Wedding Spectacular on Ice

OK - not on ice...but it sounded like a good title. Well, its official :) I’m Mrs. Karin O’Brien :) and I’m very smiley about it :)

The wedding went very well, and aside from a few check in issues (and one other issue that I’ll discuss later) the weekend went off without a hitch. The weather even decided to cooperate, which was nice…..it was threatening to rain pretty much all day, and was relatively chilly (in the 50’s or so) – but much nicer than the rest of the strong Thunderstorms that traipsed through the area last night.

Basically, here’s a breakdown of how the day went…..since the family was staying at the Hilton Garden Inn, we started there with a Chicago Trolley pick up. From there we headed to the Downey Mansion at Berger Park for the Ceremony in the sun room. After an awesome, short but sweet ceremony given by Seth Fisher, we loaded the trolley up and rode around Chicago, stopping at a couple locations for bathroom breaks and a few photo opportunities. Then, the night ended with a fantastic dinner experience at Fogo de Chao – one of our favorite restaurants in Chicago.

I don’t think I could say enough good things about the professionalism, promptness, quality and just plain awesomeness of all our vendors…..I say vendors – but they were really much more than that! Sharla, the assistant in our office, made our bouquets and boutonnieres because she’s taking a floral design class….they came out exactly how I had it in my head! Seth delivered a fantastic ceremony, and I must say – he’s got such a great presence and voice – it was exactly what we were looking for. Just an all around nice guy! Victoria, our photographer, was just so stinkin’ adorable! Very flexible, friendly and attentive to our strange requests :). I can’t wait to see our photographs! Carla was the girl who came to the hotel to do our hair (me and Karli’s…..that is) – I found her at the last minute (on Wednesday) and she totally was awesome! Our hair rocked :)

Then there was Paul. Now, this guy was GREAT….he was the trolley driver. The kids wanted to sit right at the front of the trolley, right next to the driver and he was just chatting them up like they were old friends. And they were so well behaved up there too. Every request we had, he was just so, I don’t know……..Friendly? Courteous? Accommodating? I guess all those, and more. We even added another $20 to his tip…..we were very happy with his service.

So what are we going to do now? Nothing :) We’re taking a couple of days off of work just to relax…..we may go play some golf tomorrow if its nice, but aside from that we have no plans :)

:::::::::: POOP IN A BOX ::::::::::

So here is the part about the hotel stay that I didn’t go into detail before…..

But before I do that I think you all should watch the clip from when Justin Timberlake hosted SNL last year. Its not X-rated or anything….but if you have issues with the word Dick you probably shouldn’t watch it. I guess you might classify it as raunchy – but its pretty hilarious, and tough to get it out of your head once its stuck in there. Pat frequently gets it in his head…..his favorite part is the, uh, well….”instructions”.

Funny, eh? OK – now just keep that in mind.

One more preface…..I was pretty happy with the service the HGI gave us – it was a fantastic location right in the heart of downtown, and the sales group gave us a great price to boot. They worked with us for the various changes we had, and distributed most of the guest baskets that we made for the rooms (all six of them - LOL). There were some things, like the check in thing, and our suite didn’t have towels right away……but that could have been any hotel at any given time.

Last night, HGI also happened to host a Fraternity Formal for Alpha Tau Omega from Purdue University…..after their festivities some of them headed up to a suite down the hall from us for an after party. Yes, they were a tiny bit loud, but really nothing obnoxious – and we were so exhausted that we didn’t even really notice for long anyway. I was pretty understanding since it hasn’t been that long ago (hasn’t it?) that I was doing the same thing…….I do recall before drifting off to sleep there was some walkie-talkie noise, and then silence…so I’m guessing someone called security and they broke things up.

So we thought nothing of it….

We woke up this morning and were getting ready to take our stuff out to our car. I was standing by the door, my hand on the handle, and I smelled something a bit funny. Kind of like a poopy diaper or something, which I found to be odd. I opened the door – and found a nice log of human shit – in an open box – in front of our door.

Nice. Very nice.

I’m not sure if it was just an April Fool’s Day prank, or because they thought we were the ones who called security, or just because we had a “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door….but I guess it doesn’t really matter. There’s not even any way to prove that it was an attendee of the ATO Formal…..I suppose it could have been some other rogue band of teenage to early 20’s boys (although I don’t recall seeing any throughout the weekend). So aside from that, who else would you peg it on? The family with three kids under the age of 10? How about the two couples in their mid 40’s away from the kids and out for a night on the town? Or the group of four women who just returned from a day of shopping their feet (and credit cards) off? My brothers? OK – don’t answer that one….I already asked them just to be sure and they assured me they didn’t.

Or, do you think it was the really drunk fraternity boys, ticked off because the suite party was broken up?

It takes a lot to disgust me (well, not now, since I’m much more sensitive to smells and sights now that I’m pregnant) – and I’m all for pranks now and again……but that was just plain ol’ GROSS. I called the manager and explained our “present” – and he proceeded to apologize profusely and comp all the charges for our stay. I wasn’t mad or angry at the hotel – its not their fault that drunk kids do idiot things now and again……and I wasn’t mad in general – just really grossed out. I was pretty happy they gave us a free room, know what I mean?

Now I think about it and really it’s kind of funny. At least they had the common sense to put it in a box as to not tarnish and stain the carpet, and for ease of cleaning. And, I can thank them for putting “Poop In A Box” in my head all day, sung along to the JT classic posted above….and a free honeymoon suite :)