It's Reception Time!

I'll just jump into the pictures as it's really late tonight:

This was a low-rise table setting. We also had taller displays on every other table.

Here's the room setup. The table in the middle is actually four round tables and held the wedding party. We decided it was better to be able to see the better men and matron of honor instead of being in a long table where we couldn't talk.

The cakes! The flavors were vanilla, vanilla/chocolate swirl and red velvet.

Wedding cake topping close up.

One of the taller flower arrangements. The ginger is beautiful.

Eating the cake....oh no! It was mostly chocolate from the swirl. We wanted it to be vanilla. Damn. Hence the smirk on our faces.

LL's dad, sister, niece and my niece practicing the hokey pokey in the back room before the reception officially started.

We did walk around and say hi to all the tables early in the evening. Since we saw most everyone for a few days before the wedding, and after, this wasn't a huge focus for us. Here though we're visiting with my dad.

Here's LL parents, Don and Mary. They were integral to the whole wedding both financially and in man hours (or woman hours) of various tasks.

This was from the father/daughter and mother/son dance. It was At Last by Etta James.

Here's LL kicking it up with her nephew Ben.

Instead of going up for our first dance, the announcement of the first dance set in motion my posse: Naperville Greg to the guitar, Joisey Ken to set up a chair on the two stair stage for LL and Ricardo to position the microphones. LL had no idea what was being planned, but she does not like to be the center of attention to any great degree. I thought she'd like this though.

Here's Greg all set up.

To what end? Joe is about to sing to her! That's right. Instead of dancing to "I want to grow old with you" by Adam Sandler (aka Robbie Hart) from The Wedding Singer, Greg played the guitar while I sang the song. Even after breaking up during our vows and my welcome speech, I nailed the song.

And LL loved it.

Greg was pretty proud of me too!

And our real first dance, to Unforgettable by Natalie and Nat King Cole.

Now for the rest of the story. As we sat down to dinner and the Better Men and Matron of Honor gave their speeches, I quickly became very, very ill. I was sweating profusely, had the chills and couldn't eat any of the delicious dinner we had picked out. It was a no brainer to me that I had food poisoning or was getting a Meniere's attack and was not long for the party. LL was very concerned for me, but I really wanted to at least get through singing the song before leaving. The question was, could I make it to and then through the song?? Well, it turns out that it was just nerves! That may have seemed obvious to you, but I've spoken in front of groups as large as 600 people before, so being nervous was never a consideration for me. Maybe I'd forget the words or break down while singing, but I wasn't going to be nervous.

Well, it must have been the nerves because I felt 100% better as soon as the song was over and was very thankful that we decided to have snack food brought out around 10:00 or so as that became my dinner. It wouldn't have been another day of the wedding without some kind of drama!!

The Sutton, Davis and Kulinski Families.

Ok, here are some more pics

The wedding day finally arrived and the weather was finally nice with no threat of rain. After a breakfast of Mallorca-egg-cheese-bacon sandwich and Puerto Rican coffee, I lazily went up to the sitting area where the honor bar was located as well as a few computers. Much to my surprise, there was LL!! Oh no!! No, not to worry, apparently seeing the bride before the wedding only counts if she's in her dress, which she wasn't. It was still 5 hours before the wedding and 3 hours until pictures, so she was still in the process of being "made up".

Shortly thereafter, the power went out...again. Arrrrrggghhhhh!! NO WAY!! Yep. But fortunately it only went out for about 15 minutes and then popped back on. No delay in LL getting ready or anything like that. It wouldn't have been our wedding day if the power hadn't gone off!

As the hour approached, I was huddled in a room with my two Better Men, the ushers and readers. It was a nice posse! Other people have a best man, but I had two Better Men (Ricardo and Joisey Ken). Why two and why Better? Two because why do I have to choose? Just because some ancient convention says so? Crap to that. And Better men because my best men are better than your best man and I think of them as better than me in many ways. Just seemed natural to me.

As the time to go out arrived, I wasn't nervous at all. What did I have to be nervous about? LL is awesome and I'm a lucky guy. So here are the pictures. I'll write tomorrow about the ceremony and reception.

This canopy would serve as the backdrop for our vows. The table underneath is where we lit the unity candle and signed our marriage license, in front of everyone as is the custom in Puerto Rico.

Here's the view above the canopy.

