Wedding Wrapup

Hello everybody!!!!! We are all back and safe from the wedding (sorry it took so long to write this). Although some of us had to change some plans around thanks to an uninvited guest known as Hurricane Jeanne, we are all safe and back home. I just wanted to take a second to email everybody and share our experience of the wedding. Many of you were able to join us so this is just a recap for you, but for those of you who weren't there, I wanted to share a little bit. There were 32 people who came for our wedding. There were obviously many more adventures than the ones I am going to share but there are the ones that Cindy and I experienced. We will have a party soon to share pictures and stories. If you'd like to hear more of them, try to come. It'll be a blast.

Cindy and I flew in on the Thursday before the wedding. The entire week we were worried about the Hurricanes and the damage they caused to the Bahamas. Well, Friday night we got a call from our neighbor Bill. He told us that an F4 tornado, spawned by Hurricane Ivan had hit our street and had condemned 15 houses. He showed us the pictures later, I couldn't believe the damage. Anyway, he told us that he checked out the house and there wasn't any terrible damage but that we would definitely have to call the insurance company. They took Batman (our dog) and he stayed with them for the rest of our trip. They were so great. Although we were really worried about the house, having them take care of everything really eased our minds and allowed us to focus on the wedding events.

Well, everybody got to Florida safely. Although a couple of people (you know who you are) wound up sleeping by the pool instead of their hotel room.... The rehearsal dinner at the Radisson was excellent. We had a cute little waiter named Bob. I think it was his first night on the job because he was the most timid and shy waiter I had ever seen. He did a good job at keeping the drinks coming though. Although we did have some issues pronouncing some of the wines. MER-LOT??? He was funny though and we all enjoyed the company of our table companions and others. The food was excellent. This was the start of our loss of self-control when it came to eating. I never want to see another buffet in my life.

After dinner, many of us wound up in the hotel pool or at the poolside bar. The drinks still kept coming. Needless to say, it took only a very short time before a certain red headed female member of our party "fell out of" her bikini top, a couple of times. Some of us also found our way to the Jacuzzi for a while as well. How relaxing. It was a long night full of fun and laughter. Between the music, the waterfall and the warm water, we all had a great night.

So, the morning after, we all checked out and joined the chaos at the front of the hotel waiting for the shuttle buses to the ship. What an adventure that was. We could have walked and gotten there faster. The ship was huge... There were a couple of our guests who we were a little worried about because they might have not been let onboard. One forgot his passport, another (Tessa, Cindy's sister) because she was 8 months pregnant. Oh wait, that's right, we told the ship she was 5 months pregnant. Funny how that worked out..... We thought we were going to have to skip the lengthy check in process because we were the group leaders, so we were told by the booking agent....... As it turned out, we were almost the last people to board.

When we finally got on board and got to our stateroom, we found that we were overwhelmed with bottles of wine, champagne and chocolate covered strawberries. Some from the package we bought for our guests, some from the ships crew for being the group leaders and some from friends. Needless to say, being sober for the length of the cruise was not a priority. Soon after we started unpacking, my best man and his wife (Dwayne and Laura Gulsby) showed up at our door with another bottle champagne that we shared. We sure started the cruise off right.

We all wound up on one of the many decks watching the ship leave port. What a beautiful sight. Then, back to the rooms to finish unpacking. Soon after, we all wound up at the ships formal dinner. What a spread. We've never eaten so well, so much. We had three tables of 10-12 people at each table. The seating was assigned and random. We pretty much had the same seating at all of the formal dinners for the rest of the cruise. All of the tables wound up getting along very well together. The conversation was great and everybody had a great time. I am also happy to say, that on the entire cruise, only one drink was spilled at dinner. If you know Olivia, then you knew it was her that spilled the drink. No big surprise there..... That night, Dwayne and Laura celebrated their 10-year wedding anniversary and Dwayne had a cake brought out for everybody. It was great, although pretty much everybody was full by that time.

