A Gulf Coast Wedding

So, last week I went to Gulf Shores, Alabama.

I know, I know. You’re thinking, Wait a minute! You LIVE in Hawaii? And you’re going on vacation to the beach in ALABAMA? On the Gulf Coast, where the big OIL SPILL is?!?!

Yep. I guess I MIGHT be a redneck…

So anyways, we went down there because (1) we go every year with the family, and (2) my husband’s nephew was getting married on the beach.

We were really excited about the wedding. I’d never actually attended a beach wedding before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. They told us they’d reserved a minister, and planned where it would be and all, but you can’t really reserve a spot, since the beach is public and anyone can walk by.

So when we got there I was a little surprised to see that there were four --count ’em, FOUR-- other weddings going on around the same time.

I feel bad about the guy we met coming in who asked me how long until the wedding started. I told him he had thirty minutes, but I guess he was with another group, since I never saw him again. Whoops!

So there we all were, standing around waiting for our respective weddings to start and pretending we were the only family on the beach.

One group had chairs. They thought they were SO special.

Another couple had no spectators whatsoever; it was just them and the minister, who also appeared to be the photographer. I was wondering if he planned to slap on some Elvis sideburns and be the entertainment too.

This is our bride.I think she was the prettiest one there!

Our bride and groom were trying to avoid seeing each other before the ceremony, which isn’t easy on an open beach! I think the groom was relegated to his car while the bride was having her picture made in various locations on the beach. I hope they cracked the window for him…

For us, controlling the twins was the main problem. They were dressed in their special smocked outfits their grandmother made, but that didn’t keep them from wanting to bolt into the surf and/or dump sand on their heads.

We had to strap them into their strollers and then drag the strollers across the sand backwards like rickshaws. It was tough going! They didn't seem to like it much either...

But once the ceremony started it was really lovely. We all stood by the water as they recited their vows. People hardly noticed the oil tankers in the background.

Yeah, you were wondering when I’d get to the part about the oil spill, right? Well, to be honest, it wasn’t too bad. There were no piles of oil-soaked bird carcasses littering the beach, which seemed to be a possibility judging from the news reports we’d been hearing before we got down there.

We actually saw almost no oil the whole week we were there, aside from a few occasional spots on the beach. The exception was in the places oil had collected a little, where they had set up barriers in the ocean to stop it from going into any of the canals.

However, tonight I saw an icky-looking photo on Fox News of Orange Beach, which was the very beach we had the wedding on. It’s just starting to really wash up there as of yesterday.

I appreciate the oil waiting until we were done with our wedding. I’m sure all the brides and grooms did too!