The Rehearsal, Dinner: Beginnings of a Bromance

Friday, after I'd gotten a bite to eat and had a few adult beverages with Whit and Katie, it came time for them to drop me off at the St. Anthony hotel before the rehearsal dinner. Now, any rehearsal in which I'd been involved (which, in fairness, has only been one), has been pretty low key. I figured it was kind of weird that we were required to be in shirt and tie for it, but I wear it for work, so I just kind of rolled with it. Then we met the deacon and things made more sense.

So Deacon Napoleon (who, in subsequent mentions, will be referred to simply as DN) rolls in and decides that not only are we going to rehearse the ceremony (essentially half of a mass - the liturgy of the word) twice, he is going to give all of us a lesson in the Catholic faith and explain everything that is going on ad nauseum. People in attendance were either Catholic (Nicole's side) or disinterested (Chris's side), so ol' boy was whiffing either way. To his credit criticism "credit," he didn't care.

Now, this might have been acceptable, had he not been a jerk about it, barking orders at Cathy (the maid of honor) and condescendingly calling her "sweetheart." So for about 10 minutes, this guy had our attention, but then we collectively decided we didn't like him, so we became like 5-year-olds trying to get away with anything and everything.

We were gathered around the altar and getting our lesson in God only knows what obscure and impertinent area of the Catholic faith, when I decided to be friendly, as our other reader Michael got there. We whispered a quick introduction, shook hands and then turned back toward the altar to receive our icy stare from DN. Anyway, these little things went on back and forth all through the two complete run-throughs we did.

I emphasize complete, since the multiple Shiner Bocks, Lone Stars and a hurricane had absconded with my sobriety a while before, and I was perturbed to find out that I had to do my reading as part of said dry run(s). So since I had the second reading, I got to sit up there facing the congregation and Nicole and Chris, since they were at the front on the sweet little two-person wedding kneeler. So after Michael has read and taken the seat right next to me and DN is droning on and on about how important all this stuff is, Nicole is sticking her tongue out at me, and I am mouthing the words "I'm drunk" to her. She laughs, and leans over to Chris to relay the message, which causes him to laugh too. Then when Michael and I proceed to have a sidebar up on the altar, DN finally catches on to the fact that he is completely losing us and says it's time for the second reading.

I managed to get through my reading without slurring or otherwise butchering it, so Michael and I headed back to our seats for the rings and the whole "I do" thing. Since Nicole and Chris have to move, the best man comes up with the rings and "sweetheart" has to wrestle with the train. After that, it's showtime for the third member of our reading team, Jill (best man's gf), who was quite nervous about the prayer of the faithful and the responses and such considering she is not Catholic. Michael and I coached her through it, and it was really then that we declared ourselves a team. Team Readers: we like to party. (Jill did not have time on Saturday to get our t-shirts made: FAIL)

Mercifully, the rehearsal finally ended, and it was time to go get dinner at Paesano's on the Riverwalk, which is a great venue, as, on a Friday night, it was packed. Since I had gotten a ride with Michael after the rehearsal, we chatted and got to know a little more about one another and figured out that we were the only two single guys in this entire operation. This seemed like a fair time to introduce him to the zero-one evaluation scale, so once we got to the Riverwalk, there were "zero" and "one" calls abounding.

The night ended with Michael, Nicole and I walking through San Antonio and eventually back to the hotel while talking about old times and the day ahead. Then I changed, grabbed my stuff and it was time to get back to Whit and Katie for a recruiting trip to Austin.