PM. Here we are dressed and ready to go.

The wedding was small, about 50 attendees, close family and friends who could make it on a weekday afternoon, the ceremony short and sweet in the gazebo at the event center, their friend officiating who started out with “Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder today” from the Princess Bride. I asked him later if they knew he was going to do that and he confessed that yes, it was planned. So Vickie and Josh. These two have been together for 12 years and Josh has been asking her to marry him for years and Vickie finally relented. The reception fairly unconventional as wedding receptions go but they did do the first dance and here they are. It's the only picture I took while there.

After Pam and Denny and I left we went back to the rental, changed clothes, and went to a German biergarten for dinner. I had barbequed Gulf shrimp with andouille sausage and bread and a selection of four dark German beers. It was all very good. 

That night though, we were all awakened about 12:30 by a big ruckus in the rental below where four men were. Lots of thumping and bumping from perhaps getting shoved into walls or furniture and angry yelling most of which was profanity, inside and outside, yelling leave, you're not wanted here. It settled down about 1:30, no gunshots which, this is Texas y'all, so it's to be expected, no bodies on the grass in the morning. We packed up our stuff as soon as we got up and left.

Saturday we planned to explore New Braunfels and Gruene, a small town merged with New Braunfels. The whole area has grown so much since the last time I was there years ago, new housing construction everywhere there had been open land. New Braunfels is near San Antonio and is a big tourist destination. It's a sweet little city in the hill country with two clear water rivers running through it, the Comal and the Guadeloupe. 

It would be a wonderful place to live except for the tourists that descend on it.

So after meeting with Vickie and her mother and Vickie's best friend/maid of honor for breakfast tacos (Josh was still asleep), we headed to the Saturday Market that was set up next to where we had dinner the previous night, not much farm produce as it's in between growing seasons here but lots of cool stuff like natural homemade dog cookies (I bought Minnie some), home grown mushrooms,

botanical skin care products, hand printed t-shirts and dish towels,

microgreens, potless plants in dirt but encased in moss,

and then we walked around the old town downtown before heading to Gruene, home of Gruene Hall, the oldest dancehall in Texas,

where we walked around some more and then settled on the porch of a bar for a beer and people watching before we headed home.

(I don't know why blogger won't let me get rid of all this empty space at the bottom but it won't.)