After dinner, many of us went to the upper decks and just hung out. Of course, drinking more. There really is nothing like sitting on the upper deck of a cruise ship at night, listening to a live Caribbean band, sipping a cool drink as you just chit chat with your close friends. It was a Kodak moment. Then, the first of many midnight buffets welcomed us in. Fat pants anyone?

Although we were just cruising around, I was surprised at how calm the ship was. I was expecting the ship to rock and roll from side to side and for many people to be seasick. We could almost always feel the ship moving, but it actually wasn't that bad. It took us all a bit to adjust to the motion, but after a while, I think all of us were okay.

The next day, Monday, was our first "day at sea". The day where we didn't really have any destination. We just cruised around the Gulf of Mexico, waiting out Hurricane Jeanne while it passed by the Bahamas. The weather was beautiful and sunny. We all pretty much just got out, felt out the ship and discovered many of the things to do onboard. Many of us discovered the casino. Soon afterward, many of us wished we hadn't discovered the casino. Myself being one of the first to come to that conclusion.

Right by the Casino we discovered the Sushi bar. At 5pm every afternoon, it opened. So, for the rest of the cruise, many of us found our way to the Sushi bar and just hung out, drinking our wine and beer and eating lots and lots AND LOTS of sushi. That was one of the things I will remember the most about the cruise. All of us just hanging out, by a huge window, overlooking the sea, eating sushi and enjoying each other's company. Today was also Cindy's birthday. We were supposed to go swim with the dolphins, but thanks to the rescheduling because of the Hurricane, that would have to wait

From the minute Cindy and I woke up on Monday morning, we had a million things to do. We had to finalize all of the planning for the wedding ceremony and the reception. We had to arrange getting our marriage license once we got to Nassau and numerous other things. We were running around the ship pretty much the entire time. First we had to meet the wedding planner, then the photographer, then the head hostess, then the videographer, etc. What was so funny was that because we had so many close friends and family onboard, every time we tried to get from one place to another, we kept running into people and stopping and chatting. It was almost humorous how late we were to everything.

Many of us found our way to the art auction that happened every afternoon. The auctioneer was psychotic. He had this gavel that was beat to a pulp. He SLAMMED it down on the podium when bids were placed and items were sold. He broke it numerous times and had to tape it back together. The podium itself was about to fall apart. We had a lot of fun watching. Many of our guests bought numerous pieces of artwork. Some of it was really great. Some if it was... Well... I can't expect to understand art.

We all had dinner again and had a great time. That night was Lobster and Prime Rib. Can you say "second and even third helpings"? I had a cake brought out that said Happy Birthday Cindy so that all of our guests could celebrate her birthday with us. EVERYBODY sang happy birthday to Cindy. Later that night, Cindy turned in early because we had to get up so early the following morning, we were getting married after all.

A bunch of us went to "The Forum" for drinks and Karaoke. It was a blast. Craig, my aunt Marsha's boyfriend, did an incredible rendition of that song. Hmm... I can't remember the name of it, but it is the one that starts out "In the Jungle, the quiet jungle, the Lion sleeps tonight". He got a standing ovation. He did a great job. Then, my sister Khursha and her friend Lee sang a song as well. Hmm. I can't remember the name to that song either. Did I mention that we had a lot to drink? It was that song by Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow. "I put your picture away, etc.". They did a great job as well. I left soon after that. Apparently a few other of our guests got up and sang after that, but I wasn't there to see them. John Mark and Dorothy Suhy took some video though. Maybe we can get them to bring it to the "post wedding party" get together. After the Karaoke, we went to the BIG midnight buffet that everybody kept speaking about. It was really elaborate. I didn't want to touch anything because it looked like it was art. So, I didn't eat anything and went to bed.

The next morning we arrived in Nassau, Bahamas. Cindy and I woke up early because we had to be at the pier at 9am to meet the wedding coordinator and our ride so we could get our wedding license. The entire thing was supposed to take 45 minutes and we were supposed to be back on the ship before 10am. We were planning on then going out into Nassau and taking some of the sites in before we had to return to the ship for Cindy's hair appointment. The wedding was starting at 3pm that day, by the way.

