Sunday, October 2, 2022

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.)







20 comments:

  1. This all looks so fun! And I love your outfit. Terrific trip and I bet it was nice to get out of town, go see some sights, eat some good food, and of course- celebrate Vickie and Josh.

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  2. Now that's the kind of wedding I like, just a lovely affordable small party. You all looked exactly right. And it sounds like a lot of fun.

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  3. Wedding season! I love that young people are increasingly doing their own thing with weddings, and I have noticed at the two I recently attended, and several I heard tell of before that, that friends are increasingly the officiants, and I think that's wonderful. You look lovely all wedding garbed up, but comfortable too, which is the best way of dressing up as far as I'm concerned. I wish you great niece and her love a lifetime of happiness. I have also noticed that young uns these days do these long, um, courtships, you might call it, or maybe more accurate is domestic partnerships, years of it, before ultimately making it official. I'm not mad at it. They certainly know each other well, no surprises, really.

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  4. What an excellent few days! I'm remembering my brief visit but now I can't remember if we went to Gruene or New Braunfels. I'm thinking Gruene - I remember the dance hall. Boy I didn't have much stamina that day - I was wiped out!

    P.S. you look lovely in your outfit!

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    1. We met at Gruene but Gruene is butt up to New Braunfels, no empty space between anymore.

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  5. What a wonderful trip and wedding. I love that the guy officiating started out with "Mahwage..." I had to read that out loud to Roger. We had such a good laugh. We say that word a lot. Wonderful photos and great weather. Perfect!

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  6. The colors that you did choose to wear are so soft and pretty, Well done, you. Lots of wedding going on, three in a row on my blog roll!

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  7. You're right about the great change in the weather. I went over to Brazos Bend this morning, and got there about 8:15. It actually was chilly enough that I thought about a jacket (which I didn't have). But of course in an hour it was fine. The whole wedding event looks great from start to finish. Your outfit really was perfect --love those colors. They reminded me of your coral box!

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  8. West Texas hill country, the hardscrabble home to so many great authors. Of course it has changed. The wedding was sweet and the trip you wove around it was not to be duplicated. New Braunfels is beautiful. I feel I may have been there, and well may have been. As for the tala vera ball, I'm sure I would have purchased it. I paid near a hundred for a turquoise gazing ball my b-i-l broke, and when it was lost I didn't miss it because I could still see its vividness.

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  9. OMG! Why didn't you say you were going to be in New Braunfels, I would have met you there. I live in Seguin (13 miles away). The Mawage speech from Princess Bride is perfect. It shows that the couple has a great sense of humor and that means many many years together.

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    1. I thought of you as we were driving through Seguin but we had an itinerary for the trip and it wasn't just me.

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  10. Your skirt looked great with that green top! Sounds like a wonderful time for all. May the young couple have many years of happiness together.

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  11. After all your fussing with the skirt it came out perfectly and you looked very fetching, as did the other two ladies. I'm glad the wedding was a success.

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  12. What a nice celebration! You and your sister have the same lovely face. Glad you had a good time!

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    1. People tell us we look alike and Pam and I don't see it. She's blond, blue eyes, I'm brown haired and brown eyes. Apparently our facial features are similar.

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  13. Such a great event to take part in, and then good touring (not being tourists of course) through beautiful areas.

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  14. Everyone needs a pause for a wedding somewhere these days and your respite looked perfect! I would have left the hotel until all the ruckus was resolved as I would have felt a bullet through my floor was possible.

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    1. It was a little house rental like a duplex. We had the top floor. Leaving during the ruckus we would have had to walk right past it.

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  15. Your wedding outfit looked great! I laughed about the "Princess Bride" moment. I wonder if the people who wrote that movie ever expected its fans to incorporate those lines into REAL marriage ceremonies, decades later?! I like the ceramic ball but it does seem a bit pricey.

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