Pyrex and Poppies: Best Weekend Ever!

Alrighty! This is kind of old news (and this is a REALLY long post), but two weekends ago I got to see two of my best friends get married to each other! This is SUPER exciting...if you couldn't tell by all of my exclamation points :) Anyway...the wedding was in New York. Beautiful New York.

New York

The trees and hills and mist and vistas were enough to take your breath away and make your ears pop. It was a twelve hour road trip, and one that we started at 2 am. What made this particular road trip fun was the fact that I got to ride all the way there with three awesome people. Nic, Hannah, and Jim. Each of whom is unique and fun in their own way making the twelve hour trip seem less long. You know the people you are with are awesome when you can ride that long in a car and not get annoyed with them. We sang the entire twelve hours and eventually realized that we had come up with a quartet!

"The 'Oh How I Hate Ohio State' ers"

We called ourselves "The 'Oh How I Hate Ohio State' ers" because that is something we all had in common. We had three songs that we could do really well. When I say really well, I mean not only belting out the words but also coming up with hand motions to go along with the words. Our three songs included "Forget You", "I Can Show You the World", and "Don't Stop Believing". Each of us had our own spot in this group. Hannah knew practically every word to every song that played. It was ridiculous. So she had the job of keeping the song going and because she is an excellent singer and performer, she entertained us when none of us knew the words.

Hannah Singing

Nic is Hannah's boyfriend and it was obvious during this trip that they are perfect for each other. Nic would sing and dance right along with Hannah having a blast and making Jim and I laugh in the back seat. He has a lovely falsetto and thus can sing any part that he wants.

Nic Singing

That leaves Jim and I. Most of the time we would just watch Nic and Hannah, but we also sang some too. Jim likes to sing for fun, so he would belt the words out if he knew the song and thus a third dimension was created.

Jim driving with his eyes closed.

I would also sing....but I am a quiet and insecure singer. Especially around people who are better at it than I am.

Me noticing the camera!

On the way back from the wedding, Jim suddenly asked me if I just didn't like singing. I was a little shocked because I really do enjoy singing for fun...it is just usually by myself. He said he couldn't hear me singing at all and proposed that I should sing a song right then in front of them by myself. Apparently, Nic and Hannah thought this would be a good idea as well and so I consented...hesitantly...on the condition that no one laugh at me. I sang the opening song in Beauty and the Beast. I was Belle (of course) and Nic, Hannah, and Jim were the townspeople. As embarrassed as I was about singing alone, I had a really fun time, and I think that I would be more confident singing in front of other people now. And I did catch Nic laughing at me...but he claims it was because I was really good. Regardless of our musical talent, our singing got us through the long car ride to our desired destination and the rest of our friends.

We finally made it to New York, where Chad and Rachel (The bride and groom) we waiting for us. It was so good to see them! These are people who I ate dinner with, and watched movies on Thursdays, and played Castles and Fairies (Dungeons and Dragons), and baked, and laughed, and cried. And here we were, all together for one last time, at least for a while. Just being with them would have made my weekend great, but to top it off, I got to witness their WEDDING!

Chad and Rachel practicing!

I love weddings. I always have, and I always will. They are romantic, and lovely, and fun. Naturally, one would expect that I would have my own wedding at least partially planned out already. The person that expected that would be 100% correct. In fact, I have most of my wedding planned. I am just missing the groom part of it. Anyway....I want to get married outside because I thought there were no beautiful churches left in America that would be able to live up to my standards. I was wrong. Really, really wrong. The church that Rachel picked out was fabulous. It was built in 1816 which is extremely old, especially for our country. I am pretty sure that is even older than my town, which is just hard to fathom.

Now, you might not know this, but Hannah and I are both traditional, history loving architecture majors. Knowing that bit of information, here is a friendly warning about architects. If you get two architects in a room together, they we will talk nonstop about said subject. If you get two architects that happen to be friends, they will talk even more about said subject. And if you happen to be in the room with them, you will get bombarded with more architectural history, theory, and terms than you would ever wish to know. Nic and Jim just happened to be the default recipients of this knowledge because Hannah and I spent nearly the entire trip drooling about the architectural wonder of the east coast, and specifically, this church. It is quite possible that we spent a day and a half throwing architectural terms back and forth between each other that just applied to this church. It was glorious! It is hard to do that in the midwest because, let's be honest, inspiration is somewhat limited.

Humungous pipe organ and the wedding party.

Stained glass and blue orb light.

Close up of window and coffers with plaster flowers.

Close up of stained glass.

A radiant rose window.

That is a lot of coffers...and flowers!

To make a long story shorter, everything about the wedding was beautiful. The bride, the flowers, the location, the love of both of the families and friends towards these two people, the love of Chad and Rachel, the openness that we all received from both families and even people we didn't know. I have never seen Chad so focused on one thing! It was enough to make a romantic, sappy soul like me cry...a lot (happy tears of course). I am proud to call these people my friends, and I am excited that I get to go through life, with them to keep me company!