Married: Jay and Sara!

Remember when Jay and Sara got engaged on New Year’s Day??  Well, in addition to celebrating my birthday a few Sundays ago, prior to that on Thursday; we headed to Baltimore, MD for their wedding festivities to begin!!  Even with the news circulating about the potential for Hurricane Irene, we headed off early and made it to Baltimore to make our fist stop at a local bar where all the other folks from Kansas City were already gathered.  It was so fun for all these people to be gathered together again – especially for such a fun occasion!!  A few diet cokes into it, I realized that we had not eaten lunch, so Jimmy ordered a delicious appetizer of crab tater tots….sounds gross??  Well I assure you that it wasn’t, and hey, when in Maryland, right?  However, I’m pretty sure that should have been our entire caloric intake for the weekend-  so good!

Thursday night had a beautiful rehearsal and rehearsal dinner at a nice Italian restaurant hosted by Jay’s parents.  It was so great to see a slideshow of the bride and groom and recount how their chance meeting at a bar in Dewey beach just 2 July’s ago had turned into such a great love.  Jay’s dad gave an amazing speech, which was complete with his own song to the tune of his harmonica.  So awesome!!  It was also great to get to meet Sara’s family and especially her four sisters that we had heard so many great things about!

And we had a little bit of fun after the rehearsal dinner!!

Friday was the wedding day but we did have some time to play in the morning and got the group together to go to a delicious breakfast at Jimmy’s (a fun restaurant in the harbor area) where the 7 of us learned was scrapple was (to quote old man Jimmy himself, “it everything on the pig except the oink grinded together and fried”) and enjoyed a great meal and even better conversation.   After that we all walked to look over the harbor and that is when it set in that this Hurricane Irene was real.  There were mounds of sand all over with people everywhere trying to fill the bags.   Check out a few pictures that I got of the harbor and the sand!!

Our original flight and plans included not leaving until Sunday morning because we were going to hang out in Baltimore that day and go to the baseball game.  When we heard lots of folks weren’t coming because they were scared of not being able to go home, Jimmy and I decided that it would best to see what kind of flight change we could get.  After 45 minutes on hold with United, I finally got in touch with someone and they changed our flight to the only option left, which was 6:50AM on Saturday with a connection in Charlotte, NC.  Seems odd that they would route us through North Carolina, right?  I thought so too because it seemed as if that is where the hurricane was heading, but she said they were saying Charlotte was far enough in land that it wouldn’t be affected.  With no other choice, we said ok.

While the boys headed off to go to an upscale barber shop (so funny…), us girls hung around the harbor and walked around in cute little shops to kill some time and ended up buying the guys all a koozie of their favorite new Baltimore beer, Natty Bo (short for Natural Bohemian beer).   We also ate some delicious oysters that Julia really enjoyed and so did I!!

And then it was almost time for the wedding and we were back to the hotel to get ready.  To celebrate the newest Mr. and Mrs. Cullinan.  Check out the fun present that I got Sara!  And those 2 cute guys that I got to room with a few nights….

The wedding was beautiful.  The church was breathtaking .  The bride was stunning.  And the love was everywhere, you could just feel it. 

Sara and her dad….

Special moments during the wedding that I was able to grab with my new zoom lens.  They were so happy!!

Presenting Mr. and Mrs. Cullinan!

This might be my favorite picture that I grabbed of them on their drive by the church.  Love how the background is blurry and Jay’s fist pump.

After the wedding we headed towards the reception, after Julia has a quick wardrobe change.  She let us know that she wasn’t a diva and I told her she was the last person I would deem as a diva.   The reception was held at the Belvedere, which was gorgeous.  It was topped off with a delicious crab cookie to commemorate our time in Maryland!

What a beautiful couple.

And what a great group of guys.  Look at how handsome they are.  I really do love them.  Each and every one of them.  With a preference to Jimmy, but really, these guys are one of the many reasons that my husband is so wonderful and caring and nice.  They have great morals, values and value their friendships more than anything.  Oh Heble.

And what fun we had traveling and hanging out with these folks!  Ben and Julia – set to tie the knot in Austin, TX in October and then Danny and Kristin – tying the knot next June 30, so lots of fun wedding to come.

And Jay and Sara (btw, Heble took this picture if you cannot tell.  I tried my best to make it look normal!).  Oh how I wish they lived in Kansas City - all the fun we would have!!!  But until then, we will have to build lots of trips in our calendar to Baltimore to come visit them.  Until next time Baltimore….

I didn’t get any good pictures of what might have been the best part of the night that included Jay dancing to The Dougie.  His dancing is amazing.  And to top onto that, his dad and 3 brothers joined in the fun and the whole wedding did a dance circle around them.  It was pretty amazing.

 We went to sleep at 1:30AM and were up again at 4AM to head to the airport and make the long trip back to Kansas City and finally arrived around 2PM.  Turns out, we were very lucky that we rescheduled our flight because all the flights were in fact canceled out of Baltimore on Sunday and the happy couple had to post pone their honeymoon until Tuesday because of the crazy weather!!!!  Overall, it was a fun weekend filled with good times with GREAT friends – even though it was cut short.  I am just so thankful that their wedding was on Friday because when I was driving to work on Tuesday they were talking about all the damage Irene caused over the weekend and one of the main things that they mentioned was all the weddings that had to be canceled over the weekend and all the money that was lost.  How devastating that would be if you were the couple that was getting married!!!!   So I have come to the conclusion that it was a great sign and start to Jay and Sara’s marriage that everything worked out just perfect!!

Congrats to the happy couple and we love you both!