Saturday, November 6, 2010

Embarkation and Nuptials

Away we went...

It had not occurred to me that setting sail to Mexico would mean no Internet or cell phones for a week, but that's what Mike is for. He reminded me, by entering our cabin and immediately (like before the baby was unbuckled from her stroller) logging on to the Internet one last time. He turned the laptop towards me and said, "do you want to blog or anything before we leave?" Ha! Guilty. That's what I was doing in the last moments in port madly typing notes into my blog and saving rough drafts. Priorities...

On the topic of cell phones I did completely forgot to turn mine off and the first night a text reminding me to change my clocks cost me roaming charges, oops! It's too bad about roaming charges because it was a huge boat and we had a ton of family on board and it would have been easier to keep tabs on people with cell phones. I recommend walkie talkies. Although, scrawling down room numbers on a napkin to call people gave me warm fuzzy freshman year of college memories.

Overall that was the vibe for me. Small living quarters, lots of roommates, expensive "tuition", sprawling confusing "campus", dining hall style eating, visiting room to room, planned activities, party vibe and the cabin steward was pretty much an RA. Except for the sizable elderly population and having kids with me it was a lot like college.

The wedding (aka reason for the cruise) ended up being on the ship on the second day instead of on the beach in Mexico later in the week. The first night everyone met in this bar with a loungey feel before dinner where Riley blew kisses to the handsomest little baby boy. The next day the wedding was in the afternoon. I had my "sea legs" enough to do a decent job of makeup and hair. It felt good to get dolled up for the first time in oh...14mo. I hadn't realized until I saw photos that my beautiful charcoal dress reveled most of my brand new spine length scar (aka the zipper). I have the impulse to write "enough about me", but really it's nice to feel like me again and not just "Riley's Mom."

The wedding was in the ship's chapel it was decorated in white (white candles, white flowers, etc). It was an intimate room especially compared with the rest of the ship. The groom wore a white linen shirt with a white rose boutonniere. The bride who I've rarely seen in a dress looked stunning. It had beautiful sparkly embellishment under the bust line and she carried white roses. By far my favorite was her veil trimmed with sparkle, gorgeous. After a brief, entertaining and emotional ceremony we went to the piazza deck for pictures.

We took a brief intermission back to the room. The idea was for Riley to lay down but instead she discovered the room phone. We headed to the reception at a bar so exclusive it couldn't be found without a search party. There were plenty of drinks, laughter, cake and pictures, but no dancing. We had a really good time...some more than others.

The rest of the cruise was their honeymoon. Sigh...

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