Here's a picture of where the 75 guests sat for the ceremony.

The flower girl and ring bearer. LL's sister and Matron of Honor, Linda.

Joisey Ken and Ricardo, probably trying to figure out what they did with the rings.

A great picture of Ken cracking up after I turned to him and said, "You and Rich have been a huge disappointment." No idea what I meant by that, but pretty much anything would have been funny at that moment.

And there's my gorgeous wife-to-be! Obviously she's getting ready to walk down the aisle.

A close-up of LL and her bouquet.

Here LL is saying her vows. She started crying during my vows, which caused me to break down as well. I'm a softie....I know.

Lighting the unity candle and the happy couple being introduced.

Yay us!!!

The table which held the names and table assignments greeted the guests. That leads us to the reception, which I'll cover tomorrow.

So where are the wedding pictures already?

Ok, here's the deal, it was a bears home game today (the season opener in fact) which meant tailgating. Which meant yesterday(Saturday) was spent preparing for the tailgate, which I had to do all by myself since LL is in Hong Kong.

Oh, did I not mention that? Yeah, LL bailed on her new husband and headed to Hong Kong for a meeting. Granted, I could have gone with her, but she was flying business class so I would have had to shell out who knows how much money for a ticket AND miss the home opener. Plus we would have stayed longer than just until Thursday and we were already gone for two weeks recently if you recall.

In addition to doing all the shopping, cooking and car loading and unloading by myself on Saturday, I had an electrician in to fix a nagging problem down stairs. For my 900 square foot plus basement, one outlet was on one circuit breaker and everything else was on another circuit breaker. This meant that whenever LL used the hairdryer while the television and computer were on, the circuit would trip and cut power. Not good. So a sub contractor for a friend of mine spent 8 hours with an assistant running wires and rewiring breakers, which meant no computer for Joe. Now we have the outlets on four breakers and all should be good once he comes back to finish the final touches (he left at 8 p.m.). It took a few hours just to figure out where all of the lines were splitting off from and it turned out to be an electrical box buried in the ceiling, which resulted from sub standard work done by non-licensed contractors (who were inexpensive).

ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT, LL and I went to a wedding on Friday evening of my good friend and Bears co-fan, Doug. His father has the seats right next to mine at Soldier Field and we've become good friends over the years. Doug's bachelor party was up in Wisconsin a few weeks ago and I attended.

So anyway, it's been a busy few days and I'll work on uploading the pictures tomorrow!

A little more time tonight than last night as we went out to see the in-laws for dinner. It was a nice visit but we got home late.

So where did I leave off? Let me check...ahhhh, wedding day! This is going to be good!

The day really started where Friday ended, with Ricardo dragging me, the Cliffords and my brother-in-law Greg, to the bar across the street where I ended up playing some non-English speaking, toothless, potentially homeless Puerto Rican in pool. It was supposed to be Ricardo, but next thing you know I'm playing this guy. After one game and a beer, we left. My memory is fuzzy as to what happened next, whether we went back to the pool or whether I went to my room. Yes, it was just MY room as LL worked out in our contract that she would get the bridal suite for both Friday AND Saturday night so we would sleep apart on Friday night. Yours truly was none to happy about that idea, but I acquiesced. Plus she was getting her hair done and all sorts of girlie things were going to happen early in the morning.

You know what? I just looked at the photo sharing site we have set up and there are now 607 pictures up! I'm going to copy some of them from the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner first and get to the wedding tomorrow. What a tease!!!

Obviously LL and me and then my mom and me as I practice walking her down the aisle.

Joisey Ken walking LL's sister Linda and Ricardo walking with my niece, Sommer.

LL's father practicing giving away LL.

Taking instructions from the minister we used.

Rehearsing the vows.

Rehearsal dinner time!

LL's uncle, aunt and cousins. No, the uncle doesn't ever smile.

LL and her mom. Her mom did a great job helping out.

LL's sister and bro in-law. My cousin Mike and his wife Kendal, who took a ton of pics too!

My sister Lori and my mom.

Me and my sister Bee.

Me with Smitty and his wife Beth. We had a great time with them!

Laura with one of her best friends Nicole and her husband Ben.

The Groom's Cake! Yep, that's Homer! It was carrot cake and it was delicious.

Those are mojitos and yes they were delicious and they led to......

