Announcing: Brian & Vanessa!
Kris and I headed out early Saturday morning to Las Vegas where our friends Brian and Vanessa were to be wed. The drive wasn’t too bad, since there usually isn’t much traffic going out on a Saturday morning. We arrived early enough to have plenty of time to change and relax after finding the hotel to check in early. After finding our room in the hotel in Old Downtown Las Vegas (near Fremont Street), we headed out to find the Wee Kirk O’ The Heather Wedding Chapel. We realized it was much closer to the hotel than we’d thought, so we spent some time driving around the block to check out the rest of the area. While driving down Las Vegas Boulevard, we spotted Brian and a bunch of other people headed down the street to the Chapel, so we found a parking spot. I didn’t have much change for the meter, so we sat in the car as long as possible before I fed the machine as much change in as I could, figuring the ceremony would be pretty short.
Click here for our pictures from the wedding!
And here’s the link for Brian & Vanessa’s gallery!
The ceremony was very short, and the whole experience was most unusual. The chapel was even smaller on the inside than it looked, with room for only about 20 guests to sit (which meant all the men were left standing in the “entryway”). There was no photography allowed inside the chapel, and I’m guessing it is because they want you to buy pictures from their in-house photographer. So we don’t have too many pictures from the whole day at all, quite a bummer, but I am going to post what we do have. Once the guests that could be seated were, the ceremony started. It all felt quite rushed, and even Brian said later it was like watching Kris and my ceremony in fast forward.
Afterwards we all poured outside where the photographer wanted to take a huge group photo. The logistics of this were a bit crazy, since there were so many guests (again I’m assuming they usually don’t have that many at this chapel). Once the photo was taken, we decided to head out and find parking for the reception at Jillian’s. As soon as we rounded the corner to our car we saw the meterman and started running towards the car. Kris, always a quick thinker, was able to talk his way out of a costly parking ticket, thank goodness! We found Jillian’s no problem, and Vanessa had just recommended that we park in the top part of the lot where we could walk across a bridge and go directly in. Once inside we walked past the bowling lanes and the bar to a banquet room. Since Kris and I were the very first guests to arrive, we had absolutely no idea if we were in the right place or not. Kaiser and Cyndi arrived next, but they had even less of an idea if we were in the right place. We finally confirmed with a waitress who came in to refill the sodas that yes, this was the right place for the wedding.
The food was very good, and Vanessa looked beautiful! The whole day was very non-traditional, something Kris nor I had ever experienced. There was no DJ or dancing at the reception, so there was no first dance or parents’ dances. There was no “presented to you for the first time as Mr. and Mrs.” and, in fact, Brian walked in about ten minutes before Vanessa even arrived. There was champagne and a lovely toast from both the best man and the maid of honor, and while there were some lovely cheesecake bite-sized desserts, there was no cake and therefore no cake cutting. Lastly there was no garter or bouquet toss (something I’m not all about anyway and that we did not have at our wedding either), and before we knew it the reception was over.
It was still early, so we decided to hang out with Kaiser and Cyndi for a longer part of the evening. We all went back to our hotel room to change so it would be easier to walk around. We started off walking around downtown for the “Fremont Street Experience,” watched a fireman’s competition that was pretty cool, enjoyed alcoholic beverages on the street, and ran into Brian and Vanessa walking back to the hotel! Brian had a beer that someone had just handed him (unopened), which just goes to show you how crazy Vegas is. After that we all walked through the Mardi Gras casino so that Cyndi could get beads from Vegas for an upcoming bachelorette party. We were all craving some gelato, so Kaiser and Cyndi drove us over to the Forum Shops, where we spent a large amount of time wandering through the FAO Schwartz before buying the most expensive gelato ever! We capped off the evening by stopping in a Walgreen’s so we could buy some sodas that weren’t $3 a can. Kris and I enjoyed some Law & Order before drifting off to sleep so we could get up early on Sunday and avoid some of the Vegas traffic. All in all a fun weekend, too bad we have a rally coming up in less than two days!
