περιπλάνηση: Nick & Ali's Wedding Weekend 6/22

Friday, June 22: winging our way from Denver to San Antonio

Of the rentals on the line for our mid-size reservation, I had to take the blue one with the New York plates. We drove south to Poth, where Ali's cousin owns the 4K Lodge, a set of 10 little cabins in a town of less than 2000 people.

On the drive down, I snapped a photo of our 100° temp.

The 4K is also home to 14 cats she's taken in and gotten fixed to try and cut down on the feral cat population.

After we had put our stuff down and chatted with Bill and Julie, who had already arrived from Florida and were staying in Cabin #4, we headed the 8 miles up the road to Kosciusko, an even tinier town, where the community hall, next door to St. Anne's Church, will be wedding central for the next two days. From what I can tell, this is the entirety of the town other than the surrounding ranches.

Ali's mom had done a ton of work on the space, and it looked lovely. The center area with the chairs will be for the small family only ceremony Saturday at 4. The big party starts at 5:00, when this area will be broken down and moved out of the way for the dance floor.

Nick with Casey, their officiant, Dylan, his best man, (college roomie and football teammate, the star running back, whom Nick coached in Dylan's senior year) and Hayes, Ali's nephew who is 6 and absolutely adorable.

The wedding party was ginormous -- 10 on each side!

Post rehearsal, we went over to St. Anne's kitchen for dinner.

Post rehearsal dinner, we retired to the cabin for the night. The Banana Coconut Walnut bread was made by our proprietor and family cousin because, as she said, "We are all a bunch of bananas and nuts around here."

The next morning Sam was to be back at the kitchen space at 8:00 for an entire day of bridesmaids stuff, including hair and makeup. Ali had gifts, robes, slippers, and flowers all set up for them.

I headed back to the cabin after dropping her off and made friends with our cabin cat.

Nick picked me up and we joined Mom and Dad at Jack's Cafe in Floresville for breakfast. They, like most of the wedding guests, were staying in this town, about the same size as Navasota, and maybe fifteen minutes from the wedding venue.

We also stopped at the Floresville HEB so Nick could round up some food for his groomsmen who didn't have to be at the Kolodziej's place until the afternoon to get ready.

Naturally, the party platters were in the shape of Texas.

We drove back to the Kolodziej's so I could say hi to Olive and meet the tiny little baby kitten Ali had rescued from the highway.

The backyard, under the oaks, is where the wedding party will return after the ceremony and before the reception to take photos. They live maybe a mile from the hall.

When I stopped back by around 2:00 so I could drop Jason and Bob off with the guys, the line of groomsmen vehicles was growing.

Olive checking out that boutonniere

Back over to the kitchen an hour beforehand to watch the getting ready stuff. Ali and her niece (and Hayes' baby sister) Reece, who is wearing light up shoes which they hope will entice the three year old to walk by herself down the aisle as flower girl.

Here's how big Ali's family and friends are: Two of Nick's groomsmen are actually "hers" -- close friends from college -- who were on hand for bridesmaid fun, and three more of Nick's groomsmen are Ali's three brothers. Nick's remaining five were Jason, Dylan and Trey, friends from college football days, and a fellow coach at Southwestern now.

I was zooming in with my phone while the professional photographer took some Ali shots.

We all met up at the hall, found my folks and Bill and Julie, and got them hitched in under 20 minutes! (And, no, Reece did not quite make the walk. She took one look at all of us and burst into tears, so her mom, also in the wedding party, carried her.) Bill and Julie helped Facetime the ceremony for Bob Sr. who wasn't well enough to travel so he could watch in real time.

the new Mr. & Mrs. Mask

Once everyone was done with photos, the rest of the wedding party returned and we waited a bit more before the new bride and groom made the big entrance.

Nick had chosen the Groom/Mother dance song and Sam had gotten an itinerary of the evening in her bridemaid bag. She had said to me earlier, "Do you know what song he picked?" and I had said, "No, and don't tell me. He wants it to be a surprise." So when Phil Collins' "You'll Be in My Heart" cued up, I knew he was pulling out all the stops to try and get me crying. While we were dancing he said, "It was this or Billy Joel's Lullabye" and we decided neither of us were up for that kind of crying.

It was basically one table of our family and friends and all the rest were Ali's side.

The little placard on our table was marked for family, but we insisted Bill, Julie, Marci, Frank & Phyllis sit with us so we could actually have one full table to represent.

Nick was at Frank & Phyllis' wedding, as their ring bearer, January 2000.

The Northgate replica was handmade by one of Ali's family for her brother's wedding and, since they're all Aggies, it was repurposed for Nick and Ali's, too.