....surprise, surprise....Ricardo leading me in a dance after the Flamenco dancers took off after a brief appearance. You can see how this night was going to end up the way it did!

Just Pictures Today

I'm a little tired today to write, so I'm just posting some pics from the wedding......you're welcome. This is just a random sampling. We're accumulating pictures from people on Kodak's site and downloading them periodically.

The Sutton side of the family

Me and my wife!

One of the FOUR cakes.

Laura and her dad about to walk down the aisle.

The Matron of Honor and Junior Bridesmaid.

The very old church across the street from Hotel El Convento.

My dad and his cousin Jean Ann....which is my second cousin if I'm not mistaken.

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!!

Partial Wedding Recap

Our wedding trip to Puerto Rico was awesome, but it's good to be home. Let me do a little pre-wedding recap and toss some pictures your way. From there I'll have another entry about the wedding day and then another for post wedding events. All good stuff, but I like shorter entries.

We took off on Monday morning at 8 a.m., 9 a.m. Puerto Rico time. Unbeknownst to us, the San Juan airport didn't even open until 11 local time, about halfway through our flight! I wonder what plan B was if they didn't open up for our landing at 1?? Guess that's why the pilot bothered to mention that we were carrying "A LOT" of fuel at takeoff. But we landed just fine, if not a little bumpy and a little too quickly for my liking.

Though they lost power over 60% of the island when Irene came through the evening prior, they didn't get a ton of water...at least initially. Monday night into Tuesday though, the rains came and stayed dumping I don't know how much water on the island and flooding a good chunk of the main roads. We know that because when we switched hotels to one with power, our taxi had to drive up on the median of a four lane highway just to get through!

While we were at the Marriott on Isla Verde on Tuesday night, the power went out there too! Right in the middle of a hand of blackjack. Fortunately our hands weren't good and we were able to take back our bets. About 15 minutes later the power went back on and you wouldn't believe the number of people willing to head to the elevators!! Yikes! I asked where the stairs were (we were on the 4th floor) and the worker at the front desk just said, "Oh, the elevators are working now. You don't have to take the stairs." Yeah, right. About 20 minutes later the power went out again, albeit briefly.

LL was concerned that we wouldn't be able to get BACK to our hotel the next day due to the flooding, but I wasn't concerned and it proved to not be a problem. The rain did continue to be a problem just in general though and we never went anywhere without an umbrella.

One of the issues with the power being out was that we couldn't get our marriage license as the office was closed! It finally opened up on Thursday and we spent about five hours in total trying to get the license. They do EVERYTHING by hand down there and have just one person doing it so it's incredibly inefficient and a little crazy. You aren't going to become the 51st State by doing legal stuff by hand. Anyway, one of the issues we had was that they require a letter from our doctor indicating we are healthy, even though they are supposed to only require what our home county requires which is basically that: you're alive, not too closely related and at least 18.

In PR they required a document proving that my divorce was legal and that it had a raised seal on the document. Well, my divorce was over 15 years ago so any documents on file in Cook County have long since been stored and probably transferred to an electronic media. Our wedding planner thought that the copy I had would be fine. Just in case though, I was on the phone with a lawyer friend of mine to see if she could be ready to go down to the county office to get SOMETHING if needed. Because of the power outages, our cell phones didn't have great reception so we had to go to the edge of this fort on the side of the bay to get reception. Unfortunately that's where we were most exposed to the wind and rain. It was sort of comical to be out there holding an umbrella and trying to send emails, texts and make calls. Not fun and it just added to the building stress.

As it turns out, the document would take at least a week to produce but the registrar's office in PR was fine with what I had anyway. They weren't fine with us not having a letter from our doctor though so we had to go visit a local quack who took our pulse, blood pressure, asked us some questions and then gave us the documents we needed (all for only $55...which isn't bad really). In the waiting room he had Ghostbusters 2 running on a continuous loop and when he came out periodically, he'd just stare up at the screen...very weird. And he looked a bit like Martin Landau which didn't help the entire odd scene.

Ok, that's enough story for today. Here are some pictures:

My niece Sommer and I at dinner on Thursday.

My sister Brenda and my dad at the same dinner (at Barrachino if you ever make it to Old San Juan). The restaurant was supposed to have been the birthplace of the pina colada. I'm not sure if that's true, but they were delicious.

LL and I cutting the cake.

Here are two pictures of us after we were just introduced. LL was true to her name!