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I have long been meaning to make the post about my marriage in 2021, which was a hugely blessed event. Life got in the way, so despite literally writing up everything and uploading the pictures to my gdrive, I just never got around to it.

Until now.

Let’s begin the story: I ordered a wedding band and engagement ring, custom made. They ended up being one week late. I had to change where they were shipped. They shipped them to two different addresses, and this was after I paid to overnight them. So then I had to have the one collected and overnighted again on my own dime. The company refused to refund the shipping cost, though they admitted that it was their error. I guess the $37 might have been their profit margin off the thousands.

Then I ordered my ring. They shipped them to an “insufficient address,” by which the USPS meant they simply didn’t feel like delivering them. So I ordered backup rings. They sent the wrong size. So I ordered a second backup, which got lost. So I ordered another backup, and this one arrived in the nick of time. The

We paid for an officiant to fly in with his wife…because they’re the coolest couple ever! Before the wedding I got to go hiking, and on another day we went to kayak. It hailed the whole time. Then Yurena got a flat tire. We always get flat tires going out to Green River Lakes. The road was created by Lucifer, which explains both its beauty and its hatred for humankind.

The next day it hailed while boating, and of three tire stores available, 0 had a tire for Yurena’s vehicle, so we were late for the boat. Despite this, the whole thing was a true blast.

In order to get some good video of the wedding, I ordered a brand new 90D to film the wedding, as well as extra batteries for it. There was a delay with the batteries. They eventually showed up…a box with no batteries. Whoops. The external mic I ordered arrived…broken! Gah!

So the day of the wedding we arrive and our spot has been taken by a water festival. *Despite pre-clearing it with the USFS.* Jeff Hostetter, who has lived in Ghana for like…40 years, asked them to please move. Jeff is a HUGE blessing, and I don’t just mean that he’s 7 feet tall. The people did kindly move, but there was no nearby parking, so I had to walk miles back and forth ferrying everything. That was at least memorable! 🙂 Thankfully, our photographer is a wonderful young woman from church who diligently photoshopped out all the kayakers in our pictures. Another curse converted into a blessing!

Then Sarah, dear sister Sarah, who had a bunch of stuff we needed, had car troubles, so she was late to the wedding. But MAN was the wedding itself a blast. Hank and Peggy Hill, along with some of our other friends, attended and made it a lot of fun. Some random Mexicans also joined in sans invite and went to our reception for the free food. I haven’t seen them since, so that adds to the amusement. Guess Mexicans like a party. (We did not have alcohol, so that might have been a letdown, but don’t look the gift horse in the mouth, or any horses if you don’t have a good reason to.) At some point, someone didn’t like me wearing my Garmin Fenix watch and took it off my wrist; it was then lost permanently.

We left after the ceremony, and of all of the people, my Jeep then got a spike straight through the tire. Instant flat. I got it as far as I could off the dirt road and changed it. Jeff Hostetter again helped. WHAT. A. BLESSING!

So we made it to our reception. That cost a bunch of $$$! Got there at 7. The folks we paid were well intentioned but as slow as molasses under a Siberian air mass. They finally got our food to us at 8:30PM. At 8:50, they apologized but told us that we had to clear out by 9PM. So I didn’t get to eat, and we couldn’t serve the cake. As we were leaving, they started serving food to other patrons, so it turned out that they were just evicting us for their own convenience. (Note: I am told that the Mexicans all ordered and loved the ribeye.)

We stayed at the same resort in their fanciest suite. All the cabins were full, and when we got in the room we found that despite costing $300, there was no air conditioning.  Unfortunately, it was one of the hottest nights I’d experienced in Wyoming, and the only way to try and reduce the room temperature was by opening the window, which looked out onto our neighbor’s patio. As you can imagine, that’s not a great scenario for newly weds. Our neighbors were very rowdy and enjoyed the night all night, so we didn’t get any sleep to speak of.

I love Yurena very much, and as a show of affection, I did not use my sidearm on anyone.