It was a crazy weekend.
First of all, Jason and Becka’s wedding went extremely well and was very beautiful. There are about 95 pictures in the photo gallery for your viewing pleasure. I have the full sized versions if anyone wants prints. My new camera did very well on its first outing. 
Ben and I arrived in Knoxville at about 10 pm on Thursday night. He went to the Manplex for Jason’s bachelor party, and I headed over to Jason’s parents’ house for the bachelorette party (pics of that in the gallery as well). The party was pretty fun. We drank screwdrivers and lemon drops and watched a video of Jason as a baby. I had to keep hiding Becka’s cell phone because she and Jason kept calling and texting each other.
Friday morning, I got up and Jason’s dad made Karen and I some blueberry pancakes. After we ate, we got Faithe up, and all left. (Becka had already left to go to her hair and make-up consultation at Belleza). I found Ben, and we left to go to the rehearsal. It was scorching outside, so we tried to keep the rehearsal short and sweet. After a few hiccups, we finally got the whole thing down. Then Ben and I went out to the mall to pick up his tux.
On our way there, Ben nearly hit another car that was in his blind spot. Then after we got there, we were nearly side-swiped by another car who wasn’t watching where he was going. Luckily, both incidents were only near misses.
After we picked up the tux, we went back out to Jason’s parent’s house for the rehearsal dinner. They had gotten Little Caesar’s. Yummy! I haven’t had Little Caesar’s since moving to Nashville, since the closest one to my apartment is in Franklin and it seems silly to drive all the way out there for pizza. Then Ben and I went back to the Manplex to take a nap.
When we woke up, we headed out to Matt and Karen’s house. Ben passed the road and decided to do a U-turn in someone’s driveway. Upon backing out, the car went a little too far and slid into what we thought was a ditch. We got out of the car to find it hanging off a 6 foot drop! If we had gone any further back, the car might have fallen off and flipped. Ben called some people and a few people came by to help. They tried to push the car back onto the road, but it just slid back further. So, to avoid being killed or the car being destroyed, we decided to call a tow truck. Luckily, Matt had AAA and let us use it.
We finally made it to Matt and Karen’s house, where we watched some episodes of “Friends” (hey, it’s just like home!) and then eventually passed out.
I got up bright and early Saturday morning, and Becka came to pick me up to go to Belleza. I had my nails, hair, and make-up done there, which took about 2 hours. Then Becka and I headed out to the Laurel Theatre (where the reception was going to be held) and got dressed. I had given Ben my camera to take pictures of the guys getting ready, so I took some video footage while Becka and I were getting ready. Finally, we headed out to the Knoxville Museum of Art.
The girl doing the photography (also a guest) was running a little late (she forgot her camera), so the wedding started about 15-20 minutes late. But once it did, it was over pretty quick (someone told Becka it was about 8 minutes long). Although the day had previously been overcast, the sun came out for the entire ceremony. It went well, without any snafus.
We all headed over to the theatre for the reception. Jason, Becka, Ben, and I were all seated at the table on the stage. Ben was enthralled with his “Best Man” champagne flute. The food was very yummy (especially the deviled eggs…I must have eaten about 20 of them over the course of the day). I took lots of pictures of the cake cutting and dancing. I got asked about every 5 minutes when Ben and I were going to get married, lol.
After the reception had died down, we all went home to change clothes. Since the theatre was rented out until dawn, the plan was to come back and play Guitar Hero and finish off the keg. Ben had left his car at Jason’s parents’, so he and Jason went off in that direction, and I went back with Chance and Kelley. After a little while, we got a call from Ben that he had a flat tire. We met up with him at Calhoun’s, and after the tire was changed, we drove out to Wal-mart. Unfortunately, their tire place had already closed for the night, so we left the car there to come back for it in the morning.
Then we headed back out to the theatre. We played some Guitar Hero and helped clean up the place. Finally, we headed back over to Chance and Kelley’s to sleep.
In the morning, we went back out to Wal-mart to get the tire fixed. We watched “Hoodwinked” back at their apartment and then went to pick up the car and head back to Nashville. We stopped briefly in Crossville to tell Ben’s mom Happy Mother’s Day.
I’ll try to have the videos up at some point this week. I really need to get Firewire put in my desktop so it’s not so much of a pain to do it (I have to use Tera, which takes forever since she doesn’t like to work).
Chance thinks we should all set up a tent at the Manplex and create our own Bonnaroo. I wonder if we could get Mars Volta to come…
And it was also quite interesting the way the priest compared marriage to Return of the King. Anyway, my camera batteries died right after they lit the unity candle, so I didn’t get pictures of the end. After it was over, I told Michele congratulations once more and then ran off to Wal-Mart to buy batteries.