Friday, August 7th I went to the wedding rehearsal for my friends, Saj and Lisa. I was hired as their videographer, so I like to attend the rehearsal (whenever possible) to get an idea of how the ceremony will take place. It was a fun evening! Lots of guests... and lots of friends I haven't seen in a long time!
Saturday, August 8th was the BIG day! Oh man, was there a crowd! There is absolutely NO doubt in my mind, this was the LARGEST wedding ceremony I have ever been to!
As the ceremony was about to get started the sanctuary (which is probably set to seat about 300 people, give or take) was packed! In fact, they started bringing in extra seating before the ceremony started. Even once the ceremony got rolling, there were still guests arriving!
Just before the ceremony started my friend, and fellow videographer, Eric, asked if he could help me film the wedding - since he really had nowhere to sit. I'm glad that I took him up on his offer and had him control a camera that I had set up on a tripod... because as the ceremony progressed and guests continued to flow in (and were now subject to just standing), I could no longer reach my camera on the tripod that Eric was at! Dan had the camera up in the balcony, so that was a guaranteed, clean shot and I floated with my camera on a mono pod. It was a hectic ceremony, but it was a good one!
I didn't get a chance to snag any photos at this wedding, but Dan managed to snap a few with his phone.
After the ceremony and the cake and coffee reception. Dan and I went with the wedding party to the park as they took some more photos. After the photos were done we went down the street to a nice Italian restaurant for some amazing pizza! There we got to know the photographers, who were also friends of the bride and groom. All together, it was a fabulously busy day!On August 12th Dan had all four of his wisdom teeth removed. He was knocked out for about 2 hours. Everything went smoothly. Aside from the fact that he was swollen, Dan was a trooper and took the pain with no problem.
On Monday, August 16th we celebrated Dan's birthday! Dan had to work on his birthday, so I got up early to fix him a lovely breakfast! Once he was home from work, we went over to my parents' house for dinner and dessert. Dan had the honor of eating off of our family birthday plate - it is a long-time family tradition.
My parents had gotten Dan a bike earlier that month, but they still had some treats for Dan to open and enjoy. One of his favorites was his interactive Toy Story Birthday card. You can see in the photo below... sometimes it's the little things that can excite us the most. Ha ha, ok, I will admit that Dan is playing up his excitement for the camera. What a goof!
After spending some quality time with my folks we went to go see Dinner with Schmucks starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd. Aside from a few "crude" jokes, we found the movie to be quite enjoyable. We were expecting it to be a bit more funny, but all in all, we still had a fun time watching it.
Our next wedding was in Minnesota for Dan's cousin Jonathan. Dan and I drove up on Wednesday, August 18th so that Dan could attend Jonathan's bachelor party - a Twins vs Sox game! The guys had a blast and Dan wore a Sox jersey - which he barrowed from Kathleen. You can see in some of these photos that Dan was still pretty swollen from his surgery. Poor guy!
On the 19th was the rehearsal and the guys' Fantasy Football Draft. They make a pretty deal out of it... the draft, not the rehearsal. Go figure. Ha ha!
Meanwhile, I wasn't even around. Nope. On the 18th I dropped off Dan and continued up to Moorhead to visit Kathleen and Brad. It was nice to spend some quality time with my sister and my new brother-in-law.I made my way back down in time for the wedding - it so happened, Kathleen and Brad had a wedding to attend that same day. So timing was perfect!
Friday, August 20th was Jonathan and Emily's wedding! They had a beautiful wedding! Their wedding was the first and only wedding that I simply attended this summer. I wasn't working it and I wasn't in it. It was so nice to just be a guest for a change. So much more relaxing.
I had a great time at the reception with Dan's family. We hardly get to see his extended family, so it was nice to spend some quality time catching up with them!Saturday, August 21st Dan's former cousin-in-law hired me to take some photos of her and her two daughters. Seriously, they were a blast! Mallory is quite the model and Marissa was always smiling - especially when Dan dropped wood chips on my head to get her to look at the camera. Here are a few images from that fun-filled morning at the park!
After my photo shoot, Dan and I stuck around until pretty late Saturday night. We did some shopping with his mom and sister [Stefanie] and had a relaxing dinner at Stefanie and Thomas' place. Dan and I decided to leave Saturday night because we had plans on Sunday.Sunday, August 22nd we attended an Aerosmith concert with our good friends, Jason and Rachel. Dan caught lawn seats on sale for $10 - and that included a $6 parking fee! The concert was at the First Midwest Bank Amphitheatre (but I still call it The World, because that is what it was when I was younger and attended a lot more concerts there).
Before the concert got started I noticed a woman sitting about 15 feet to my right... she looked very familiar! I tried not to stare, but really who can't when they think they know someone. I was 99.9% sure that it was Geri, my sister's former cross country and track coach - and still friend to her and our family. Eventually I decided that it must be her and I went over to check. Sure enough, I was right! She was there with her sister... and she was wondering the same thing when she saw me - "Is that really Karolyn?" Dan snapped a photo with his camera phone so that we could send it to Kathleen. Wow, out of thousands of people there, how did we find each other? Wild!
The warm-up band, Buckcherry, was kinda blah. I don't know... I wasn't too crazy about their performance. It was rather crude and lacked creativeness. I guess they thought running around with their shirts off, swearing, and talking about drugs would be entertaining. Eh, not so much.Aerosmith was amazing - as usual! Great presentation... excellent play list... and so much energy for these "old" guys!
We were all glad I thought to pack some ear plugs. Seriously, they were fantastic! We could hear the band perfectly without all the extra noise. Then, once we left we didn't have that annoying buzzing sound! Fabulous!
I don't have any photos from my camera on me right now, so here are two from Dan's camera phone.
