Wedding #8 - Ian & Sandra

Me with the Happy Couple... 

So another crazy wedding weekend has passed...

I've gotten to know Ian and Sandra fairly well over the last year. Ian joined the TCCC pastoral staff last September as the youth pastor and he's been serving extensively with the Kyrios teen fellowship. I know the teens love him--probably because he looks like one of them too. ;) Working with him as one of the counselors over the last year, I can see how much of his time, effort and heart he's given to help mold the youth. Having gotten a taste of it myself, it takes a great person to be able to commit that kind of energy to serve in youth ministry full-time. Sandra, I got to know through softball this summer as she played with my Sunday Night team. She was always a bit quiet and reserved, yet she always did whatever she could to help the team. Never complained, listened to others' advice and just played. A great teammate. Whenever Ian came out to support her, I could see how well they played off each other. They always knew how to have fun and make each other laugh.

Anyway, the wedding ceremony was pretty cool. It was a mix of Chinese and Filipino, and it had a bit of an African theme to it too. Memorable moments of their romance was in Kenya, so they wanted to relive that part of their relationship in their wedding. Ian's uncle also built this amazing tree (see below) from scratch to recreate the wilderness in Africa. It was incredibly life-like and must have taken a lot of time and love to put it together. (Apparently, the uncle isn't even an artist or sculptor!) I have to say it was strange to see Sandra all dressed up 'cause I usually see her only in softball gear or in sweats after Kyrios--but what a beautiful bride she was. The vows were sweet and reflective of the genuine people they both are. The reception at night was pretty fun. The games were good, but also took a bit too long to set up--they had a 'guess your husband'-type game, some animal calling (Giiiraffe!), a even a dance competition. The first one was pretty funny 'cause Sandra eliminated Ian really early and Ian ended up having to kiss someone else other than his bride. It was nice to also see some of the teens there celebrating this occasion with Ian & Sandra--many of them had worked closely with Ian over the past year. They were part of the rowdier bunch along with Sandra's NTCBC friends. I also had a bit of fun 'troublemaking' with a couple of the teens, well more like teasing--especially with Mat. They've graduated and are in university now, so I can treat them like adults, right? ;) One minor complaint though... although the food was standard Chinese fare and still pretty good, I actually found the service below par. It was ridiculous how messy our server was--he wasted so much of the shark's fin soup (!) and started serving us another dish even before we finished the previous one. I know they must have been a bit short-staffed and in a hurry to serve all the tables, but I've never seen a banquet table with so much stuff splashed on it. In any case, I had a great time--it's always nice to go to weddings where people do something a little more unique.

Somehow, I also managed to squeeze in parts of a bachelor party in between the ceremony and reception. Nuts. Albert is getting married in a couple of weeks, so the guys were 'roasting' him one last time on Saturday. Since I couldn't join them for the whole event, I decided to join them for some go-karting. I don't think I've gone racing in like 10+ years. After a couple of laps of warm-up, I don't think I used the brake pedal at all and using the gas all the way! We even got a couple free laps because they had to kick us off for some kid's birthday party. Let me tell you, it's dangerous to go driving after go-karting. On the way home, I had to resist the temptation to 'floor it' and swerve/pass other drivers on the highway.

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After church on Sunday, I had lunch at a small French bakery, Bonjour Brioche (near Queen Street E. & Broadview Ave.), with Daniel, Maki, Charles, Tim and Faith. The baguettes were really good and the rest of the food was delicious too--I tried some kind of tart/quiche. On a funny note--well not so funny for me--I got totally shafted twice at lunch. First, Tim asked me if I went to Ian's wedding even though I had talked to Tim TWICE during the evening. Then to make things worse, Maki later asked me if I had ever met Faith before, even though I had dinner with her and others at Daniel & Maki's place only a couple of weeks ago. Man, completely dissed. Am I invisible? :P Tim blamed it on exhaustion, but I beg to differ. :) Anyway, after the laughs, Tim, Faith and I went to check out the "Word on the Street" festival at Queen's Park. It was pretty cool--a lot of interesting books and magazines--but I definitely didn't enjoy it as much as others. I'm not an avid reader, so I wasn't looking for anything in particular and I didn't appreciate the material that was out of there... Didn't do much else the rest of the afternoon/evening. I think that was enough activity for a couple of days. Just ended up going home and enjoying an extremely long, restful nap... ;)