Mike & Jess

On Saturday, we went to the wedding of one of our good friends from college. Well, actually, Michael has been friends with him through most of his childhood, too. They were roommates when we met, and I have many fond memories of Mike!

He met his (now) wife through a job he had after college. They planned their wedding on the beach (a lake), with an outdoor reception. The weather on Saturday was touch and go to begin with. The day couldn't decide whether it wanted to be rainy, sunny, humid, cool, etc.

We walked up to the ceremony site right at 4:00 p.m. (when the ceremony was supposed to start). We waited around for about 10 minutes, and we could hear the thunder rolling in the distance. It was clear we were going to be getting rained on at some point. Everyone just hoped it would hold out at least through the ceremony.

Saying their vows. During this part, this is when it started to rain. The drops kept getting bigger and bigger, and then more frequent.

Someone ran out a big table umbrella to put over them for the rings ceremony. At this point, we were still standing uncovered. Shortly after, however, we all had to make a run for the tent when it started to downpour.

Sadly, we couldn't see or hear the rest of the ceremony because we were all in a huddle, and the rain was too loud. But we got a clue that they were married when people in the front started to cheer, and we saw Mike and Jess fly up the aisle to go take cover in the house.

After that, it downpoured for a few minutes. Then it got a bit better and Michael and I actually walked back to our car to get an umbrella. By the time we got back? Absolutely pouring again. I'd say the bad weather lasted an hour or so. We were all pretty contained under the tent (we made the occasional outing to go to the "bar" and get another drink).

At one point, the weather got so bad that we thought we were in the middle of a monsoon or something. The walls of the tent were blowing, it started hailing golf-ball sized hail, and the wind and rain were whipping through, sand was blowing... it was a mess. But then, in the middle of all that, we could see sun. And next? A beautiful rainbow appeared. It was pretty amazing.

And after that? It turned into a beautiful evening. The rain took the humidity away, and we had sunshine. Sounds a lot like our wedding day, actually (minus the outdoor ceremony and reception, haha).

Michael and Mike