Tim & Joy's Wedding

This weekend, some of Jeff's and my first college friends got married. We got started at 6am; our friend John flew into DC from California, and we picked him up for the ride out to the wedding. Our first stop was at Baltimore Coffee, Jeff's favorite coffee place.

From there, we began the three-and-a-half hour drive to the Poconos in Pennsylvania. We got there in time to drop off our bags, change into swim suits, and meet up with everybody for canoing.
Tim and Joy had met five years ago at the Theta Xi canoing trip and had invited everyone to come out early and canoe together. To be more specific, it was battle canoing - which is a lot like regular canoing, except when you get far enough from the rental place, you try to tip everyone else's canoe, and people spend more time in the water than in the canoe. The Shawnee Inn is right on the Delaware River. The place we usually canoe in Boston is just an upstream area of the Charles River. I'm not sure you're technically supposed to swim in it, and the bottom is sludge most of the way, so putting down your feet is not a good idea. The Delaware was a welcome change - the water was crystal clear, and the bottom was covered in smooth rocks. We had a great time battle canoing and even stopped along the way for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches made by Joy's bridesmaids.That evening, Jeff, John, and I actually left the Poconos and drove a few hours to Philadelphia to see a play. Jeff's cousin, Dan, had conceived, written, and was acting in the play with a group of friends. It was based on the eruption of Vesuvius in Pompeii, and was made of a series of short scenes, many with musical numbers. It was really well done and very fun to watch.

When we got back to the Shawnee Inn, everybody had already gone to bed, so Jeff, John, and I had one drink on the veranda and then went to bed.

The next morning, we met up with the group. There was a breakfast buffet at the hotel restaurant, but Jeff, John, and I had other ideas. The night before we had passed a billboard advertising breakfast for $1.99 at a local diner. We decided to head out in search of that. We ended up at the Water Gap Diner, where breakfast was a bit more than $1.99, but not much. The food and service was so good, we ended up going back again the next day.

In the afternoon was the wedding. It was raining, so rather than having the wedding on the lawn, it was held on the veranda, which had a roof. It was still warm, and the rain was coming straight down, so it was very nice to be outside. The mountain was covered with mist, and the rain was very pretty. The service was very beautiful - it was cute to see our first college friends get married.Immediately following the wedding, the reception started at the pavilion near the river. There was a cocktail hour followed by a very nice dinner. There were all the standards traditions - father-daughter and mother-son dance, throwing the bouquet, cutting the wedding cake together, married couple's first dance, and everything else. Joy sang a song to Tim, which was very cute. The last few hours of the reception were all dancing and visiting with friends. It was a very fun wedding - we had a whole table of college friends who are now spread around the country, and it was great to be together again.