Tuesday, September 06, 2011

The Guests Arrive

We we last left our lovely couple, there was no power in the hotel (and much of Old San Juan), it was raining on and off for most of the day and flooding was rampant. On top of that, the guests started arriving! The first part of the week was supposed to be just for relaxing and doing some final prep work for the wedding (getting the license, meeting with the minister, taking "engagement" photos, etc).  Unfortunately, with all the aforementioned problems, none of those things happened until Thursday (for the license), Friday for the meeting  and not at all for the engagement pictures.

So now we were dealing with those issues as well as trying to line up the guests who had arrived so that we could spend time with them as well.  Only about 5 or so people came on Wednesday, but by Thursday afternoon there were about 40 guests or so.  Wednesday we had a relatively intimate dinner at Cafe Puerto Rico with our good friends the Cliffords, of Mokena fame who host a Memorial Day party every year, my cousins from D.C. and a friend of Laura's.  It was really nice to be able to sit down with our guests and what we hoped would happen with our destination wedding. On Thursday we had 30 people for dinner at another great restaurant, Barrachino, purported to be home of the pina colada.  We also had lunch and breakfast with various folks as well (breakfast usually at Bombonera a place known for their Mallorca sandwiches).

Thursday was also the crazy marriage license registration day which took up about 5 hours of our day. Ugh. But we had power in the hotel so life was good. Friday was highlighted by the rehearsal dinner at Pizza e Birra, a restaurant attached to the hotel and owned by Ernesto and Andrea, two of our wedding guests. It was great fun, even though the power went out, and I was kept up way too late by one Ricardo....surprise, surprise.

Most of the nights ended up in the hotel jacuzzi tub and plunge pool and Ricardo was usually leading the charge. The highlight had to be when he, out of the blue, stood on the edge of the small plunge pool, spread his arms and yelled "belly flop!".  Not good. What followed was a tsunami that engulfed those around the pool, which included LL and myself and our drinks. We called Ricardo "Tsu" for most of the weekend after that. My good buddy Joe DeMarco was there for the "flop" as were Smitty and his wife Beth.  Apparently, later on in the morning, Ricardo, DeMarco and Smitty all did belly flops in the pool at the same time. Mind you, this pool is only about 5-6' wide. Not good. Smitty tore up his leg and DeMarco hurt his arm.  Tsu was in the middle and was unscathed.

Tomorrow: Wedding Day!!

2 comments:

alexis said...

sounds like you made the most of it despite the power and weather stacked against you. And when do we get to see pictures??

terri said...

Well, you had plenty of problems, but you managed to pull it off in spite of them. I have to say, though... you've got some CRAZY friends! Belly flops! Who does that willingly? LOL!