This End Down

… Married.

I just returned from four days in Greenville, South Carolina. Being a best man is a surprisingly tiring job, although it is (unsurprisingly) incredibly rewarding and honoring. I only bust out maybe one tear during the service, although during the toast I choked up and totally deviated from everything I had planned to say. It ended with me saying “I love you” to them four times. And I wasn’t even drunk. Who knows.

The wedding was amazing. The time leading up to the wedding, although fun beyond reason, was fantastically stressful for the now-married two. I did my best to relax and chill Rich (and Brittany and Rich’s mom…) but there was only so much I could do. I did also add to the stress a bit, by not realizing that some people want you to dress up for rehearsals. Whoops. A quick to Belk (what the crap is Belk? Anyone? ’cause they had $80 shirts there. Oy vey.. Mine were two for $30) solved that problem, and a quick trip to Richard’s suitcase solved my forgetting-black-socks-for-the-tux problem.

The first night Rich, Corey (the singer/guitarist who sang/played at the wedding), and I left Gainesville at 8, getting us into Greenville at 4am. Rich and I passed out at the incredible Hampton Inn, and woke up at 10:30 to begin a day full of stress and fun. Tuxes tried on (my tie was pink. pink. bubblegum pink), shopping, banking (where Brittany realized she had signed the checks addressed to “Brittany Jones” as “Brittany Ware”… but that was a quick fix), yada yada, and finally the rehearsal.

The rehearsal was… well, a rehearsal. Here’s a request: If you are ever in the Greenville, SC area, go to the Mitchell Road Presbyterian Church, find the wedding coordinator lady (the old one, not the young one) and punch her in the face. Like, five times. Aside from minor problems (and one of the groomsmen being an hour late), everything ran smoothly.
Then the rehearsal dinner. I got to meet family and friends of both sides, discover new foods like Southwest Salmon (? with corn? on salmon?), Cheerwine, and sweet potato pie. There was a slide show, and that brought about some tears, and a toast from Richard’s dad’s best friend. I can’t really remember much else. We (the youth) spent the rest of the night in the third floor lobby of our hotel in front of the elevator, sitting cross-legged and building structures out of everything we found in our pockets. OH YES! My groomsman present from Rich–three parts– was a sleeping bag (because when we camp, I either borrow his if he’s not there, or freeze if he is), an A&W mug, and a Gerber multitool. My life is complete.

Wedding: Arriving there two hours before to dress. Rich getting very, very nervous. They gave him a back room to sit in while we waited, and while the other groomsmen ushed, I got to chill with him and just hang out and try to relax him. He did pretty well. The wedding itself was beautiful; everything went smoothly, Joe’s homily was short, to the point, and definitely God-inspired (about echad, the Hebrew word for unity), everyone cried, it was amazing, and Corey made incredible music. I started freaking out when I heard them say the vows and realized that my two friends here were committing to be with each other and to love each other until their deaths. Like, in 80 or 100 years or whatever. Wow. Right.

Whitney (a friend who took a lot of the photos) and some of the rest of us had some issues with the photographer, who was utterly incompetent and took a million posed photos that the bride and groom hadn’t requested, but didn’t take the ones they requested. Everything worked out in the end, though, and Rich and Britt hitched a ride back to the reception in a white stretch limo. Not bad.

The reception was quality. I don’t know what to say (as if anyone’s actually still reading four pages into this post). My toast was shaky, wobbly, overly apologetic, delivered far too quickly, and not even remotely eloquent, but as I was told by everyone around, it was “from the heart”–which it was–and that’s apparently all people care about. It made Britt cry, and it said what I wanted to, so I guess it worked out.

Rich and Britt danced like fiends. I had no idea those two could dance, or that they had so much stamina (Rich danced to I believe every single song they played, and this was by far the longest dancing time I’ve ever seen at a wedding.) I guess an interesting fact is that I also danced. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Matt Stauffer danced his brains out. I’m a big sweaty lug with no coordination, but I had fun, so that’s all that I cared about.

After we sent Rich and Britt off in their matching outfits (black long-sleeve shirt, black belt, dark blue jeans, black shoes) in their brand new RAV4, I spent a (thankfully) short period of time in a crappy, crappy martini bar, and then booked out of there and wandered around Main Street of Greenville with Joel, one of the groomsmen. We talked for a couple hours, then finally headed back to the hotel and passed out. This morning Zach and I left at 11:30am, got in to Gainesville at 7:30pm, and it is now 8:51pm. I’m going to bed. Good night.