Party at the Moontower…Part 1: The Arrival

A few days ago, our family celebrated the marriage vows of two of my sisters-in-law; Tabatha and Charissa. They were marrying their long time boyfriends RJ and Jeremy, respectively. What follows is the tale of down home, honest to goodness, Kentucky nuptials. It’s always interesting when two families join via the bonds of holy matrimony. I don’t know if we should classify this as the beginnings of a beautiful relationship between our three groups. Or if it’s the beginning of a “Hatfield’s vs. McCoy’s” or “The House of Montague vs. The House of Capulet” type of situation. I’ll let you be the judge.

We set out early that Saturday morning so that we could get there with enough time to get ready. This is usually no easy task as we have an eight year old daughter, Savannah, and two boys, Nicholas and Noah, aged four and six respectively. And the drive from St. Louis to Benton, KY is four hours at least, but we made it with about two hours until show time. The weather forecast was not looking good and the entire day had been overcast and bleak. And although the rains hadn’t come yet, as soon as we pulled into the parking lot of the hotel, the clouds started looking a little bit darker.

As we were getting out of our car, we saw Graham (Shonda’s sister’s boyfriend) in the parking lot on his phone. We all walked inside together and went to our room. Chrishell (Shonda’s sister) showed up very quickly and we all exchanged hugs and kisses. The ladies left and went down to their grandmother’s room and tried on a few of the dresses they had brought for the ceremony. Graham and I stayed in our room doing a little catching up as it had been almost a year since we’d seen each other (we don’t get to talk on the phone too much). Just as I announced I had brought an “appetizer” of our favorite beer (Corona, of course) the girls showed back up and it was time for us to really start getting ready. Graham and Chrishell left for Tabatha’s house and Shonda started with her own hair and makeup.

I was given three very specific tasks; go and find greeting cards for the brides and grooms, get safety pins (we’d forgotten the boys’ belts) and grab something to eat. I was also instructed to take on of the boys with me, and it didn’t matter to Shonda which one. These may sound like relatively simple tasks. But one thing about rural Kentucky, especially when you’re at a hotel right off the main highway and not actually in a town, is that you’re options for places that may have these things are severely limited. Also, I had chosen to take Noah (simply because he already had shoes on) and with him, you never know which “Noah” you’re going to get.

Shonda was thinking Arby’s, so we headed that way first. I thought I was going to kill all of my birds with one stone when I realized that the Arby’s was actually inside of a truck stop. You know the kind that has a restaurant, convenience store, showers, etc. Usually these types of places have a little bit of everything, so I walked in with high hopes. However, after a lap through the place, I realized that they had none of the items I needed and Noah had worked himself into a spasm because I would not buy him a big giant lollipop. “I NEVER get big giant lollipops!” was literally his response as we left the truck stop. I looked up in the sky and noticed that the clouds were still darkening at a steady pace.

I had asked for directions to the nearest place that may have the cards and safety pins. I was directed to a tiny little town about three miles away because the truck stop cashier was “pretty sure they got that stuff there”. We pulled into the parking lot of the only center of commerce in the immediate area and I quickly noticed a Food Giant grocery store. Great, I thought. All grocery stores have the stuff I need. I walked in and began looking, with Noah still crying about big giant lollipops. Since I knew that I was running out of time, I found a clerk and asked about the cards and safety pins. To my dismay, they did not have anything like that. “But the Dollar General just down the way might,” said the clerk.

So I packed up still heart-broken and lollipop-less Noah and we headed even further down the road to the Dollar General. Luckily, they had everything I needed and the greeting cards were two for one dollar! We made our purchase and retraced our route back to the Arby’s. We got back to the room with little time to spare and barely had eaten our food before Shonda said it was time to go. Shonda looked stunning in her green strapless number and Savannah was as pretty as ever in a white dress with a flower print and a thin white sweater to wear over it. The boys had matching gray shorts and yellow and black sandals with Noah wearing a green polo and Nicholas wearing a red one. For myself, I wanted to blend into the crowd that was going to be there, so I had on jeans and a long sleeve button up shirt. It was definitely a casual dress code.

We piled back in the van and made our way through the tiny towns and back country roads to Tabatha’s house. They live on a nice sized piece of land in a quaint little trailer. Directly in front of the trailer was a shed/garage type of structure. As we pulled up, the entire driveway was full of vehicles and cars were spilling over into the yard, which is where we parked as well. Shonda and Savannah immediately went inside and I and the boys took a quick survey of the land because I knew the boys would want to play outside. I walked around to the back of the trailer only to discover yet another living structure (this one an RV) with a small fenced pasture for some sort of bovine. I also noticed various tractors, lawn mowers, a few jet skis, etc. and decided that the boys should probably stay inside.

As we came back around to the front we were greeted by a very large Doberman named Legend. Legend seemed like a good natured dog, but I was still wary of the children being around him. After a few moments, they all seemed to be getting along well so I left them on the porch and went inside. Tabatha was there as well as Shonda, Chrishell, Grandma Donna and other children and members of the bridal party. I immediately looked for Graham to see if we could have an appetizer before all of the festivities. Graham, unfortunately, was no where to be found. “Nobody has done anything,” Tabatha said when I asked where he was. I was quickly told by all there that things were beginning to unravel and that what they thought was taken care of was not. “There’s nothing set up so Graham went down there by himself to see what he could do,” said Chrishell. I quickly jumped in the car and drove to the reception place to what I could do to help as well.