ethan is a married man!

WHOOOO! I can't believe it, but my best friend (other than my wife) for the past 8 years is finally a married man!!! So let me say publicly here on the renown blog = CONGRATULATIONS TO ETHAN!!! A great man & I have no doubt he will be a great husband to Ashley. You did good Eth! I'm honored to be your friend and to have the privilege to celebrate the awesome occasion with you!

*In case you're interested you can still check out all the excitement from Ethan's bachelor weekend & wedding from this past weekend on Twitter! As the Best Man I took on myself the duty of creating a Twitter hashtag (#) just for Ethan's wedding. So, to follow the action simply search #ethanswedding & you can see all the Tweets from last weekend!

It was a pretty crazy weekend for me. I got in to Raleigh some time in the middle of the night Thursday night/Friday morning from Big Stuf camp with our kids from Ridge. (Read more about that HERE, HERE, & HERE.)

But I was up early Friday morning to hook up Ethan's Bachelor Weekend Golf Tourney @ the Crossings in Raleigh. 2 of my best friends - Caleb & Jim + their wives were just across the hall from me & Crystal at the hotel. We got some breakfast together and then took off to the tournament.
It was a "Captain's Choice" tourney which meant each foursome was on a team trying to win the whole thing. I was in Ethan's group along with his Dad & some other guy that wasn't very good (haha, jk). We actually WON the whole tournament at 6 under! I haven't played golf since I was 17, so I wasn't all that into it, just there to support Ethan.

On the back 9 he added asked me to hook him up! As the Best Man he wanted me to give him 1 sex tip on each hole on the back 9! I had already given him every sex book I've read and I thought imparted all my sex knowledge to him after he got engaged... but I loaded him up with another 9 tips. The funniest part was when he was talking about Tip #2 on the 11th hole & the drink cart girl was standing right behind him. She started laughing. haha... I couldn't tell if Ethan was embarrassed or not?

I also JACKED a house with one of my tee shots. I mean KILLED the thing. It was hilarious. I tweeted about it of course (& hashtagged it = #ethanswedding)

The whole weekend was awesome times hanging out with some of my best friends that I really don't get to see that much like Jim, Caleb, Ed (haven't seen in 4 years!), both Ethan's bros., Stephen, + getting to meet & hang out with some new friends. Anytime you get this crowd together it's "INTERESTING"! Picking up the tuxes was an adventure for sure. I guess we were quite entertaining as all the employees came out to simply watch & laugh at us.

The Rehearsal Dinner was at a really pimp place! It was sick & the food was amazing! (Thanks Mike & Sandy!) Then there was a really awesome time where everyone stood up & said good stuff about Ethan & Ashley. pretty cool.

But of course we were ready to get out of there for the bachelor party! I planned that bad boy & it was a 2-parter. Part 1 was 9pm-1AM & Part 2 was 1AM-7AM. Fun times!
Ethan had to wear a "Bachelor Crown" everywhere we went (as you see pictured). There was also "the List" of crazy and embarrassing stuff Ethan had to do throughout the night out on the town. Unfortunately, to keep from incriminating or embarrassing Ethan I won't talk much more about it... except to say that he's starting off marriage right by not doing stuff he thought his soon-to-be-wife would be mad at.

At one stop of the bachelor party this drunk guy jumped into play pool with us! (He looked just like my friend Jeff Abernethy, btw!) The only reason we let him play was because Ethan wanted the shirt off his back... & he was really funny... in a sad sort of way.
Then there was the other drunk guy who was laughing so hard he knocked over a whole line of beer bottles. As he was awkwardly scrambling to pick them back up he looked at Caleb & said = "I'm sorry, was that your beer I spilled?" Without missing a beat Caleb said "No, that was my grandma's!"
The guy looked at him with a straight face and said "What's she look like?" Then went on to laugh & say he was just kidding. Pretty funny.

We ended up back at our gracious host's house around 2AMish... AJax! Right before we rolled into his place we stopped and got some 5 hour energy shots. Of course driving around all night with like 10-12 other married guys, you know what Ethan was asking about & you know what we were all telling him about! Well, there was one of those conversations taking place that was OUT THERE for sure & I won't go into it at all right now in an attempt to at least keep this blog PG-13... But during that conversation, Jim got pretty adamant (as we were waiting in line at the gas station for our 5hour shots) and said "I will NEVER do... (the thing we had been talking about)." Without knowing what we were talking about a biker dude in the other line turned to Jim and pointed his finger at him & said "Never say never." HAHA! Definitely quote of the night.

