The Houghs: Nuptials for Bravo Team

No idea what's happening here. . .

Hi fellas (and fell-ettes).

When you hit your mid-30s, most of your friends are married. They're old and fat and boring, and they all have kids. And when you get together for a few beers, you reminisce about all the cool times you had back in your wild 20s. Back when you were thinner, better-looking, not tied down to a female, and able to drink more than four beers without getting sleepy.

Damn it, getting old sucks.

Well, as it would turn out, one of my closest friends from high school and college, the legendary Jon F. Kimmel, was still to tie the knot. He had proposed to his long-term girflriend, Kat, and asked me to stand in his wedding in Chicago this weekend. I was obviously down with this (after all, he had stood in my wedding back in 2006, and, more importantly, had played bass in our epic high school band, JLFP), so I hitched a ride with the McNerneys (McNernies? - more friends of ours from high school) for a kid-less, spouse-less weekend of nuptials.

Check it out. . .

Entering Grand Rapids - the hipster capital of Michigan

Pit stop for a healthy breakfast.

There was a ton of this crap on the way to Chicago. I can begin to tell you how happy I was that I didn't have to drive. . .

See that quarry in the background? It's big.

Stopping off at this above-the-highway restaurant/rest stop/strip mall thing that we used to stop at every time my family was driving out to Iowa during the summer, back in the '80s.

Looks insanely different these days.

The drive, aside from the traffic, was fairly uneventful on the way down, and by early afternoon we had reached our Ramada, north of Chicago. It was kinda dirty and old, but it was in a safer part of town. . . so, at the very least, we wouldn't be getting knifed in our sleep by prostitutes over the weekend.

The McNernies and I ended up splitting a room, which saved us about $70 per night.

After we dropped our stuff off, Trevor and Sara headed out to hit up a Walmart for booze, snacks and cigarettes, while Yours Truly tried watching something on TV (we Houghs don't have cable, as you'll recall, so I splurge whenever I get the chance.)

Yes, this show exists. A Real Housewives show, based in Atlanta, about midgets. Or dwarves, little people, hobbits - whatever you want to call them. Rest assured, it was just as awesome as it sounds.

Trevor gets sucked into the Drama. . .

At the wedding rehearsal, chowin' down on some food while Kimmel takes his sweet time getting around to doing whatever it is they were supposed to be doing.. .

Kimmel and Kat chose to get married in some non-profit farm/petting zoo/pet store/thrift store/reception hall thing that employs only special ed people. Or something, I don't know - I never really figured it out. The nuptials themselves were to be exchanged by this pond, and if you'll be so good as to look at the treeline on the far side you'll see an expressway, which provided a soothing din of car and semi noise during the rehearsal.

Waiting around for the wedding party to sort their shit out (we'd be doing a lot of this over the course of the weekend.)

Sara and I. Still waiting for Kimmel.

After the dry-run of the wedding ceremony, Kimmel handed out his groomsmen gifts (the tie and pocket square for the ceremony, and an awesome bottle of whiskey.) I knew from the get-go that I'd be wearing a pink tie, but I figured all the groomsmen would be. Alas, I was to discover that I, alone, would be sporting pink. Our friend Dalton, Kimmel's best man, was wearing a bright green tie, and the other two groomsmen - friends of Kimmel's from Chicago- were wearing orange and sky blue. Rest assured, Kimmel's wearing a bright pink dress when Kris and I renew our vows in fifteen yeras. . .

Making another trip through the hotel lobby. . . forget why, but that's what it looked like.

Most of the evening we hung out in Kimmel's soon-to-be bridal suite, which included a hot tub. This is about as far as I got to 'getting in it.'

Lemondrop pit stop back in our hotel room. I stay away from these when at all possible.

High school heroes

The morning of the wedding, dressed - in pink - and ready to kick some ass.

I rode with Kimmel in his car on the way to the wedding, which we were supposed to be at by 10am for pictures.

Jon Kimmel, ladies and gentlemen.

See all that crud spread out over the grass? That's goose shit. Seriously. We had to constantly traverse a mine-field of gross-ness to get anywhere. Good thing we were all wearing our fancy dress shoes. . .

Sara took my camera during the ceremony (I brought the Powershot this weekend instead of the big SLR, as I didn't want to have to carry it around all weekend.)

Note the sucker in the pink tie. . .

Somewhat color-coded, but the bridesmaids didn't look as obnoxious in theirs. . .

I wish my pastor at my wedding would have worn sunglasses. . .

Hitched.

Kimmel's socks. He's a classy man.

These pictures - the good ones, at least - were all lifted from Kimmel's photographer's Facebook posting of the event. I'm citing this in case someone comes after me later, as I'm unsure what constitutes 'legitimate' and 'illegitimate' sharing.

Why the giant Paul Bunyan statue? These are the sort of questions you don't ask at Jon Kimmel's wedding.

He's from Farwell, it makes sense.

Receiving line, or something. I don't know. They're meet-and-greeting the attendees.

The reception was a short walk away, in the same complex as the ceremony. And yes, I'm pretty sure that's a barn in the background.

Sean and the McNernies

Despite what you might be thinking, there was not a giant cache of sheep in this building.

Dalton (at left) giving the Best Man speech.

Waiting for food.

Signing the marriage certificate

After dinner, the reception moved outside, where the Kimmels had set up a series of lawn games.

Gigantor Yatzee

After a couple hours of lawn games (and an Open Bar), a few of us walked next door to a thrift shop that was on the property. I'm always down for a good ol' fashioned treasure hunt. . .

Not sure what Sara's checking in to, here. . .

Records! Not a bad selection here, better than your usual Goodwill or Salvation Army, but obviously not as good as a genuine record store. . .

A bad-ass chair and the book section (I didn't have the patience to go through this.)

Cornhole

They also had this pet store on the property, which only added to the Holy Randomness of this place (a petting zoo, a greenhouse, thrift store, a reception hall, and a pet store?) Here's this dude, thoroughly enjoying a life well-lived in captivity.

See these big-eyed Ty stuffed animals? This is probably my kids' favorite toys, so being the good dad that I am, I picked them each up one (a pair of dragons.) I'm sure Kris will give me a hard time about it later. . .

Mr. and Mrs. Kimmel

Around 5pm (it was an early reception), we took off and headed over to a local Walmart to replenish our booze wares. . .

This is legal in Illinois. No, we did not buy it. It's gasoline.

Should be a fun night. . .

My record score. Four of these are 2-LP sets, and I spent $14. .. which is pretty good for the Near Mint condition these albums are in.

We had to get a pic with the Reznor, which more or less encompasses the totality of our hotel room window view.

This wasn't ours, but we couldn't help but marvel at this electrical box as more and more Corona bottles continued to appear atop it throughout the evening.

We spent the majority of the evening in this bar in our hotel. They had one of those whoop-ass, digital jukeboxes that play any song you could possibly think of for $1. I love those things. . .