Their Big Fat Romanian Wedding: Friday

Miniseries

As many of you know I had the privilege of standing up with Andrew at his and Oana’s wedding last weekend. As you have probably already expected I have lots of stories. Instead of telling them over and over again I am going to try to recount the stories as best I can in this blog post.

My flight left Friday morning at 6amish from Des Moines. The plan was to go to Denver for a hour layover, then head to Portland, arriving at about 10:30am Oregon time. This went without a hitch…mostly.

It had been a while sense I had flown so my stomach wasn’t really used to it. So on the way to Denver, I puked. Luckily it was an early flight with very few people on it so I didn’t disturb very many people. There wasn’t anyone sitting next to me.

Now one would think that after this I would be good. My regurgitation would be over.

Wrong.

On the way to Portland I felt awful. I got up to go to the restrooms twice for false alarms. Finally, as we had just entered Oregon, I puked. After going to the restroom to dispose of the bag I returned to my seat seeing that a Good Samaritan had given up there bag and replaced mine. I owe her.

As we were making our final descent…I puked again. Seeing as I didn’t have much for breakfast by this time it was just a little bit of water and dry heaves. To make up for the fact I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me on the last flight I now had one person on each side.

I still pray for them.

As I told Andrew when he picked my up, I didn’t have a puking episode; it was more like a miniseries.

Another Invitation

While riding from the airport, Andrew ask me if I would like to play electric guitar for Agape Church on Sunday (this is Andrews and Oana’s church and the church where the ceremony was held). Because I never pass up a time to play guitar, I said yes.

This is not really exciting right now but is important for other stories later in the post. For now just know that Andrew made some calls and got the ball rolling.

Getaway Cars

Later that day, at about 5pm, we and a bunch of groomsmen, bridesmaids, along with the bride herself went to pick up the Cadillacs. It was determined that it was cheaper to rent five Cadis than two limos (we would have needed at least two to fit the ten bridesmaids and ten groomsmen). Andrew had talked to a person at Enterprise and had it planned it out for groomsmen to drive the cars.

To my surprise I was one of them. On the way there I asked Andrew about my age. I’m twenty-four and you can’t drive a rental until you are twenty five (which will be happening in about 40ish days). Andrew of course had already thought of this and had asked and he had been told that it would be possible with an extra charge.

Andrew was told a lot of things about the rental process. Most of it was wrong.

Because the Cadillacs were “premium cars” I was ineligible to drive one. Also, we thought all the cars could be put on one credit card and that one person would be able to rent all of them. Nope. Each driver had to produce a license as well as a credit card (not a debit card) for to drive a car.

One of the drivers just had a debit on them. One of the drivers had a Kansas-issued temporary license which was just a piece of paper. And another driver had to be rounded up to replace me.

I’m not sure how it all got worked. I do know that I didn’t get to drive a sweet car around, that we found enough drivers, and what should have been a 15 minute trip took an hour, all thanks to someone at Enterprise not having the correct information.

The Rehearsal: So who is here any way?

After the cars were worked out we headed to the rehearsal. Most of this was, of course, done in Romanian.

There was some discussion happen on stage between the bride’s family and a pastor (I think there were three involved with the wedding) and the bride and groom themselves. Justin, Andrew’s older brother lean over and explained the situation.

He explained that there were two basic cultures represented at the wedding, Romanian and American. The Romanian side was split into two basic groups, Baptist (the groom’s side) and Pentecostal (the bride’s side). The Pentecostal side was split into two different parts, one more traditional and conservative than the other.

The discussion was between the two Romanian Pentecostal groups as to which side the bride and groom should stand on. Apparently the more traditional Romanian Pentecostal group (I’m not clear on who represented this group at the wedding) was adamant about the groom on the left and the bride on the right. The other Romanian Pentecostal group (represented by Agape) wanted the groom on the right and the bride on the left. As near as I could tell, Andrew and Oana just wanted to get married.

It was decided to go along with the group Represented by Agape church because the wedding was held at there facility. The groom was on the right, the bride was on the left and I was just fascinated by the whole thing.

The Rehearsal Dinner: How big are cabbage roles?

Over Thanksgiving I was exposed to what we will call cabbage rolls; I don’t remember how to pronounce the real name and even if I did I wouldn’t know how to spell it. Apparently their size is determined by which part of Romania you are from.

So the Romanian groomsman (Daniel, the one with the debit card from “getaway car”) was unsure about what they were while I was diving right in.

When Andrew asked Joel (the only other “American” or perhaps better said Non-Romanian; also the one with the Kansas issued license) how many he had, Joel replied with a polite “three.” Then Andrew asked me to which my answer was “fifteen.”