Back @ AJax's bachelor pad, Ethan wanted nothing more than to have a big game of poker with his best friends in the world, so we hooked it up for a game that lasted about 4 hours. I think AJax actually took home all our $ because he beat us all pretty bad. Going "all in" on an offsuited 10 & 4 to take the final guy down.
During the night we were also rocking some Guitar Hero World Tour & Fifa '09 on the big screen.

By 7AM we were done. Me, Jim, & Caleb went back to our hotel & crashed. (& btw, don't feel sorry for our 3 wives - they were having fun together all night without us and all the next morning out at the pool while we slept.) My wife woke me up @ like 11:30 reminding me of all the wedding crap I needed to do. So, I got a shower & then Erin (Caleb's wife & pimp hair stylist pro) was gracious enough to hook me up with a free haircut. I jotted down some thoughts for the best man toast & then we rolled out to go to the wedding spot.

On the way we stopped for lunch. This experience turned into somewhat of a fiasco. I had some breakfast muffins on the dashboard for later, but when Caleb took off they flew everywhere. We went to the Wendy's drive through & I was calling Ethan to see if he needed food. I was cheering for him getting married in just a few hours on the phone & apparently the Wendy's drive through minimum wage guy didn't like it, so we bounced out of line & went over to Sonic. While ordering there Jim was in the car behind us and started beeping his horn to be funny. Caleb made some comment about the jerk behind us & the lady taking our order said she would just make him wait a long time. Haha, she had no idea we knew him. She said something like "I hate impatient jerks like that."

I honestly wasn't even all that hungry, but I was CRAVING one of their huge 44oz. ICE WATERs!!! I couldn't wait. I got it in my hand & was ready to dive in as we pulled out. Then the tragic happened! Caleb turned weird & I spilled the ENTIRE 440z big gulp ice water all over my shorts! I had to take them off really fast (freezing cold). They were drenched, so I showed up to the wedding site in my boxers. No biggie because my tux was in Jim's car. I was just gonna throw those pants on real fast. Until Jim realized he left his tux at the hotel & took off like a bat out of hell... with me & Caleb's tuxes in going with him! So, I just hung out in my boxers for a while! I'm not posting any pics of that, but I think the wedding photographer guy got a lot.

The site was PIMP! The little log cabin all us groomsmen got ready in was pretty sweet. And then me & Ethan just chilled in there for like an hour. Eating some of the spread they left for us. He was so confident & relaxed. It was awesome. He was excited. He couldn't wait to marry his bride. It was beautiful. Ethan's pastor, JD, showed up and hung out with us the last 15 minutes.

The wedding itself was awesome! It was also like 150 degrees which kind of sucked. Sweat was literally dripping and running off everyone. Especially crazy Andrew. it was crazy hot.
When Ashley came down the aisle, Ethan got the biggest smile on his face I've ever seen him have & he was straight mezmerized by her. It was so cool. He was amazed at his bride.
Ethan & Ashley wrote their own vows & I thought that was awesome. Beautiful. I think at 2 points during the ceremony I teared up... I'm not ashamed to say it.

I was actually so into watching Ethan & Ashley that I guess the flower girl got stung by a bee, ran off the stage, & then later came back up on the stage & I had NO IDEA about any of it! where was I?

Definitely fun times at the reception. Dancing was a lot of fun! Ethan had been waiting for months to do the dance tunnel line thing like at the end of the movie Hitch. We rocked it well I think. Of course we had fun with the Cupid Shuffle & Cha Cha slide + some Boom Boom Pow & other fun stuff. We stuck Ethan in the middle of a mosh pit more than a few times. (I think that's a "litote" I just used.)

I got to see & hang out with tons of my best friends all night long as we danced til we couldn't dance anymore. We all were really sweaty. I definitely downed about 5 8oz Prime Rib Steaks! that's like 40 ounces. I was killin' it with that horse radish sauce... so good!

Again I just wanna wish Ethan & Ashley a great & long happy marriage together! Like the great philosophers and theologians the Beatles said - "All you need is love." Their marriage is starting off centered on Jesus... they've got everything they need. I couldn't be happier for them!