Well, the 45-minute quote was WRONG. There were two other couples that were getting married on our cruise. One of them at noon and one at 1pm. One was from the UK and the other from somewhere in the states. The place we had to go in Nassau to get our wedding license was, well, horrible. It was the same place the Bahamian residents went to registered newborns and get other types of licenses. Imagine the worst DMV you have ever been to and then multiply it by ten. That is where we spent the morning of our wedding day. The "45" minute outing turned into three and half hours. We let the couple getting married at noon in front of us so they could get back to the ship on time. They were from the UK and were great. We spent some time, waiting, chatting with them about the UK and their backgrounds.

Anyway, we got back to the ship around 1pm. An hour after Cindy was supposed to have her hair appointment. Neither of us had eaten anything all day. She ran off to her hair appointment and I ran to one of the lunch buffets to get her some food and then run it back to her. We were going crazy. All of this last minute stuff happened and it was really stressing us out. While I was getting her lunch, I saw Dwayne and Laura Gulsby. I told them about what was going on. Laura offered to take Cindy's lunch to her while I say down and relaxed and ate something myself. What a great thing to do.

So, I had some time to relax before the ceremony. I sat with Dwayne and ate lunch. After lunch, Dwayne and I went to one of the lounges and had a drink. As many of you know, neither of my parents were able to make the cruise. Even if my dad had come, I don't know what kind of "fatherly" advice he would have been able to give me. So, I guess Dwayne recognized this and decided to step in. He gave me the "best man" speech, over a couple of tequilas. Not the one at the dinner, the one where he sits the groom down and shares with him what being married was all about. I have to admit, he did a great job. Almost brought a tear to my eye. ALMOST...

After that, it was time to get ready for the wedding. Well, after another shot of Tequila. Then, Dwayne bought Cindy a shot that I brought to her in the room. Then I got changed into my tux. Cindy and her mom (Rose) were in our room. I guess her mom was giving her the same talk Dwayne had just given me. Only without the Tequila.

2:30 came and I ran up to the place where the ceremony was being held. Our guest started pouring in. As I found out, many of them went snorkeling that morning. The Capt. of the snorkeling boat had some trouble telling time though. They kept telling him that they had to be back at the Ship because they were going to or in a wedding. He kept saying "It'll be alright maan". I think after a few of them threatened to throw him overboard and pilot the boat back themselves, he got them back. Molly Smisek, a red headed person who enjoys swimming and has a loose bikini top (tee hee), was doing Cindy's makeup. She was snorkeling with the other group. God bless her, she ran from the snorkeling boat onto the ship and to Cindy's room to do her makeup, before she had taken a chance to get ready herself. She did an outstanding job.

So anyway, because we had taken so long getting the wedding license, we didn't get to meet the officiate (person performing the ceremony) or rehearse or anything. We had to "wing" it all. We did a quick run through with everybody and were set. Wait a second, we didn't have a basket or flowers for the flower girl. Oops... So, Dwayne and the wedding planner went running all over the ship looking for a basket. Dwayne wound up stealing one from a display. (I won't tell if you won't) The wedding planner stole one from the dining room and the lead hostess stole one from, well, somewhere. So, we started off with no basket and wound up with three. They took some of the bouquet flowers and put them in the basket and we were good to go.

Cindy's nieces, well, our nieces now (YEAH) were there as well. Brittany was one of the bridesmaids and Ashley was the flower girl. They were beautiful and both of them did such a wonderful job. So, we were ready to start. I had to go stand up at the alter and wait for everybody else to enter the room. By the way, I had no idea that the groom couldn't turn around and watch everybody else enter the room. I kept turning around as the wedding party entered the room and the officiate kept telling me to look the other way. That was hard. I wanted to see everybody come in as well. So, I kept peaking...

