Matrimonial Traffic

My Wife and I at The Wedding

Yesterday my wife and I headed up to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for the wedding of my boss’ daughter.  I thought we had left with plenty of time but traffic ground to a standstill about twenty miles short of our goal.  It took over an hour to cover that last twenty miles due to the weekend traffic of people headed to the beach and Maine vacations.  We pulled into the hotel we were staying at and five minutes later were headed for the wedding following some sketchy directions from one of the bell hops.  We were both laughing because the directions took us right by my son’s apartment.  He was up in Maine celebrating his birthday with the most excellent girlfriend.  The wedding was outside at a country club located right on the Atlantic coast and the views were worth the price the father of the bride probably had to pay for it.  The weather report was extremely troublesome and there were clouds menacing the entire time.  The reverend performing the ceremony mentioned three different times about how lucky they were with the weather which I thought was dangerously tempting of fate.  It was a nice ceremony but it lacked the emotion and whimsy of the NYC wedding from earlier in the summer.  The reception was in a tent right behind the ceremony site and our table was on one of the edges.  There was a tee off spot for one of the golf holes and I was praying that anybody teeing off yesterday was a much better golfer than I was because we were right where I would probably hit a ball.  The open bar helped reduce the trepidation significantly.  My wife and I spent most of the evening out on the dance floor which was a lot of fun.  We were seated with some good friends which also made for a great time.  My wife pointed out another woman about half way through the reception and said that she thought it was scandalous that this woman was wearing a dress where you could clearly see she was wearing a thong.  As this was something I had missed I was truly appreciative of my wife’s perceptive accuracy.  When she saw how much fun I was having with her comments she suddenly realized what she had done and delivered a ringing blow to my arm.  The bride met the groom when he was a singer in a small band and near the end of the reception the crowd coaxed him to sing a song which he did extremely well – a nice moment.  The rain did start about an hour before the end of the reception but the tent held up well.  The reception had to end at 9PM because like most golf courses this one was surrounded by a bunch of houses owned by rich people.  They are of course less than tolerant about people having fun at parties they are not invited to.  My boss was ready with a plan though and had rented the upstairs room of a bar that was a short walk from the hotel.  My wife was showing signs of wimping out so I hurried her out of the hotel room as quickly as possible.  Despite coming from a country where it rains every day for nine months out of the year she hates going out in the rain.  I talked her into an umbrella and we safely made the block and a half trek through the rain to the bar where we discovered we were the only ones to arrive so far.  We sat down and watched the Red Sox finally beat the Yankees and then a couple of swimming events from the Olympics.  After a half hour we were wondering if we were at the right place but then the rest of the wedding crowd showed up and there was scant room to move about.  It was a rainy day but any day I get to spend surrounded by friends and my wife gets to dance to her heart’s content – hard to be disappointed. 


My Boss Escorting the Beautiful Bride

Our View of the Fantastic Setting

The Happy Couple Beating the Rain

The Reception - Thong Woman in Purple

My Boss Enjoying the After Party