Nurse on the Run

It’s been awhile since I posted!  It’s probably because in the past few days, about 3,800 miles (round trip) to head to Laredo, Texas for the wedding of one of my high school friends.  For those of us who aren’t up on our Texas geography (trust me, I wasn’t), Laredo is wayyyy down south, directly across the Rio Grande from Mexico.  So basically, it’s completely different than up north!  It was 80 degrees when I arrived and I got to wear shorts all day Saturday…glorious!  Let’s get on with this wedding recap, which will mostly be in pictures since I know that’s what you’re really here for.

Friday – Travel and Rehearsal/Rehearsal Dinner

I had a bright and early 9 am flight to Laredo (connecting through Dallas)…9 am is early when you work evening shift!  Everything went perfect with traveling despite having to shove my bridesmaid dress into my carry on.  I lined it with tissue paper (thanks for the tip, Aron!) and prayed for the best.  It turned out that one of the other bridesmaids sat directly in front of me for the flight from Dallas to Laredo,  but I didn’t know what she looked like so we didn’t realize it until we got there…oops!  Once we landed in Laredo, we got to the hotel and changed to head to the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner.

Now, the wedding was in a Catholic church and I knew for the wedding that we had to have our shoulders covered.  My friend made shawls for us to wear over our strapless bridesmaid dresses, but I forgot about the rehearsal (and I couldn’t find my black sweater…) so I had to wear my Bears zip up fleece thing for the rehearsal.  Classy.

A few bridesmaids.  The bride.  Matching bracelets!

Saturday – Wedding Day!

This wedding was a little bit different in that, one, it was in Laredo, and two, the church set the time for the ceremony, so the wedding didn’t start until 7pm.  This was nice because we didn’t have to wake up super early (although our 8am wake up call was much earlier than my usual schedule) to do all our wedding prep!  The hotel had a breakfast in the morning, which is where we found this glorious Texas-shaped waffle maker. LOVE.

See if you can find Laredo!

Funny story of the morning:  When we were heading back up to our hotel room after dinner, a bunch of young guys were crowded into our elevator.  It was a short ride up to the third floor, they asked us where we were from and we asked them.  They were from all over (Hawaii, Canada, etc), so I asked what they were here for…some sort of fire fighting thing, they said.  As we got off the elevator, I told them that I hoped we didn’t need to use their skills…to which one of them said, “Oh, I hope we do!”  HAHA.  Good times.

The bride is one of my good friends from high school…we actually met in the fifth grade when she moved into my school district, but we became much better friends in high school when I convinced her to switch from playing the flute in band to playing the TROMBONE.  I played the trombone from the start, but I was going to be the ONLY freshman trombone player in high school and that sounded a bit intimidating…with eight million girls playing the flute, it seemed like a good idea to make her switch!  She actually agreed and the rest, as they say, is history.

Why is this tale of how we became friends so important?  Well well well, I’m at least 75% responsible (okay, not really) for this wedding because the bride and groom met in the marching band in college because they both played (you guessed it!) the trombone!  So if it wasn’t for me, they may have never met.  I’ll pat myself on the back for that one.

Moving on!  The bride treated the bridesmaids to manicures, pedicures, and pretty hair, so that’s what we spent all day Saturday doing!  Here are some highlights:

Girls in the massaging pedicure chairs…so nice!

My view from the pedicure chair!  (As my roommate said:  Susan, you are the only person I know who would take a picture of themselves in a pedicure chair…haha)
  
Next up was manicures…complete with occasion-appropriate heart-shaped finger soakers.

Pretty toes!

Pretty fingers!

Next up was hair…we drove down the south Laredo to get our hair done, and on the way I spotted this Mexican license plate…it’s the little things in life.

I think the saw me taking this picture…oops?

The bride getting her hair curled.  And curled.  And CURLED.

After getting our hair done, it was time to head back to the hotel and get changed and help the bride get dressed!  The bridesmaids got themselves all dressed and then helped Becca (the bride!) climb into her dress.  Those wedding dresses are no joke!

The bride all dressed in white!

Now that’s what I call a train!

Something blue!

Gatsby wore his best to model the flowers!

