Our Crazy Wedding Adventure

Pre-Wedding Festivities
The wedding festivities actually began a week prior to March 20th, when unsuspecting guests arrived to stay at Kat & Rodney's home. Anticipating a relaxing vacation spent loafing around poolside, little did Chris, Monique and Pam know that they'd rapidly be recruited into Kat's napkin-ring production sweatshop.

Kat attempted to keep the alcohol flowing (acts as a sedative lest the workers get rebellious thoughts in their heads) as the workers made quick work of foiling the countless glass pieces while sitting in the living room, sitting poolside, and (a San Diego specialty) sitting in traffic.

As the week progressed, Kat and Rodney's driveway quickly adopted a trailer-park atmosphere owing to the three large RV's which had arrived carrying more wedding-goers (and more sweatshop recruits, bwah-ha-ha-ha...) The arrival of Rodney's family members rounded out the already festive gathering, and so rather than fight it, Rodney & Kat decided to officially open their home as party-headquarters for the duration of everyone's stay.

This only served to increase the pool of cheap labour (yes, that's the correct spelling in CANADIAN) at Kat's disposal, so it really wasn't a bad arrangement at all.

The Beaulieu and Tumpach family members assembled at Hon Sushi in Oceanside for a rehearsal dinner the eve of the wedding and all behaved themselves rather well (much to Kat & Rodney's surprise and, okay, we admit it, disappointment.) The rehearsal dinner served as a warm-up, as there was further carousing to be had back at the ranch for the first official unofficial pre-wedding party. Again, no incidents to report, as incredibly, both bride and groom managed to maintain some semblance of cool the night before the big day.

The Wedding Day
On wedding day, Kat woke up and having successfully sloughed off any remaining responsibilities to her sweatshop workers, prepared to indulge herself, her mom and her 'maids' at Earth Salon & Spa. Barb had graciously offered to act as chauffer for Kat and their timely departure for the spa was only mildly hampered by Barb's baby Cole launching his entire breakfast all over Barb and himself, seemingly as a farewell gift to his mommy.

Handing Cole off to his daddy Jeff, Barb and Kat made a quick exit, leaving the world of babies, houseguests and fiancees behind.

While Kat and the girls were getting pampered, Rodney still had a few errands to run in preparation for the wedding. Apparently he was either unskilled at recruiting sweatshop workers, or had more couth than Kat to take advantage of unassuming wedding guests.

As Kat arrived upon the scene at the Seapointe, it was clear that the many recruits who had been working tirelessly all week had magically pulled all the pieces together just in time for the guests to start arriving. Everything was set and it was now just a matter of hoping that the guests all arrived in one piece to the right place at the right time. And they did.

Thankful that she had charming Madison's hand for support, Kat trotted down the aisle to Jerry's brilliantly jazz-inspired rendition of 'Here Comes the Bride' to find a devilishly handsome Rodney, awaiting her at the podium (accompanied by an equally debonnaire Egan.)

The Ceremony
Thence began the beautiful ceremony created by Teri. It was short and sweet, but perfectly suited and brilliantly set to a backdrop of bright blue sky and sparkling ocean. But even more valuable than the stroke of good weather, was the setting amongst cherished family and friends, whom we were able to share those moments with.

And then the bar was opened and the real fun started!

Champagne, of course, came first. Keeping with the Californian theme, our guests popped the corks on their "Chandon" sparkling wine and set the tone for a bubbly evening.

Once comfortably seated at our tables, the first surprise of the evening was revealed. Barbara, Jorg and Ralf had co-conspired to bring an 'ancient German tradition' to America. Handing out helium filled balloons, our guests were instructed to make a wish for us and then release the balloons from the outdoor patio into the atmosphere. Fortunately the the wind was blowing off the ocean, so there were no dolphins harmed as a result of this event. As for sending alarm-waves through the various military radar monitoring facilities in San Diego County, we can't say.

This activity had the fringe benefit of distracting people from the fact that the food was now an hour late. Dayleen, our calm, cool and collected event coordinator was repeatedly making calls to the India Princess restaurant to find out what exactly had happened to our buffet. Rodney tried to make light of the situation by telling various tables that the food being late was a more authentically New Delhi experience.

...does the food ever arrive? read more