Blue Lollipop Road

who are you? (part 2)

…continued…

So after the wedding ceremony, Ron our bus driver took us back to the Rittenhouse Hotel for cocktail hour and reception festivities:

We were greeted by a beautiful room full of dapper looking people:

Of course I made a beeline to the bubbly, where I met Maiel:

What you can’t see in this photo, is that there was champagne all over his face. I walked up to the bar through the crowd of people and asked him for a glass. As we were chatting and he was twisting, the cork came out way to fast and shot clear across the room of 200 people as the bottle overflowed and bubbly went everywhere. Somehow the cork didn’t hit anyone. We cracked up and I told him I wouldn’t tell anyone, but all of you on the world wide web. Thanks Maiel! No one will ever know our secret- ha! 🙂

The appetizers during cocktail hour were absolutely delicious:

I managed to steal a quick shot of bride and groom Ginny and Chris greeting guests:

I didn’t want to jump in as the crazy wedding crasher and bother them when they were visiting with friends and family, but I had to at least get a back view of Ginny’s gorgeous gown. We all kept saying how much she looked like one of those perfect bridal magazine models! Groom Chris is British so naturally the two ladies in the fabulous hats were from his side. (We American gals were swooning over their hats and wondering why we don’t dress that way for weddings.) Of course after staring at these two ladies I had to introduce myself and ask if I could take a picture of them. Meet Mother and daughter Lynn and Chloe:

(Confession; This is the first time I have ever played around with red-eye edits on my iPhoto and look what I did to poor Lynn’s eye. This is is why I just leave photos as is, mess with the original and look what happens. Ack! Sorry Lynn, You still look fabulous even though I made your right eye look blurry…)

After a bit of bubbly and a belly full of hors d’evoures, it was time to go upstairs to the grand ballroom for the reception. I found my alias stand in name on the table list:

We were led by staff in white gloves. I felt like royalty for a minute there:

The grand ballroom met us just as it was called, decorated impeccably. I found my seat at table #18 and drooled excitedly as I looked over the menu for the evening.

To be continued in part 3…

who are you? (part 1)

Finally, the start of the much anticipated wedding crashing post.

Meet Ron:

Ron was the super sweet bus driver that took us from the Rittenhouse Hotel to the church for the wedding last weekend. We were late for the meeting time, so my friend and I ended up being the only 2 people in one of these busses:

Talk about a personal coach! We enjoyed talking to Ron during the 45 minute ride through spring-fever Saturday Philadelphia traffic.

Ron told us he was from Philadephia, born and raised. He said he drove for a lot of different events like the wedding we were at. We laughed when shared stories about late night trips. Apparently groups of fancy people often get all schnockered up, then have a late-night hankering for the only place to be in Philly when it’s after midnight and you’re in a happy state of mind: Geno’s and Pat’s, so he drives them there to get their fix.

I’m sure Ron could could start his own blog about people on his bus; wit, or wit-out cheese, drippingly good cheesesteaks. We didn’t end up going on Ron’s bus for a cheesesteak run but we sure did have our own version at the Rittenhouse.

I’m getting way ahead of myself here, so a bit of back story on how the wedding crashing actually happened:

A while back my friend had told me she was going to a wedding for a weekend away, driving up, had a hotel set and told me I should come. As everyone knows, I love a road trip and I thought, oooh what fun. I haven’t been to Philly for years, but I used to spend quite a bit of time there. I could explore the city and do what I love most; wander, snap photos, find good food, and hope to meet cool and interesting people while my friend participated in her festivities. I was in.

We arrived on Friday night, went to dinner with some other out of town guests as the bridal party was busy with the rehearsal stuff. I end up meeting the bride Ginny at the end of the night with the rest of the crew I was with. Ginny tells my friend there are two extra spots paid for because 2 guests bowed out last minute and that I should come. Why not?

The rest is history.

The next morning we raced around the city to find something for me to wear just in the nick of time. We got on the bus with Ron, I went to the wedding, cocktail hour, reception, and the after shindig, having an absolute blast, meeting fantastic people, eating delicious food and dancing the night away. It was a marathon of wedding fun and I loved every minute of it.

To be continued in part 2…