Jamie Hilao

To be honest, I was dreading going back to Chicago over the weekend for fear of being bad company around my friends, especially during such a joyous occasion.

Receiving the bad news about my friend Vicki right before I left made me feel even sadder; I can’t imagine what her husband is going through. More on that later…

Things can always be worse, but it doesn’t make it any easier to deal with obstacles in front of you.

Working alone remotely from the condo was pretty difficult on Friday, but I made it…

…Just in time for Labor Day traffic up to the Libertyville for the wedding rehearsal (which I missed, thanks to Adam’s estimated 40 minute travel time. 2 1/2 hours of fun on I-94. And all my brother had in the car was Kelly Clarkson and the new Madonna CD. Good times.)

Though I missed the rehearsal, I made it to the dinner. Yum, who knew that pizza all the way up in BF could be so darn good?

Got to FINALLY meet the lovely Dorfman family… and even did a little pre-wedding partying in the hotel rooms on Friday night with some members of the bridal party, which was pretty fun.

What was NOT fun was getting up at 6:30 a.m. the next morning to get ready… but I survived.

I expected it to be hot & humid, but it was the perfect day for an outdoor wedding. Still hot (after all, I was sportin’ a suit), but beautiful. I mean, c’mon, how can you beat this:

• the first bride/groom dance to Bjork’s “Who Is It?”;
• a Jew-ese wedding, with an abridged version of the Chinese Tea Ceremony, a chupah, & breaking of the glass
• a surprisingly picturesque venue up in Libertyville
• yours truly as a groomswoman
• the perfect couple starting a new chapter of their life, together…

Ok, ok, sorry to throw in a little sappiness there. *sigh* After going to so many of these things, one’s bound to get sentimental every once in awhile.

Ray & I ended up vegging for a few hours before heading over to the Adam & Nikko’s After Wedding Loft Party. It was great to reconnect with old friends & catch up with those I hadn’t seen in person in awhile in a less formal setting. Mix that with some bumpin’ groovy Chicago house (Afuken ROCKED THE HOUSE!) & it made for the perfect all-day wedding event.

The next day we pretty much “moved” the loft party over to Ray’s for a Labor Day weekend BBQ & of course, more drinking (whose idea was it to bust out a bottle of Jager?).

It was depressing being on the plane back to Hell-A, but I left recharged. To those of you who showed me that you care (you know who you are: J$, jivesociety, j3n, allnite, phixed…), you’ll never fully understand how much it means to me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 10:38 pm and is filed under Jamie, Chicago, Friends, Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.