The Best man and Matron of honor (Dwayne and Tessa) were the first to enter. They did an excellent job. Next were Chris Smisek and Julia Lee. Although there was a slight height difference, they pulled it off well. After them were my brother and sister, Sadat and Khursha. That was absolutely amazing. I had never seen both of them dressed up and looking so.. regal. Then came one of my oldest friends, Tim Brown and our niece Brittany. Truly amazing. They both did an excellent job as well. Finally, Ashley, the flower girl, came down the aisle. She had her beautiful basket and spread her flowers all over the aisle for her aunt Cindy. She was great.

Then the wedding march came on and I was able to turn around. Cindy's mom, Rose, was walking her down the aisle. She was beautiful. We couldn't have picked out a more perfect wedding dress for her. Although I knew she was more nervous than she had ever been, she didn't show it. They made it to the alter and I hugged her mom and took Cindy's hands. Surprisingly enough, I was still calm and in control of my emotions. I started feeling a little woozy, but held on.

The officiate started with a poem that Cindy and I had chosen. He then began his speech and everything else. I couldn't hear a single thing he was saying. I just kept looking into Cindy's eyes. I had to repeatedly tell myself "Don't you dare cry in front of all of these people. They are video taping this and if you cry you'll have to watch it over and over again for the rest of your life. DON'T YOU DO IT!!!". It seemed for work, for a while.

Cindy and I had written our own vows. The officient started with Cindy. Good thing to, because if he had asked me to repeat mine first, I would have gone blank. He started reading Cindy's vows and she repeated them. Oh My God! There wasn't a single dry eye in the crowd. I didn't see it, but I was told that even my brother Sadat, a true man among men, started to sniffle a little. And yes, I too began to feel a little moisture in my eyes. I am sure I just got a piece of dust in there or something. (Tee hee).

Then I began my vows. I had spent a month preparing them and memorizing them. Then, I was blank. I guess that is why he read them for me to repeat them. I said the words that he did, but lost all comprehension of the English language. I just kept looking into Cindy's eyes and was in awe. We then exchanged rings and he pronounced us man and wife. We kissed. Oops. Another thing we hadn't rehearsed. It went well though. The officiate then told us to walk down the aisle and turn left to go sign the marriage certificate. He told us as clear as day and both of us nodded. Well, we walked down the aisle. And then just kept on walking out of the room. They had to stop us and "redirect" us to the marriage license. It was so funny. We both just went blank and kept walking.

The wedding was done. We were married. I think our guests killed three trees worth of tissue. Then we took some pictures with the photographer. After a few quick photos we were all to walk down the hallway and go to the reception. This is great. At the reception, we were supposed to have a DJ. Well, the DJ had disappeared. He had disappeared with the keys to the DJ booth which was locked. He had also cranked the music way up so it was incredibly loud. We couldn't even hear ourselves think. Once again, Dwayne got involved and MADE them find a master key and unlock the DJ booth.

After that, he introduced us as Mr. And Mrs. Ahsan Sheikh and we entered the reception. It was great. Carnival had really done a great job. We had hot and cold hor devours, an open bar, an ice sculpture, a beautiful wedding cake, champagne and much more. I don't even remember all of the hor devours. I know they had caviar, sushi and numerous other items. It was time to cut the cake. Cindy and I both went easy on each other and there was no smearing of the cake into each others faces, although I did manage to get some on Cindy's nose. After the cake cutting, it was time for the speeches. Oops. Dwayne forgot to bring his speech with him. Guess what, so did I...

We both winged it, again. His was great. He started talking about how when he met me, he thought I was, and I quote, "an arrogant punk". How elegant. He mentioned how after he got to know me, he found out that I was, well, still a punk. No, I'm just kidding. It was a very touching speech and I appreciate his thoughts. After him, I started mine. Remember, I had forgotten mine as well. I had it written down, somewhere. So, I just blurted out the parts that I remembered. This was also after a few glasses of champagne. I think I did alright though.

