How I finally married my friends!

This post is long overdue. It is from June 2012, but this Lent I decided to dedicate myself to writing for both blogs rather than just focusing on the travel one. That means that all the side stories and random thoughts that I have meant to include here may, in fact, get included over the next 40 days.

And to appease the small voice in my head that is in shock and horror at the idea of 2 blogs while I am trying to survive day to day down south... Yep, this is going to be intense. But two posts a week will not kill us, and it's only 40 days!

You know what today is? Valentine's Day, which as you can tell from one of my only posts last year, is one of my favorite holidays. What better way to write about a holiday to celebrate love than by reminiscing about the last time I saw it in action, right?

Ashley and Scott are so much in love with one another it just makes me happy to be in the same room with them. Which is good, because they let my broke bum crash on their sofa for the entirety of my stay in Seattle for their wedding! And it is not as awkward as I would have thought to stay in a newlyweds' apartment (but thankfully I dropped them off at their hotel room the night of the wedding), maybe because I am such a heavy sleeper?

The days/minutes up to the wedding were as stressful as one would imagine, since we wrote their ceremonies and vows literally the night before. But as expected, everything went wonderfully. I cried my eyes out with happiness, drank my weight in booze on multiple occasions,

including all of the pre-festivities (thanks to the to-go Sangria from our favorite Mexican restaurant), was sober enough to deliver the ceremony with no huge mistakes (except maybe holding the mic too close when I was talking a little harshly of a fellow wedding party attendant during the rehearsal (which was honestly a little intentional)), laughed and danced with my friend-date from California, and basked in the glow of their love.

We looked damn good (largely because we did one another's hair)! I also learned that it is no wonder that people meet at weddings, that kind of glowing affection between the couple mixed with serious booze and people in suits and dresses? Yes please, adorable red haired venue assistant!

But I was well behaved, made sure that Ashley kept up with me on our champaign consumption (just like the old roommate days)

and then made it to the hotel with her new husband (and out of the complicated dress she had chosen for herself)!

The wedding was decorated largely by Ashley's thrift store-crafting addiction, flowers provided by a friend, photos by a ridiculously talented friend, and me, the friend-officiant. Such a smart woman with impeccable taste in the entire ceremony and her friends!

Scott was there for the decisions, the endless crafting, the crying and the laughing. He was her rock and cheerleader to stand up for what she wanted and such the hero of the day!

I love you both dearly. I think you will make a fantastic example for me of how life can work out, how two people can be happy together as they are, and how sometimes I am really not loosing a best friend to her new husband, but gaining another person to watch horrible reality TV with at night!

You two are the best, and I can't wait to come sleep on your couch again soon (I'm still broke as sin!!). Thanks for the pics via Facebook Rene Banks Photography, Jami, and Erin. Oh! and thanks Jami for being the best date ever, couldn't have done it without you!