It was nearly 15 years ago that one of my high school teachers, during a casual conversation, explained/defined what marriage is - on a lighter note: It’s an examination where the guy looses his bachelor’s degree and the girl gets her master’s degree. And this past weekend, two of my friends started taking that examination… about 550 miles from what I consider is the paradise…

The Preparation

Well, it all started in early October (2007) - receiving an invite and confirming that I would attend the event. Little did I know that Jess would have the last laugh - as much as I tried declining, she kept coming up with more reasons to convince me otherwise. This meant that I not only had to pack my clothes but carry another 40lbs of equipment. It also meant talking to several people, the groom included; read/study and understand the technicalities of the process and such… As much as I hate doing things in the last minute, I did screw something up: inadvertently, I left a ball point pen amongst the formal set of clothes during laundry and you know the rest….

The Journey

It began in the early hours of Friday, 25th January and had the added advantage of having to drive across the bridge - The Mackinac Bridge. Just like the seemingly endless shores of Lake Superior, sight of this bridge and the feeling driving across it never gets old - at least to me. Considering that my very first planned vacation in US centered around this bridge; that I missed the Bridge Walk on 50th Anniversary; and that I have never seen it during Winter. I was all pumped up for this trip, to say the least. Thanks to a nice person at the gas station in St. Ignace, I found a decent place to take pictures of…

The Bridge - built across the Mackinaw Strait; the bridge (about 5 miles end-to-end) connects Michigan’s Upper & Lower Peninsula and the Mackinaw Strait connects Lake Michigan and Lake Huron

Much of the ride was trouble free, except for about 30 minutes around Gaylord (snowy/icy roads, traffic backlogs, …) and the last 30 minutes in Warren (diagonal road structure, non-square blocks, …) - reaching the destination about an hour later than I had originally planned but fortunately, I wasn’t too late for anything. And my GPS did a pretty good job of routing me and I am pretty proud of it

The Festivities

It didn’t take too long for the festivities to begin - started out with a short trip to the Tux Shop in Sterling Heights Mall; harassing already stressed out Jess about a variety of things - stressing her even more; dinner with both families and friends; and an informal rehearsal at a friend’s place. Given that I had driven 9+ hours and the Tux Shop proceedings took longer than expected giving us no time to dress up, I hope I didn’t stink (literally) too much. Even if I did, thanks to my table-mates for keeping mum about it - appreciate it

During our conference conversation (Tim, Kyle and yours-truly), Tim had made it pretty clear that he (or him and Jess) didn’t want too many of posed pictures and that if he were to pick five pictures, they should make a photo-essay of sorts. This had its share of advantages as well as disadvantages: opportunity to shoot candid shots (advantage) and if I miss something, it’s gone - there would be no re-enactment (big disadvantage).

I could not easily pick just five to write my photo-essay, if I were to write one… If my arms were twisted so bad to pick just one picture to write the photo-essay, the one below would be it…

Scott Schneider - with his better half frowning (at me and at him) from behind…

If there was choice between having fun and having fun recording others having fun, I would rather pick the latter - and this event certainly let me have plenty of it. Got to meet quite many newer, nicer and interesting people; hang out with some old acquaintances; enjoy good food, great live music, …

Back To Paradise

Having had too much fun, it took me a while to get set for another 9+ hour drive - only this time, I didn’t have to reach at any given time and the only pressure was to make it safe and sound - in one solid piece. Weather gods, traffic gods, GPS unit, … co-operated very well and after a pleasant ride, here I am - back in paradise, processing rest of the pictures and continuing to wait for the arrival of a certain some document….

Pictures from this aforementioned event will appear here - once Jess & Tim approve of it. I am glad we (Kyle and myself) didn’t miss photographically recording much of the festivities. I am very much appreciative of Jess’ trust and I hope that I lived up to her expectation…