After the speeches, it was time to party. Woo Hoo...... The food was plentiful and the drinks flowed. It was a great time and we had a blast. Dwayne mentioned to me earlier that he had made reservations for 32 people at Senior Frogs, which is a famous bar and restaurant near the pier in Nassau. We told everybody that we were going there after the reception and to meet up around 7pm. Some people wanted to eat dinner on the ship, so we told them to meet us there afterwards.

Cindy and I had to leave the reception a little early so we could walk all over the ship with the photographer. He took a million pictures. After the day's events, we were both exhausted, but, we stuck it out and got through the picture session. It took an additional hour and a half. We got back to the room changed and went to meet up with the group to go to Senior Frogs. We went for a little walk and made our way into Nassau. Dwayne stopped for a little "black ops" action. He bought a few Cuban cigars from a cabby out of his trunk. It was all "covert" and everything.

We got to Senior Frogs and they had set us up right on the water. It was absolutely beautiful. We got to watch the sun set over the ocean. AMAZING. We started right off the bat drinking. Margarita anyone? How about a yard tall glass of margarita? Dwayne and Laura started buying us drinks and it didn't stop the entire night. Senior Frogs had an amazing staff. They had this "DJ" names Cheyenne who just walked around with this microphone that was plugged into the PA system of the bar. He was incredible. He really knew how to work a crowd. He somehow found out that Cindy and I had just gotten married and he called us up in front of everybody. He made Cindy and I drink an entire bottle of some sort of fruity shot. He made us lean our heads back and he just poured it down our throats.

We sat back down and kept drinking. We ordered dinner, and kept drinking. Then, Cheyenne came back over to our table and started talking to some of our guests. He started dancing "for" Carole Straffin (Jill Gleason's mom). He actually did a little lap dance for her. It was a little out of control but fun to watch. Guess what we did after that, we drank some more. Later on, Cheyenne came back over and called me out. He made me get up on top of the bar with two other guys. One was from the UK and the other was from Germany or Brooklyn. At this point, I really couldn't remember much anyway. He handed us each a shot of tequila and a "truly" Mexican beer. We had to down the shot and then chug the beer. Well, UK finished first. I didn't even come close.

Well, we got down from the bar and you'll never guess what we did after that... We drank some more. We all ate and hung out and Cheyenne came back over. They were going to have another chug contest, this time, for the women. Jill Gleason went up on the bar this time. By this time, I was so out of it, I couldn't even tell you if there was anybody else up there with her, but I was told that there were three of them. Jill did well, but only came in second. After she got down, there is absolutely no way you'll guess what we did next. That's right! We drank some more.

Then, it was time for the levitation contest. He got three teams of bar patrons and one team of Senior Frogs staff together and did some weird trick where they were supposed to levitate. They were all competing. The Senior Frogs staff won, but they cheated. Then it was time for the Conga line. Everybody in the bar got in a line and conga-ed (sp?) around the place. They set up shot stations. Every fifteen feet or so, there was a person on a stool standing above you who poured a shot down your throat. They even had non-alcoholic drinks for the kids who were in the conga line. It was so much fun! You wanna hear something funny? My brother, Sadat, was watching Ashley and Brittany, the nieces, as they went through the conga line. He didn't realize the kids got non-alcoholic shots and saw the girls doing a shot. He almost got up and ran over, all mad. Somebody told him after that there was no alcohol in the kid's shots. He is such a nice guy, isn't he??????

Anyway, after the conga line, we had some more to drink, I bet you didn't see that coming. We were all sitting around catching our breath. We had various drinks sitting around the table. They were all drinks that weren't quite finished and had been sitting for a while. I got the idea to pour them all into this one huge glass. We had margaritas, daiquiris, beer and anything else you could imagine. Then, we all started throwing money down to see who would drink it. Five became ten. Ten became twenty, and so on. We got to $32 and Larry Williams said, if we hit $34 he would drink it. Sadat threw down another $2 and we were on. There must have been close to half a gallon of old, used alcoholic drinks in this glass and Larry chugged the entire thing at one time. Not even a grimace. He got the money and a round of applause.

