May, 2001
Aaron and Keri get married.
The wedding actually turned out just about perfect. It took place at my mom's house - it looked much nicer and felt more comfortable than any hall or garden we could have rented. My mom put in a new lawn for the occasion. We rented white chairs and an arch which Keri decorated herself. It had actually rained all day the previous day, but it was bright, sunny, and the temperature outside was just right for the ceremony. I had asked one of our best friends, Brad Stoddard, to be the minister and I think everyone was impressed with what a good job he did. He kept it short and to the point. I've been to a few weddings where the minister takes advantage of the captive audience to sermonize, plus it just seemed more appropriate to be hitched by someone that knows us both well. At the same time Brad kept the ceremony dignified and official. I know for a fact that the best man, Bill, was probably the most nervous guy there. He had even been nervous at rehearsal. Keri's longtime best friend, Donna, was the maid of honor. Keri's dad and mom, Harry and Peggy, were there to give her away and her niece and nephew, Rachel and Alex, walked down the aisle ahead of her. Keri's mom had made Keri's wedding dress and it looked fantastic. It was my idea to include Chongo in the wedding (Actually, I demanded it.) and the notoriously bad dog performed better than anybody could have expected. Not one peep out of him. Pete had been instructed to whisk him away at the first sign trouble, but that wasn't necessary. After Chongo gave Bill our rings I suffered a brief moment of confusion as I noticed Keri wasn't wearing her engagement ring. I thought I was supposed to slip the wedding band next to it. Keri saw the look on my face and showed me that the other ring was on her right hand. Other than that everything went quite smoothly. It was much nicer than I ever anticipated. I have to give Keri most of the credit as she was well-organized and knew exactly what we needed to do for a nice wedding - or more importantly, what we could do ourselves or do without.

The reception took place at the Veteran's Memorial building in downtown Pleasanton. Originally we thought renting a hall would be ridiculously
expensive in a town like Pleasanton, but when we looked into renting city property, for residents, the prices were actually very reasonable. Once again, Keri did most of the planning. She knew exactly what we needed as far as serving trays, table covers, flowers, all of which she arranged months before the actual wedding day. I didn't think we needed to buy as much wine as we did, but buying several cases turned out to be a good idea. However, it was my idea to serve pizza and I think that went over well. We were talking about caterers and food choices and I said, "Let's get pizza. Everybody loves pizza!" Not to mention that I work at Garlex Pizza. As it turned out the owner Gary gave us a sweet deal on 30 party size pizzas and even covered the tip for us as an extra wedding gift. On the RSVPs we had people vote on what type of pizza and beer they would like. This gave us an idea of how many vegetarians would be there. As far as the beer voting went, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was the runaway favorite with Pabst Blue Ribbon nudging out Bud and Bud Light for second place. We actually had to ask Bill to bring us a keg of Pabst from Sacramento since they don't sell it anywhere in Pleasanton. For the reception our roommate Craig did a great job in handling the music. This included driving to Discovery Bay with my brother to get huge DJ speakers. Brandy brought her PA for the bands. After the greetings and the cutting of the cake and the slow dance (Baby, I Love Your Way - the live version) the night got started. The Bananas are my favorite living band (not to mention Mike and Lisa were Keri's roommates over ten years ago.) and they played first. The sound was loud drunk and spastic which seemed to scare off all of our parent's generation except for Keri¹s dad who was front and center. My mom was holding her fingers in her ears and when I told my dad to stick around he said, "Aaron, I¹m 74 years old. I can't handle this!" However, they and other friends and relatives returned later after going back to the hotel to get into more comfortable clothes. Many people were just talking and drinking out front or on the side porch and by the time The Four Eyes started playing the party really started to pick up. The Four Eyes had to play their monster hit, Hat Nerd four times (the forth being a slow-dance version) as everybody continued to request it. A friend from Vegas wrote me, "I will always remember Hat Nerd." The week prior at the Bachelor Party the stripper had to dance to Hat Nerd and we played it twenty times over. I hear that there is a record label that will put out a Hat Nerd comp. It is the #1 song of 2001 and we will remember our wedding every time we hear it.

At this point I have to say that I regret drinking Champagne instead of beer. I only did so because it was sitting right there on the tables and was easier to refill as we walked around greeting everybody during the meal. However, if I stuck with beer as I usually do I would have remembered more of what happened later. I had no idea we had such a great time until I heard back from everybody when we returned from the honeymoon. My first indication was when my friend Scott, who I thought had left early, told me, "The dance floor was just rockin'!" I barely remember that part and then my brother mentioned that I sang Kareoke for The Cult's Peace Dog in it's entirety and I didn't remember that either. Apparently the dancing went on for quite some time. Keri said that her mom reminded her that we were supposed to be out of the hall by 9pm, but every time she started to walk over to Craig to stop the music he would play another great song and the dancing just continued until 11pm. Another funny thing is that I've heard from almost a dozen people who hooked up with people they didn't know at the wedding. There was a lot of romance (or just drunken debauchery) in the air that night. Keri's mom mentioned that several of our friends were very nice and helpful during the clean-up. I have to thank everybody who helped out big time. I remember Hal and others were keeping the beer kegs flowing. I saw Dave and Barbara and Natasha helping out and I know there were more. There were Keri's parents and the wedding party who were setting up at the reception hall. My Cousin Joe and Aunt Carol and Charlie set up the wedding chairs. Dr. Forest and my brother did some unintrusive video. Michelle, Karoline, and Murray took professional quality photos. My brother and dad returned all the rental stuff. My mom took a week off work to get the house ready and spend time with visiting relatives. Oh yeah, the wedding gift booty was much more than I anticipated! We got most everything on our registry at Target and Macy's and then the cash and gift certificates added up to much more than I ever considered. For several months Keri and I had put money in our "wedding fund" and at the time it seemed like a lot of money -not that I ever complained, you only do this once and we wanted it done right. However, I didn't realize that we would get that money back in the form of gifts. Keri and I were saying that next year we will have to renew our vows so we can do this all over again. In the least we will have to have another party soon just to bring everyone back together again.

Go A's!