Sooo I don’t have any pictures of the ceremony since I was, um, in the wedding, but I guarantee that it was pretty!  The ceremony was your typical Catholic ceremony (not my favorite, but then again I’m not Catholic!)…we took pictures and headed to the reception.  Since the ceremony was at 7, dinner was to be served around 9.  Well, this was Laredo, so I think we actually got dinner around 9:30-ish.  (That’s what the people from Laredo kept saying…well, it’s supposed to be at 4, but this is Laredo, you know.)  Too funny. 

First course:  Potato soup in a bread bowl!

Dinner:  Lime chicken, baked potatoes, veggies galore, and garlic bread!

Bridesmaids at dinner with some margaritas!

Gatsby getting his drink on!

This wedding had lots of…props.  Note the glow stick necklace!  I pulled out some of my Jacob’s Ladder tricks from years ago…what a crowd pleaser!

It was a bit strange because the DJ played all the typical wedding songs during dinner (Grease, Locomotion [haha!], etc), but everyone was eating and not dancing.  Don’t worry, we did some major chair dancing between courses!  Once dinner was over, we hit the dance floor for some more intense dancing.  Luckily my friend Katie (the dark hair bridesmaid) makes for an awesome dance partner, so I at least had her!

The bride and groom had their first dance to “You’re Nobody Till Somebody Loves You”…they went to a choreographer earlier in the week and it was cute!  I don’t have any pictures/video from that, sadly.

Doing the twist with awesome hats…came in handy for the YMCA!

Getting their groove on with the bride!

Okay, so at some point in the night, the music switched from English music to Spanish music.  At first we were unsure of what to do, but we eventually embraced it and danced to it as best we could!  It was all good until the point in the night where the only people on the dance floor were Katie (bridesmaid), me, and the little children from the groom’s family.  It was a bit crazy and I’m sure everyone thought we were drunk (we weren’t…I think I had maybe two beers!), but it was fun.  The photographer later told us that we were the ones who kept the party going…major points for us!  I think it’s kinda silly when no one is dancing at weddings…we may have looked crazy, but we sure had fun!

These maracas came in handy for Mexican dancing!

The party makers!  Those dresses were sweaty messes by the end of the night…

Next up was WEDDING CAKE!!  I love cake.  Weddings are fun.  I love wedding cake!  So good.  They had vanilla cake with a raspberry filling as well as chocolate cake with a raspberry filling.  I ate mine right up…needed more fuel for dancing!

Wedding cake!

Cutting the cake…woo!

My piece…yum!

After cake we had more dancing…the groom’s friends from college weren’t dancing, so at some point the bridesmaids went and dragged them onto the dance floor.  (Literally!  I hooked my arms around two of them just to realize that my body was still moving forward and my arms weren’t.  Eventually they got the hint.)  We had a grand time and I was sad (but tired!) when the wedding ended around 12:30.

Had to nab a late night picture with the bride and groom!

After the wedding we headed back to the hotel and I got some late night chat time with my Katie…I miss her!!  We were too tired to shower so we left our hair up…the next morning it was still in perfect place!  Gotta love hair spray and eight million bobby pins. 

Sunday – Fly Away With Me

After another Texas waffle, it was time to head to the airport for a day of traveling.  Our flight left from Laredo at 11am and I arrived in Philly around 10pm.  Connections in Houston and Chicago!  I could have gotten into Philly an hour earlier, but I figured if I was going to fly all day, I might as well go most of the way with Katie, who lives in Chicago.  We had a pretty seamless day of traveling, so we lucked out there.  I was going to have dinner with my parents in Chicago, but they weren’t allowed to come through security to meet me so I just hung out with them in the ticketing area for about an hour.  It was SO good to see them, even if it was just for a short time.  I was (not so) secretly hoping to be stranded in Chicago…no such luck, although that’s probably for the better.  I had a good flight back to Philly…my seat buddy is a radiology resident (read:  super smart) in Philly, and we talked the whole flight back.  He doesn’t know many people here either, so we exchanged numbers and maybe we’ll be friends.  If not, it made the flight to Philly go fast!  The best part of it all?  My car started when I got back to it!  Woohoo!

And that was my not-so-brief wedding recap.  I wasn’t sure what to expect out of a Laredo wedding, but it was fun!  It was great to see my friends and my parents…and of course see Becca get married!  I think I’m done with weddings for a little while…maybe.