At the end of April, as promised, I went to my cousin's wedding in St. Louis. And, as promised, it was good times.
My parents and I flew out on a Wednesday afternoon and went through Detroit. Due to the many torandos in the mid-west, the flight to Detroit was quite bumpy. So much so that they couldn't even serve us drinks. This becomes relevant later, I swear.
When we landed we got our rental car and drove straight to Busch Stadium to meet my extended family for a Cardinal's game.
Yup, that's how full Busch Stadium was on a Wednesday night home game. The good news is our tickets were $5! I am shamed to admit that I don't remember what the result of the game was (or who they played) because I was more interested in catching up with cousins and staving off hypothermia. It was so. freaking. cold.
The next day was the bridesmaid's luncheon. It was lovely!
My brother, Adam, and his fiancée, Laura, and my brother, John, and his girlfriend, Krystal, arrived late Thursday night. Adam and Laura got engaged about two weeks earlier, so it was great to see them in person and get the scoop on everything.
The wedding itself was scheduled for Friday and the weather was predicted to be horrible. There were tornado warnings and there was thunder, lightening, and rain all night the night before. We woke up to a very grey day on Friday and decided to hit up the St. Louis arch.
I hadn't been up since I was a kid when I cried and had to be convinced to get in the tiny, tiny elevator pod thingies that take you up (I stole that picture from some random person's flickr account). As soon as we got to the top it started pouring rain and hailing.
By the time we got down, it had stopped raining. Figures. We were still worried about the wedding, though, because it was supposed to be outdoors in the botanical gardens and there was no real back up plan for rain. Over the next few hours, though, the sun started to come out. And, miracle of miracles, they had their wedding outside in actual sunshine!
It was lovely. Right as the wedding ended it started to get grey again and the wind picked up. We moved to the 40th floor of the tallest building in St. Louis for the reception and proceeded to dance our butts off for the rest of the night. Little did we know that 40 stories below the tornado sirens were going off all night and that over the loudspeakers in our building they were warning people to stay away from the windows. Why no one came and told us, I still don't understand. My aunt came around at the end of the night to tell us not to take a certain route home because of tornadoes, but I didn't take it very seriously, because I really only ever deal with tornadoes in movies. Undeterred, we went out to a club/bar and continued the festivities.
Only the next day did we realize what had happened. There were some serious tornadoes that did some serious damage, including one that hit the St. Louis airport. My brothers and their gfs/fiancees flew out the next day and said it looked like a war zone. By the time my parents and I got there on Monday it was looking better, but I would say 80% of the windows were boarded up because they had been blown out. The day after the wedding we drove on that highway my aunt had warned us about the night before and couldn't believe how you could literally see the path of destruction. It made it all a bit more real and made me feel pretty lucky that we don't worry about those sorts of things in MA. Although, as I write this there are tornado warnings here in MA for the first time that I can ever remember, so maybe I should knock on wood.
Anyway, overall it was a lovely trip for a lovely wedding. Pretty horrible weather, but that's not what we were there for, so oh well. We managed to fit in another Cardinal's game, some custard, Easter, and lots of family time, including the meeting of many cousin's kids I hadn't met before.
My parents and I flew out on a Wednesday afternoon and went through Detroit. Due to the many torandos in the mid-west, the flight to Detroit was quite bumpy. So much so that they couldn't even serve us drinks. This becomes relevant later, I swear.
When we landed we got our rental car and drove straight to Busch Stadium to meet my extended family for a Cardinal's game.
Yup, that's how full Busch Stadium was on a Wednesday night home game. The good news is our tickets were $5! I am shamed to admit that I don't remember what the result of the game was (or who they played) because I was more interested in catching up with cousins and staving off hypothermia. It was so. freaking. cold.
The next day was the bridesmaid's luncheon. It was lovely!
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| Me and my cousin Annie, who was also the maid of honor |
The wedding itself was scheduled for Friday and the weather was predicted to be horrible. There were tornado warnings and there was thunder, lightening, and rain all night the night before. We woke up to a very grey day on Friday and decided to hit up the St. Louis arch.
I hadn't been up since I was a kid when I cried and had to be convinced to get in the tiny, tiny elevator pod thingies that take you up (I stole that picture from some random person's flickr account). As soon as we got to the top it started pouring rain and hailing.
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| It was very cool to see rain and hail from above, rather than below. |
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| Krystal, John, me, Adam, and Laura at the top of the arch |
By the time we got down, it had stopped raining. Figures. We were still worried about the wedding, though, because it was supposed to be outdoors in the botanical gardens and there was no real back up plan for rain. Over the next few hours, though, the sun started to come out. And, miracle of miracles, they had their wedding outside in actual sunshine!
It was lovely. Right as the wedding ended it started to get grey again and the wind picked up. We moved to the 40th floor of the tallest building in St. Louis for the reception and proceeded to dance our butts off for the rest of the night. Little did we know that 40 stories below the tornado sirens were going off all night and that over the loudspeakers in our building they were warning people to stay away from the windows. Why no one came and told us, I still don't understand. My aunt came around at the end of the night to tell us not to take a certain route home because of tornadoes, but I didn't take it very seriously, because I really only ever deal with tornadoes in movies. Undeterred, we went out to a club/bar and continued the festivities.
Only the next day did we realize what had happened. There were some serious tornadoes that did some serious damage, including one that hit the St. Louis airport. My brothers and their gfs/fiancees flew out the next day and said it looked like a war zone. By the time my parents and I got there on Monday it was looking better, but I would say 80% of the windows were boarded up because they had been blown out. The day after the wedding we drove on that highway my aunt had warned us about the night before and couldn't believe how you could literally see the path of destruction. It made it all a bit more real and made me feel pretty lucky that we don't worry about those sorts of things in MA. Although, as I write this there are tornado warnings here in MA for the first time that I can ever remember, so maybe I should knock on wood.
Anyway, overall it was a lovely trip for a lovely wedding. Pretty horrible weather, but that's not what we were there for, so oh well. We managed to fit in another Cardinal's game, some custard, Easter, and lots of family time, including the meeting of many cousin's kids I hadn't met before.
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