Distant Wedding

Saturday Travalon and I drove to River Falls for the wedding of a friend I have not mentioned on this blog previously. We stopped in Menomonie and took a tour, since he had gone to school there. A lot has changed but some things are still the same, or so he tells me – I’ve never been there before. We stayed at a hotel there and were planning to go to Mass at a kind of ugly, modern church called St. Joseph, although the Mass times were not convenient. One was really early and the other one would have gotten us on the road kind of late to make it back to town for the Packer game.

The wedding was lovely. The program for the wedding was the most comprehensive one I have ever seen, with not only everything written out, but little explanations of why Catholics do certain things. It was like a catechism wedding program. I saw a bunch of people there that I hadn’t seen in a while, and several of us are now planning our own weddings. One couple is hoping to get married the same weekend as Travalon and I, but they have nothing nailed down yet. That made Travalon feel better, since we have the church, the hall, the caterer, the photographer… lots of stuff already. I’m not feeling too overwhelmed yet. At the reception we sat at a table with a three-year-old in a really sharp little suit. He was adorable. We had fun dancing to the music the DJ was playing, but as the evening grew later, he cranked up the volume so it was physically painful to be on the dance floor. Travalon and I left just after the warm chocolate chip cookies appeared. Our hotel had a lukewarm hot tub and a freezing cold pool. We both tried to brave the pool but just could not do it, so we hung out in the hot tub for a little while.

Sunday we got going fast enough to make it to Mass in Eau Claire. There was a church there I had always wanted to see, Sacred Heart, because I had seen its twin towers from a distance many years ago and thought it was beautiful. Inside it was even lovelier, and I took a picture that I will post at some point. Then we drove to Osseo and had lefse and pie at the famous Norske Nook; I had lingonberry pie for an extra layer of Scandinavian experience. The day seemed to be going so wonderfully, but then my sunglasses broke and the zipper on my coat broke. We got back to Madtown in time to watch the Packers lose to San Francisco – what a bummer that we just get Aaron Rodgers back and the season comes to an end! Plus it would have been hilarious to get to the Super Bowl with our underwhelming regular season record. But to be fair, the Pack just won the Super Bowl a few years ago, and Seattle has never even been there, so maybe this is their year. I’d love to see their quarterback, Russell Wilson, get a ring because he used to be a Badger.

Famous Hat