Because I apparently can’t stay home more than one weekend in a row, Ryan and I made one more trip up north for a wedding this past weekend in Portland. (Are you keeping track? Since the middle of July, that’s LA for the X-Games then Walla Walla, WA for a wedding, then, in a separate trip, Seattle and Vancouver, then Chicago and Ontario, and now Portland…and then there’s Tough Mudder at Lake Tahoe in two weeks, and then Sewing Summit a month after that!) Ryan’s college friend Courtney was marrying his saucy Brazilian fiancé Lisia.
We drove up Friday night after work to Corvallis, where we stayed with Ryan’s friend Tyson (one of them…he has several). We rolled in around 2:00 a.m. — thank goodness we weren’t in a rush the next morning, so we were able to sleep in a little. We drove into downtown Portland, where I met up with my college friend Courtney (different Courtney than I’m-getting-married-Courtney) at Mother’s Bistro for lunch. We hadn’t seen each other in just over ten years! So it was so fun to catch up and chat. The timing was lucky — that Sunday, the day after, she and her whole family moved to Denver! It was so nice of her to take time out of her busy packing schedule to meet up with me. So fun staying in touch with old friends!
During this, Ryan had gone and picked up his tux, and then he came back and picked me up and we drove out to Clackamas for a pre-wedding lunch at the other Courtney’s family’s house. I finally got to meet Lisia, as well as some of Ryan’s other friends I’ve been hearing about for a long time. Once again, I wanted to move to the Pac NW…the weather was gorgeous and everything was so clean and fresh. It might have been the prettiest day in the history of the world. Evidence of the gorgeous day, a photo of Mount Hood in the far distance:
That evening, we went to the rehearsal dinner and helped set up some things for the wedding. The church was in Boring, OR, which made for excellent business cards like this one:
After chowing down, the boys went off go-karting for a bachelor party. I am not a boy, so the-other-Tyson’s wife Kandi and I went and got ice cream, and then holed up in a booth in the back of Denny’s — she crocheted and I bound my Boyfriend Quilt. It was fun to get to know each other better — I wish she lived closer!
That night we stayed with some other friends of Ryan, who were thankfully not named Tyson or Courtney, but Ricky and Kelly. They were lovely kind people who laughed easily — my favorite kind of people. They also had a boxer named Peyton, and a couple adorable blonde children who said things like, “I am a hun-gawy boy!”
The next morning (a gorgeous morning!) we headed for the wedding. As a groomsman, Ryan had to be there early, so I ended up helping out with some of the set-up, escaping for just a bit to go to Starbucks. The wedding was at 2:00, and it was really quite a hoot. Because Lisia is Brazilian and the wedding was being broadcast across the globe so the majority of her family could attend, it was a bilingual ceremony. The pastor would say something, and then the translator would give the translation. He Portuguese was a little rusty, so it ended up be really funny. At one point she translated English to English. And during Courtney’s vows, she took the paper he was reading from and said, “Your handwriting is awful. You should type this next time!” Next time? Heh. We also determined that the primary job of groomsmen is to make sure the bridesmaids don’t fall over in their spike heels.
The reception was a lot of fun. Thankfully I’m getting to know a lot of Ryan’s friends, so there was none of that awkward I-don’t-know-what-to-do-because-I-don’t-know-anyone-at-this-wedding-and-my-boyfriend-is-off-doing-his-groomsmanly-duties-hey-are-those-cookies? The favors were little caramel apples — adorable:
And a photo of Ryan and me, because I can:
That evening, we went to dinner with more friends and I ate All The Red Robin Fries. What do they put in those? They are like potato crack. If eating forty five pounds of fries is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
The next morning we had our long drive back to Sacramento, so we stocked up on the very-Portland Voodoo Dounts (Motto: “The magic is in the hole!” <– that just happened). We got two mango donuts, one chocolate-peanut butter-oreo donut, one Ken Kesey psychedelic donut, one maple donut filled with Bavarian cream and a frosting mustache on top, and, of course, a maple bacon donut.
I don’t have a picture of my maple bacon donut, because I ate it in about 13 seconds. It was really good — that sweet and salty combination that’s just about my favorite taste in the world. Mmm. Highly recommended if you’re ever in Portland (or Eugene, OR).
And then it was home again, home again. I love traveling and visiting friends and making new friends and eating All The Food, but I must say…my bed is really, really comfortable!
