As I said, I felt like SHIT on Saturday. Nausea and splitting headache, which i think were due more to lack of sleep than quantity of alcohol. Complete and utter shit, all the same. I told Todd I didn't want to drink a lot, so that I would feel good on Saturday. He
made me drink.
We woke up, ate some continental breakfast, then headed out to get a new digital camera. (Ours finally pissed us off enough to be retired.) Then we had a tasty sandwich at a sub place and headed back to the room for naps. I was disappointed that I was so tired on Saturday - I far would have preferred strolling the squares all day Saturday, but knew I must sleep or I would never make it through the wedding on Saturday night.
We slept for two hours, then woke up, had a snack and dressed for the wedding. The trolley (ring! ring! ring! goes the bell) was picking up at 5:40 for the 6:30 wedding. We rushed around getting dressed and got on the trolley. We picked up more wedding guests at the Mulberry Inn and the Desoto Hilton. I have never seen so many women wearing dead animals in my life.
The wedding was at The Oglethorpe Club. Another beautiful house, right across the street from the original Armstrong College, where my father once attended classes. As we pulled up around the corner on to Bull St., we heard the piper playing. I swear to God, they had a bagpiper greeting the guests on the corner.
We got off the trolley, then proceeded up the stairs (festooned in beautiful greenery and white roses - I think they spent more on flowers than I spent on my whole wedding. There were white roses all over the whole house.) We checked my coat, then went up to the second floor for the ceremony. They conducted the ceremony in an upstairs, wood-paneled, long and narrow room. It was dark and candlelit. The bride wore a beautiful dress, and the the whole wedding party was decked out in Scottish tartan. The groom and his family wore their tartan; the bride and wedding party wore their own. Women wore a tartan sash with a brooch, including the bride. Nice, unusual touch. The piper piped as the wedding party entered. They also had a four-piece string instrument thing going on. The ceremony was very short, which was nice, because about half of us were standing in the back of the room.
After the ceremony, it was off to the bar. The Oglethorpe is a men's club. I was a little weirded out about things I have heard about it (no black members, no women allowed to walk up the front steps, etc.) All of that didn't matter - they could have made me crawl around on my knees as long as I could partake of the buffet.
I'm going to throw down the gauntlet: BEST. WEDDING. BUFFET. EVER. There were the usual carving tables, and an open bar, but the piece de resistance was the asparagus/cheese/tomato sandwich/oyster table. If you know me, you know they had me at "cheese," but if you throw in tomato sandwiches with the crusts (I still call them "the bones") cut off, I am yours. There were so many different kinds of stinky, blue-veined cheeses that I would have been sick even trying a bite of each one. Todd, meanie that he is, didn't think it was appropriate for me to put a whole chunk of cheese in my purse at the end of the evening. I am horrified at the thought of the cheese in a trashcan in the basement of the Oglethorpe Club.
Add in a bottomless pan of freshly-fried, hot oysters? Holy crap! I am surprised I didn't get sick. I spent half the evening hovering around the oyster dish with a bunch of old southern men, waiting for the next batch to come out. I
think I impressed them with my oyster-eating prowess. I was so tired that night, that i took it easy on the drinking. Well, I did start at 7:00 or so and drink till 3 something in the morning, but i was a good girl. I felt fine on Sunday. One reason? I ate my weight in buffet. The reception lasted a long time, and people were pretty toasty by the end. I was pretty sober myself, having spent more time stuffing my face and looking at old weapons and pictures of Civil War generals.
In the end, the bride and groom came down the wide front steps of the club as we showered them with white rose petals. Both had changed: The groom was wearing ridiculous plaid pants, a bowtie, and a tam. The bride wore pants and sweater, along with a wide-brimmed hat and her tartan sash as a scarf. The "getaway" car was not a car at all - Definitely the cutest "Just married" getaway ever: They climbed onto a vintage tandem bike, complete with basket
and bell, then rode off into Monterrey Square. (I
think it was Monterrey Square). Adorable. I got a little choked up, and I don't even know them.
We took the trolley back to the hotel, then changed, and met people at the bar the wedding party had chosen. I am going to go ahead and say it was possibly the most hideous place I have ever been. Some kind of karaoke bar, attached to a bar that looked just like an Applebee's. I guess I am a snob, but I am picky. It is bad enough hearing the original versions of crappy rock songs (think Creed or one of those bands with numbers in their names), but hearing drunks butcher them even further was downright painful.
I drank PBRs with Kate (the bride's sister and Todd's friend), her husband, and her lecherous uncle from Bogota. They gave up the ghost and headed home. Todd was just kicking it into high gear (for those of you who know Todd,
this is the part where he starts stirring his drink with his fingers, and then licking them merrily one by one) and so despite the fact that I was ready to fall into bed, I took one for the team and accompanied him for a few more hours.
We finally found a couple other like-minded guests who decided to venture with us to another bar, Hang Fire. My friend Donnie had recommended this place as having an excellent jukebox, and so when a fellow wedding guest mentioned it as a place where they might go, I jumped at the chance. It was pretty cool, but by the time we got there, everyone was wasted, and they had a band playing, so I didn't get a chance to check out the jukebox. I did get to see the shocked look on the face of the little South Carolina girl who had joined us, when she saw two girls making out in the corner and about ten guys taking camera phone pictures of them. That actually made the trip worthwhile. She then got into an argument with her date, who had somehow offended her by putting down "Carolina" and "the status quo in Columbia." They were a riot. We met a very nice Chicago girl who had been living in Savannah for a couple of years and tried to convince us that since we like Wilco we like jam bands. Ain't gonna happen. We finally walked back to the hotel with the feuding Columbian (of Columbia, SC) couple. I was asleep within five minutes.
I woke up feeling wonderful; Todd, not so much. Ah, sweet feeling of a Sunday morning without hangover or regret. We looked around in vain for somewhere neat to eat, then in desperation and hunger, I phoned my friend Jason, who recommended The Firefly Cafe, which looked awesome, but had a wait of what looked like hours (think Flying Biscuit waits). We went down the street to a J. Christopher's, which was actually really good, and had IHOP-style bottomless coffee on the table.
On the way, I caught sight of this guy who was carrying an interesting sign. I am guessing he strolls the streets every Sunday to put fear of God into Saturday night's hangover victims roving the streets searching for a cure; Everyone out on Sunday morning seemed to be a slow-moving student, or a well-dressed churchgoer in a fancy hat. It was Sunday, crisp and bright, and the people were walking their dogs with coffee in hand, and the church bells rang at noon. Lovely morning. Todd looked like death eating a ham sandwich, which only cast into relief my elation at having a sunny morning without kids or hangover.
Some things are indescribably perfect. We had a wonderful time (hard not to without kids), and I didn't even mention all the six degrees of separation, or the menage a trois come-ons (or so we like to flatter ourselves,) or the Episcopal Mafia. You can see more of our pictures from the trip by clicking on my Flickr link to the right. They should be up some time today.
Oh, p.s.! On Saturday, even with my hangover, we "discovered" an awesome artist at Chroma Gallery on Barnard. I posted about it
here on Atlanta Metblogs, as the artist is an Atlantan. If you ever want to see what I am saying about Atlanta, there are links to my posts on Metroblogging Atlanta to the right.
Labels: Church, Drinking, hangover, Me, Metblogs, Motherhood, savannah, todd, wedding
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