I got to go to Mary's favorite place on Earth, Fernandina Beach, for the occasion of her brother's wedding. She'd been describing the beauty of this place for months, but unfortunately my arrival coincided with a tropical storm parked off the coast that brought grey, drizzly days and choppy, windy waters to Amelia Island for almost the whole trip. Not great for the wedding either!
Nonetheless, it was wonderful to see. I got in Thursday mid-morning, getting picked up at the Jacksonville airport by Mary and her mom to get shuttled over to the beach house. Then it was off to lunch at Peppers, where we discovered the vases for the rehearsal dinner were MIA, so we had to do some emergency vase shopping at thrift stores in the area. Then we took those vases to the venue for the rehearsal dinner and set them up:
A quick treat at nearby Thirteen (a bakery) and Mocama (a coffee shop), plus a stop at Cats Angels (a cat shelter and thrift store) and CVS (don't know that one), and it was at last time to return to the house to relax.
We attempted a beach walk, but it was windy and rainy, and the sand whipped our faces too much to continue. We retreated to the indoors after about ten minutes. We did get to hang with da dawgs, however:
Dinner that night was at The Sandbar, where we met more of Mary's extended family and enjoyed our seafood dinner by the sea.
We then went into town to try to find some ice cream, but instead settled on fudge. At Island Time, an ice cream place we looked at, there was a claw machine for one dollar. I told Mary, "I'll win you a stuffed animal". I put in a dollar and dropped the claw - and I got one! Lucky me! As it came out, I noticed it was holding a cardboard "golden ticket".
I went to the counter and asked what this meant. The girl told me, "you win the grand prize". Double lucky me! I envisioned a lifetime supply of fudge, a hundred thousand dollar check, maybe ownership of the business. I asked what the grand prize was, and she didn't know - she went in the back room to ask someone, then returned, and slowly pointed behind herself to a high shelf containing...another stuffed animal.
So I won two guys. Their names are Bootus and Borts.
After this adventure, we returned to the house to go to sleep. Friday morning we started the day at Amelia Island Coffee, then went seaside where the waves were choppy:
We poked around town for a bit, then went to a spot that housed fossils, including a family favorite: shark teeth. Shark teeth were a big theme at the wedding, even adorning that night's rehearsal dinner tables. That's one of the big things to do in Fernandina: look for shark teeth on the beach.
Moon River Pizza was the lunch spot of choice, then it was back to the house to get dressed for the rehearsal dinner, which I arrived at early with the family to finish setting up.
The dinner went great; food was eaten and speeches were made. Not Mary's, though, not yet - she was giving the Best Man speech at the reception, which I helped her practice a bit that evening after the dinner.
The next day was Wedding Day, and after a quick breakfast at Hola Cuban Cafe, I helped to deliver the charcuterie to the hotel where the groomsmen were staying, then delivered Mary and her mom to the wedding venue where they had almost a full day's worth of prep to do - makeup, hair, the works. Which meant I had a fair bit of downtime to stroll about the main in-town part of Amelia Island.
Then: Wedding Time!
This not being my wedding, I'll keep private matters private and not post a bunch of photos and videos here, in this, my Travel Blog. Suffice it to say it was a lovely service, and a rowdy reception after. And Mary's speech was excellent!
The post-reception partying was minimal for Mary and me, who were very tired at the end of the long day, and we soon found ourselves back at the house, on the rooftop porch in the moonlight, listening to the cataclysmic crashes of the waves in the dark.
The final day was still a very full day, since Mary and I did not fly out until the evening. We went to a late breakfast with the newly married couple at the Beach Diner, then bebopped around town before returning to the house to do a beach walk - it was finally nice weather again after a dreary few days!
The last thing before heading to the airport was dinner at an exquisitely beach-vibed restaurant named Sliders. I got the fish:
and we ate and enjoyed the sun and the warmth as the day drew to a close.
On our way out to the cars, I stuck my hand out to Mary's brother to shake his and said, "well...welcome to the family!"
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