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Friends and Family Come from Far and Farther

 My family lives on every possible extreme of the American experience (well no one is in Alaska...at this point). My brother lives in NYC, my sis is in lovely San Jose and my aunts live in Phoenix and Tampa respectively. This means I don't get to see them all that often.

For our wedding I was super excited to bring the whole family together; the aunts and uncle and couldn't make it, but would get to see Colin, Katrina and Dennis and the 'rents.

As an added bonus, my best friend of all time, the Olger Nano, was coming from St. Martin in the Carribean to officiate my wedding. What a guy!

Yes. Olger was probably one of the best wedding presents we got. 

I spent most of the Wednesday before the wedding picking up friends and family from the airport. I wish I had brought my camera, but most of our wedding weekend was chronicled by my awesome Tuska and Romenesko siblings.

I met Colin at MSP's Humphrey Terminal and we then headed to MOA to kill some time and find a belt for the wedding. We're going to stay there until my sister and her man arrived from SFO. We got bored out of our minds after an hour or so. 

That's when we decided to take the light rail back to downtown Minneapolis. Colin had worked late into the night at NYC's Hearth and didn't really sleep. Not even half-way to downtown he was passed out in the train. I texted my sis and let her know that they should just take the light rail to downtown and catch a bus or taxi to the Northside.

I had to work for a few hours Wednesday night, so Katie and Dennis ended up arriving just before I had to leave for work. When I got back from work I got some quality time with my siblings and Dennis the menace.  

 As you can see, my siblings are highly entertaining. Just look at how happy Brooke is.
 
My brother spent most of the night hashing out his wedding DJ set and complaining that he was hungry. We had originally sent him a list of music to DJ, but we decided to use that music for our dinner.

Dennis enjoyed the tuneskis. 

...

Despite the lack of visual evidence Colin and I headed back to MSP to pick up Ogler at the Lindbergh Terminal 1. After a few loops around the arrivals road, we finally headed back to the city.

Colin was still hungry so we headed to Taco Taxi. The three of us enjoyed the scrumptious Mexican tacos, sopes and burritos.

...

The next day Olger and I headed to the Hennepin County Government Center to officially ordain him. A half-hour and $5.50 later Olger was officially ordained. 
Katrina and Brooke picked us up and we took them home. It would be a busy day for everyone.

Katie, Dennis and Brooke took turns ironing the wedding table clothes most of the day.

Yeah like 6 hours straight of ironing. 

Olger needed to study, but first he needed some black pants and breakfast. I took him to Al's Breakfast in Dinkytown even though it was on the opposite side of town from Urban Outfitters. Heck, he came all the way from the Carribean, I wasn't going to half-ass anything. 

Somehow Olger and I managed to order $30 worth of food between the two of us and get into one of our famous tiffs. After things cooled off we headed down to Uptown for his pants and I later dropped him off at the new Victory 44 coffee shop to let him study and get his ceremony in order.

My pops and Colin also went to Victory 44 for some coffee and ate at Papa's pizza. My dad loves going on walks and looking at the old houses. 

While everyone else was out having food and fun, Katrina and I spent most of the day getting ready for tomorrow. I made our wedding cake and she made a pumpkin cheesecake. We also made tons of snacks and hor d'ourves for the cocktail hour being held between the ceremony and dinner. I'm pretty sure I'm the only bride that made her own cake and only took 3 days off for our wedding. 

My mom pointed out that our wedding cake symbolizes our marriage. I wanted red velvet and Scott wanted chocolate. I made both and had 2 layers of each, intertwined into one. 


My parents stopped by when they got into to town and to give me my bridal shower gift. It was a plaque with a prayer on it for marriage and had our wedding date inscribed at the bottom. 

Our gift looks like a ghost!

Though we couldn't get Brooke's family to tag along, my family all went to Brooke and I's favorite restaurant, Bar la Grassa. It wasn't the boy's night out that Olger hoped for, but it was my kind of bachelor party.

Slash "rehearsal dinner".

My dad wore an old Badgers sweatshirt, so I had to find him another sweater.

We had plates of  pasta, prosciutto laced with butter, a scrumptious salad and enough wine to satiate the whole the clan. It was a great start to an amazing weekend. The next day Brooke and I'd be married.

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