all the way to Maysville...

Two weeks ago, Hunter's long time best bud, Jacob got married!  He met his wife while we were all at Tech (although while we were all working on our measly Bachelor's degrees, she was in the middle of her Masters as prep for her Doctorate...she showed us up big time).  Anyway.  She's from a little town in the middle of nowhere north Kentucky.  Smack on the Ohio River.  Way far away from here...

So we piled in the car reeeeaaalllly early Thursday morning (with another guy who was in the wedding party and his fiancee--he and Hunter hadn't seen each other in over 10 years, and us girls had never met either of the other couple...crazy, because we were about to spend A LOT of time together.  Thankfully we all got along really well!).  We set up a carpool with his brother, also a groomsmen, and his wife behind us and hit the road for what felt like a neverending journey to Maysville, Kentucky.

We made the whole trip up there on Thursday.  CRAZY.  Hunter and I left our house at 4 to meet up with our ride by 5.  After crossing the time zone, we finally landed at our hotel at 12:30 am.  And of course my lack-of-a-gallbladder decided to give me major fits after dinner (still 5 hours from the hotel...and it lasted until Saturday morning...miserable).

We all crashed pretty hard that night and woke up the next day to go meet Jacob and the rest of the guys at the Country Club for lunch.  We had a great time getting to catch up--there was a lot of laughing that weekend.  Then we all split ways to go home and get ready for the rehearsal and dinner.  While the boys napped, us three girls did a little shopping at the little strip mall by our hotel.  After an 18 hour car ride, we didn't feel like cramping into a hotel for 3 hours of nothing...

The rehearsal went smoothly and quickly (I've been to some doozies that seemed like they'd go on forever...) and dinner was fabulous!  Little secret--George Clooney's parents were eating dinner at the restaurant where we had the rehearsal dinner!  And Barbara (the bride) is related to them through some connection I don't know well enough to explain...  Starstruck.

I digress.  We hung out at the Pub there in town that night, shooting darts and laughing some more. We avoided a major possible catastrophe by steering Hunter back out of the Karaoke bar around the corner (or Scary-oke as the locals called it...).  And headed back for a somewhat early night to get some rest.

The boys all got up and played golf the next morning, and from their stories and videos, they had quite the fun out there.  It had rained the night before so the grass was slick, the course was completely full of hills, and they had no supervision with gas powered golf carts--you do the math.  We three girls grabbed a bite to eat for lunch and tried to figure out what we would do with our day while they played (by the way, they only got through 12 holes and they were out there for about 5 1/2 hours).  Our waitress literally felt sorry for us when we told her we were stuck alone in Maysville looking for something to do...so we hopped in the car and drove to Cincinnati!  It was a little over an hour away, so we just went to the mall and shopped for a couple of hours before having to make the trek back and get ready for the ceremony.  But it was a fun little outing!  And much better than twiddling our thumbs all afternoon while the guys galavanted around doing their wedding duties (apparently that little strip mall we had gone to on Friday was about all Maysville had to offer...miniature JCPenney, Goody's, and a shoe store.  Woot).

The wedding party rode around town in a trolley that afternoon taking pictures all over the place and getting to know each other.  From what I can tell, country met the fancy side of life between the two sides of the bridal party...those Kentucky girls got a big dose of the real south with that big bunch of Louisiana boys :)

we clean up nice

The wedding was beautiful, held in an old Catholic church downtown.  It was gorgeous...old wooden pews, huge stained-glass windows all the way around, a massive organ on the balcony (and acoustics beyond belief).  And the wedding ceremony was sweet.  Not being Catholic, I appreciated the ceremony not being a full mass (they did this as the groom and his family are also not Catholic; I thought that was a nice compromise).  Everything went well, everyone smiled pretty, and everybody looked stunning.

The girls that belong to all of the guys in the wedding.  I am so thankful that they all also came and that we all got along well so we could hang out for the weekend!

They had the reception in a massive (6,000 sq. ft.) outdoor tent in the yard of one of their close family friends (and the view onto his house was gorgeous!).

HUGE tent!

First Dance as Husband and Wife!

There was a lot of good food--including a pasta and potato bar where you got to fix them the way you wanted...Yumm-O.  And there was a lot of fun dancing.  And there was this really big goober hopping and dancing around the tent all night wearing aviator sunglasses and having a great time.  Whoever married him is one lucky chica...

the wedding party

The groom and his men completed the night with their own rendition of Hank Jr.'s "Family Tradition"

The groom and all his fellas

We know Jacob well and are so proud of the way his life is turning out.  We also have gotten to know and love Barbara through their relationship and are so thankful for her and the role she is playing in his life.  They're a special couple to us and we were very honored to be a part of their day!

Here's to their happiness!
love, angie

--we got wise and split the trip up on the way home landing us a visit in Nashville with some of our closest friends...but that'll get its own post soon--