By this time it was around 10pm. Not late by normal standards, but after all that we had to drink, we were afraid that we weren't going to be able to find our way back to the ship, or maybe even not be able to walk back to the ship. So, we decided to leave Senior Frogs and head back. Just as we were leaving, everybody who decided to eat on the ship showed up. Many of them, namely Tricia, were plastered. It was too bad, I heard a lot happened after we left. We hated to leave as they were getting there, but we were done and were afraid we would wind up sleeping on a street in Nassau. Anyway, we all left and walked, correction, stumbled back to the ship. We lit up the Cubans that Dwayne had bought and enjoyed the beautiful night. We got back to ship and hung out on the pool deck again, enjoying the midnight Caribbean air. Oh yeah, did I mention that we went to another buffet that night?

Well, the next morning, a bunch of people went out into Nassau to check out more of the island. We, on the other hand, slept in. Believe it or not, even with all of drinking we did, neither of us had a terrible hang over, just a little slow. The ship departed at 12 noon and we cruised out of the port. THE SEAS WERE ROUGH. The boat was getting tossed all around. Apparently, Hurricane Jeanne had decided to change directions and head back towards Nassau and then Florida. We still had beautiful weather and clear skies, but the seas were rough because of the storm heading in our direction. It was the most rocking we had done the entire trip. The ship was moving up and down more than 12-15 at a time. I checked. More than a few people "lost their breakfast" on the ship that day. The cleaning crew had their jobs cut out for them.

Well, Cindy and I still had a lot to do so we ate a quick breakfast and went to meet with the videographer. He had to do some videotaping and an interview and wrap up some final stuff. Then, we got a quick lunch and had to go meet with the Photographer to pick out the pictures we wanted. There were so many of them. We narrowed it down. Then, narrowed it down again. Then narrowed it down a third time. We finally had the pictures that we wanted. We also had a really good one of the entire wedding party blown up on canvas so we could have it framed and put in our dining room.

Then, we went to another art auction. Cindy and I decided to check out the Casino one more time. We hit the roulette wheel and Cindy and quadrupled our money. It wasn't that much to begin with, but we still did it in about 30 minutes. We decided to quit while we were ahead and went and met up to have more sushi. That night was the last formal dinner of the cruise. We all met up and had an awesome last dinner together. After dinner we tried to get everybody together to get a huge group picture. Almost everybody was there except for my aunt and her boy friend, Cindy's mom and Olivia.

After dinner, a bunch of us decided to go to the Broadway style show in the bow of the ship. It was really funny. The ship was tossing and bouncing all over the place. Yet, the dancers still did a great job and not one of them fell. After 30-45 minutes of that, around midnight, we decided to call it a night and go pack. We all had to be up and ready to go by 7am the next day, so we had to pack that night.

We all woke up and had a quick breakfast and got off the ship. We didn't get to see many of our guests after that but we enjoyed ourselves more than I can describe. Having our close friends and family there to celebrate the event was incredible and we wouldn't have traded it for the world.

As we took the shuttle back to the Radisson, to pick up the cars, the driver told us that Jeanne had swung back around and was heading back towards Florida. We picked up our car and drove back down to Cindy's families place. We found out the Hurricane had indeed changed course again and was heading right for the part of the FL coast where her family lived. We called the airline to try to get an earlier flight out. They had one for Friday afternoon but they doubled the ticket price. How's that for price gouging?

Anyway, we flew out early and got home to find our tornado hit house. Our neighbors had done an incredible job. They cleaned up all of the debris, threw out the trash, fished all of our patio furniture out of the pool and just did everything that we should have done. They were great. We wound up getting all new siding, a partial new roof, a new shed and various other things around the house.

Believe it or not, I started writing this letter in the beginning of October. Today is Jan 5th. I've just finished it. Life is hectic Well, that's about it. Things are well and married life is good. I have to run but I wanted to finish up the letter and send it out. Thank you to all of you who made our wedding as great as it was and thank you to everybody who sent us gifts and cards and shared with us. We love you all. Happy New Year and SEE YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!