It seemed like everyone who was involved in either wedding arrived at the hotel in one great mass and immediately mobbed the front desk. Whatever energy I’d had that morning was suddenly zapped and I would have loved nothing more than to retreat to our room until the rehearsal, but that was just not to be: there were decorations to send off in every direction, food to get into the kitchen, and people to corral. Somehow, despite the lists and tags on everything, and the fact that our DoC was supposed to be directing this traffic, all eyes were still on me and I just wanted this stuff out of my hands.
While we were waiting for extra staff to come out and get things (though never more than one seemed to be available at any given moment…) it was decided that anything for the ceremony would get placed into their storage room (which was being inventoried at that moment, so it really meant that everything sat in the hallway), and that reception goods would go up to the Owl’s Nest. My brothers ended up carrying the cupcakes into the kitchen with instructions (per Lucy & Leo’s) not to refrigerate them, only to have Dr. Aunt track me down shortly thereafter telling me that the powers that be had decided that no-fridge obviously meant the cupcakes could sit on the counter in front of the open convection oven.
And, yep, they were still there when I stuck my head inside the kitchen to see if they’d been moved (I couldn’t find anyone in charge at that moment–everyone seemed to have disappeared).
But in the midst of all of this, on one of many trips to bring decorations into the lobby, I saw a gentleman walk by in a kitchen whites so I flagged him down to ask if he was, in fact, the new chef.
Of all the chefs in the area, and in the 10+ years I’ve been out of the local hospitality scene, I did not expect to have someone I knew from 20 years ago standing in front of me. But there he was.
On the one hand this was a good thing. I’ve eaten Chef G’s food before and it’s been fabulous, so I wasn’t worried about that so much. (But knowing who I was dealing with, I was no longer surprised that he didn’t call with any questions.) We had a nice chat about the reception where he assured me that he would be taking care of my food personally and that I had nothing to worry about, but just as I turned to head back out to our group he asked the DoC (who’d walked up during the conversation), “Is this one plated or buffet?â€
DoC: This one is plated.
Chef G: So the quiche and the steak, they’re going on the same plate?
Miss RT: They’re separate courses.
Chef G: Oh–
So I started to run down the menu to confirm we’re all on the same page. I get to the third course and–
Chef G: You know, I was wondering what the vegetable for that plate was supposed to be…. (looks at his watch) I’ll have to put in a rush order for eggplant tonight, but it’s okay, we’ve got time.
And that’s when I checked out. By that single statement I realized that there wasn’t a prayer’s chance in hell this wedding was going to go as planned, so I just let go of all of my expectations. After all, things were literally out of my hands at that point, so I had two choices: stress and fret or go along for the ride. There was no time to dwell too long, though, as we just barely had enough time to drive down to our cottage and unpack the rest of the stuff from the cars and freshen up before the rehearsal began.
The Road Trip Wedding Recaps: