Adventures in Jamaica-land....part 2

Part two of the Jamaica saga.

The reason behind my family’s vacation in Jamaica is my older sister’s wedding. Normally, the Bose family vacation consists of visiting Adventure-land in Iowa (which is a sad severely watered down version of a six flags theme park) or visiting Memorial stadium down in Lincoln.

My sister, Angela, had her heart set on a destination wedding and I could use a good vacation. She and the groom (Brad) were to be married at a couples only resort. In the mean time, they were staying there while the rest of the family had to stick to the children’s resort because I could not/would not find a date….yet another way beat down Midwestern singles with “so why are you not married yet Lindsay”.

Our travel agent/wedding planner yet again showed how incompetent she was by booking the shittiest honeymoon suite possible for the happy couple. Seriously, they down-graded their room and it was loads better. You may why I have such a beef against this woman since she only lied to my parents and screwed my sister over. Well she almost prevented my sister from getting married! Yeah, they thought she booked them for Saturday September 1, but she accidentally put them down for October 1. Okay what moron books hotel and flights around September 1 and then schedules the ceremony for month later. Idiot!

Angela and Brad arrived at the resort and met with the resort wedding planner. The planner said she did not have them in the books for Saturday. Huh? They had openings for ceremonies but they could not legally marry them because they did not even have the marriage license. Typically you have to send the license down a month in advance because it had to go through a lot of paperwork in Kingston and then is shipped up to BFE that is the resort. Well I don’t know how Angela stayed calm (or maybe she didn’t, I was not there), but she managed to get the agent to overnight the license to Kingston (do not want to imagine how much that cost) and then have it hand delivered to the resort the next day. Talk about headache!

Well the license would not arrive until Sunday, so the wedding was pushed back a day (instead of a month…still cannot believe that bitch). The only opening the resort had was 3pm. Done, we will take it. On the day of the wedding, the family piled into the taxi van (which cost us $20 more than what the travel agent/wedding planner quoted us, they were fixed/posted rates and she could not even get that right) and headed over to the couples only resort.

The ceremony was simple and beautiful, and watching it I realized why 3pm was the only open time slot…..because it was scorching hot! Okay let me see, hottest part of the day in Jamaica during summer…yeah makes sense. We all were sweating up a storm. Brad’s white linen shirt was soaked through. Tiffany commented to me “eeewww, you have a river of sweat running down your back”. I felt bad for Mom and Dad who were in a suit and long shirt/pant combo respectively. I don’t know how hot Angela got in her bridal dress, but who knows maybe she hid a fan down under there or something.

Okay I have to share some jem moments from the ceremony. The minister asked the question “if anyone has a problem with these two getting married, speak now or forever hold you peace” (well not word for word, but you get the point). Okay, I’ve been to a dozen weddings (seriously, I am the girl who gets invited to every wedding, and I even have turned down a few) and never has the guy asked that question. Either the guy has been watching too much TV/movies (because they always do that for drama) or people often have objections to weddings in Jamaica.

Another priceless moment was the marriage license. The thing was huge and it took three people to hold it! The photographer made them all hold it up, and it looked like the publishing clearing house check (I kept waiting for Ed McMan to come around the corner with a big bunch of balloons).

One funny observation was that Angela wore heels. Normally Brad and she are about the same height. Of course if you throw in some 3-inchers, the picture becomes lopsided. He eventually made her take off the shoes during pictures so they don’t have to show the future children pictures with captions like “this is mommy on her wedding day, with her build-a-bear”. It is misleading in the family picture (blood family only since the two brother-in-laws were shunned out) because I am normally the shortest (all 5’-7” of me). Hurrah, finally one picture where I don’t look like I need a box!

After the ceremony, I caught the bouquet (hey who else was going to get it, we were at a couples only resort!). Actually I was holding it for Angela, and I just tossed it to myself….at least it made for a good laugh on the video. I changed out of the sweaty clothes and hit the beach since dinner (aka the reception) was not for another three hours. While laying out on the beach, I kept getting dirty looks from the other guests. I guess being single at a couples resort is equivalent to having ringworm in a wrestling match.

The reception was held in the all so glamorous buffet dining hall. The other fancy restaurants at the resort would not take reservations for more than four (we had 11) without several days notice and your first born. I whispered to the server that I wanted a round of champagne for the table for toasts. He came back and filled flutes for the bride and groom. He then tried to run away before I caught him and asked to pour for the entire table as well. He shrugged his shoulders and said “no man, we are out of glasses”. Wait, hold on here, this is a swanky couples only resort and you only have two champagne flutes….huh. A few of us held up our red wine goblets and whiskey tumblers for some bubbly (not to sound like alcoholics, but we needed something to toast with besides ting).

The next day we headed back to the airport to fly home. The drivers were really hesitant to take any vacationers off the resort. I asked the guy why he was so scared to be out on the road, and he said “because man, it is election day”. So what. Are you worried about the roads being crowded because of masses heading out to vote because in our country, we are lucky to get a 50% participation. I guess elections in Jamaica in the not so distant past have been extremely violent. The two parties are more like two warring gangs and this day is usually marked with mob riots and murders. Imagine if you wore a Rudy Giuliani shirt only to have some guy in a Hilary Clinton shirt shoot you. The mind set is if I kill a person of an opposing party, then it is one less vote for them, victory is mine! The guy was so scared that he said no one talks about their party affiliation, who they voted for, or even if they voted at all. We passed a few of the voting stations and they were all police stations (smart move). The radio people kept promoting, “on this election day, we want to say let us spread peace and love man”. I guess if the USA politics were more like this, I may pay more attention, etc. like if they added a goalie defending the hole in golf.