The Really, Totally Awesome, Rad, W-O-W Yosemite Wedding

I was totally stoked when my bachelor friend de jour announced he was getting married late last year. The consummate good guy who never got the girl, he finally found a beautiful Vietnamese woman who was the Asian female version of himself. Ann is about 90 lbs soaking wet, and could easily pass for a co-ed. Then Sean told me they were planning to get married in Yosemite. Yosemite, for me, falls somewhere in that vague ambiguous area between the West Coast and middle America.  Lucky for me, it's in Northern Cali. Even better, I would get to reminisce with a few of my best MIT girlfriends and be openly geeky in the most beautiful natural setting I've seen in America.

Because the ceremony & reception were on Sun night, I spent the majority of the weekend as the most gosh-darn cool third-wheel to my best friend, Kristie T, and her Obama-look-alike boyfriend, Manish. Also, flying into SF and driving to Yosemite is a serious endeavor. I calculated that, door-to-door, it took me about the same transit time from my Chicago home to the Wawona Yosemite Hotel as it did to fly from LAX to Sydney, Australia. Kristie T and I agreed that the Wawona was a shoo-in for the Poconos resort depicted in "Dirty Dancing", aka "The Best Movie of All Time."

Since we had all trekked considerable distances for Sean's wedding, we decided that the appropriate activity for Saturday would be a hike. I mean, how would you feel if you went to a place as beautiful as Yosemite and never walked amongst MOTHER NATURE. She would hate you. We decided that a leisurely 1.5 mile walk would do the trick. As the navigatress, I failed to follow the easy course and led us on a 4.5 mile to a lake that didn't exist. Way to pull a fast one on us, Mother Nature. On the positive side, we felt immeasurably accomplished and very hungry.

As photographer extraordinaire with a camera the size of a 1-mos baby, Kristie T diligently documented our trials and travails as we braved the wilderness. The wedding was simple, the scenery stunning, the company priceless. I enjoyed hanging out with the sorority sisters I never get to see (Teresa, Cat K), agreeing to be silly AND amazing at the same time, and seeing how happy Sean and Ann were to be together. Mazel tov!