Monday, August 22, 2005

Wedding #7 - Channing & Jeanne

"The heart has its own reason which reason does not know."
- Blaise Pascal
I've known Jeanne for about 10 years now. We dated for a short time back in high school, but it wasn't meant to be--just two immature kids. :) Despite our history, she has truly been one of my best friends over the years. I'll be the first to admit that it is unique to stay such good friends with an old girlfriend, but I realize that it's one of the friendships that I will always be forever grateful. She has always been there to offer good advice, listen to my venting, and held me accountable as my sister in Christ. Although I haven't gotten to know Channing that well, the time I have spent with him and Jeanne, I have really been impressed. He has such a kind and generous heart, always looking out for her friends and never thinking about just himself. She has definitely found someone great to spend the rest of her life with.

The wedding itself was pretty eventful--well mostly for us helpers. We got to the reception early, and found out that the A/V guys forgot to leave cables to connect the laptop to the sound system. We had to call them up again, and they ended up charging us another $50 to come back to deliver it. One of us also had this bright idea to include pictures of the wedding in the slideshow, so we had to upload pictures from a digital camera. Unfortunately, none of us remembered to check if Joanne's laptop had the appropriate drivers. First, we tried downloading it through a 56K modem (remember them?), but it took so freakin' long, we decided to crash Christina and Tom's place so we could use their cable. Nuts. Joanne and I ended up working through most of dinner trying to get all the slides done. With just a few minutes to spare, we put the finishing touches to the slideshow. Of course, that was just the beginning. Channing also had a DVD video that his friends from HK made to send their best wishes to the happy couple. Of course, we didn't check to make sure that Joanne's laptop could play DVD's. A couple of people ended up rushing frantically back to Channing's place to grab his laptop and hurry back to restaurant. Thankfully, everything turned out fine in the end. Everyone enjoyed the slideshow and vides, and Channing and Jeanne were great despite our 'technical difficulties'. At least, my table was nice enough to save me some food. Unfortunately, shark's fin soup, lobster, not-so-crispy chicken, and steamed fish just doesn't taste as good when it's cold/lukewarm. Anyhow, I was able to enjoy it with a glass of red wine and unwind the rest of the evening.

Still, the night was a memorable one. Joanne and I enjoyed quite a few laughs, despite some of the stress we were going through. I found a 'wing man' in Will. (Ah, don't ask...) It was also good to see a bunch of the old ACI crew together again--Christina, Doris, Frances, Evadne, Karen, Suzanne, Yolanda, and even Ms. Hommel (my English teacher!). Afterwards we went to a bar and enjoyed some more drinks and laughs together. It's interesting to see where people are now, yet everyone is still much like I remembered them.

Anyway, against my better judgement, I ended up staying out until 3 AM and had to wake up a few hours later for church. Yikes. Sunday was a long day--helping out with ushering, teaching Sunday School, going to the Welcome Luncheon. I ended up crashing in the afternoon and managed to wake up again for a softball doubleheader. Luckily, I decided to take Monday off and finally caught up on some sleep...

Congratulations again to Channing & Jeanne!

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