KristyWes: Escape to the Catskills

My friends J&R got married recently. They are one of those couples where you just like each person SO much individually and then you like them even MORE together. In short, they are all-around awesome. I was super excited to celebrate with them.

And also pretty excited to get the h-e-c-k out of the city and take in the autumn colors upstate. It was so lovely. Me and my city-slicker friends kept exclaiming "The air here smells so good!" and "Look at the stars! You can see stars here!"

For me, I couldn't get over the quiet. Our rental cabin (pictured below) was on a large piece of land - you could see other houses but couldn't hear noise coming from them. No neighbors practicing the violin, so salsa music coming from the street, no sirens, no rattling garbage trucks, no one inexplicably beating a metal dumpster with a baseball bat at 2a.m. (Remind me why I live in the city, again?)

The happy couple are comedians, and wanted to have a 'roast' at their wedding. As in, we were supposed to stand up in front of all wedding guests and roast the bride & groom, Comedy Central-style.

This resulted in a flurry of emails between my friends and I, in the week leading up to the wedding. What could we say, in front of the bride and groom's families? Where is that tenuous line between funny & wildly inappropriate?

We spent that Saturday afternoon sitting around our cabin's dining room table, sun shining in through picture windows, writing out jokes on index cards, vetoing questionable material and stuffing two animal pelts (that had been hanging on the wall next to that deer head) into a duffle bag to use as props. In the end, I think we struck the right chord and our roast was a success. Phew. (Never offend the people who are about to buy you dinner, that's my motto.)

The wedding took place on a farm, featuring real live animals! Ren the Golden Retriever, who would eventually wander into the reception and take a nap on the dance floor. Poppy the goat, who lived in a dog-house & tried to eat my scarf. And Giver the miniature horse, who was largely disinterested in you unless you had grass to feed him.

The ceremony took place up the hill from Poppy's hangout, under a yellowing tree, with clear views of the surrounding mountains. Someone said, "This looks like a Bob Ross painting," and they were right.

The reception was in a barn, lined with hay bales and lit by twinkle lights. I'm not going to lie: it was a little chilly in there. So we tore up the dance floor to keep warm, until the DJ called it quits. That's when things really got going, because the second act of the evening was LIVE BAND KARAOKE!

I'm a fan of regular karaoke, but live band karaoke? Shut the barn door. It was flippin' fantastic. You will be made to feel like a genuine rock-star, and you will eat. it. up.

I fulfilled two long-time dreams at once by a) performing "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" and b) performing it at a wedding (I've been threatening to sing it at people's weddings since 2000. And it happened. It finally happened!)

I also rocked a tambourine during some group numbers ("Don't Stop Believin'" and "I Want You To Want Me") and woke up the next morning with a bruised hand. The tambourine: it ain't for sissies.