Kottabi Jenkins

So I spent last weekend going to a wedding (surprise!) in Peoria, IL. As, the previous four I have been to this year, this one was also great fun. I went with three other girls. Two of them were bridesmaids. The other one and I were the guest book attendants, even though the guest book was not at the church. It was at the reception, and I didn't have to attend to it there.


We handed out programs,

but, our main responsibility was to keep children out of the ceremony. The bride and groom hired babysitters to watch children in the nursery, and of course they didn't mention it beforehand to the parents. My fellow attendant/bouncer became the evil child haters who had to stare down parents and tell them to put their kids in the nursery. Four babies got by us, but I wasn't about to try and make a mother separate from her infant if she didn't want to. I whinced when one of the babies started making noise during the vows. I didn't see it, but knew the bride's eyes were rolling.

We also had to pass out bubbles to guests as they left the church. The bubbles also provided us with minutes of entertainment.



The reception was a lot of fun, and I should know. It was the fifth one I've been to this year. (I was much better behaved than the last reception I attended.)


The bride is half Iranian, which made the reception an interesting mix of stereotypical white person wedding reception tunes (read, YMCA) intertwined with Iranian music. Turns out, I'm really good at Iranian dancing.


And then there were three (left unmarried or not engaged - two pictured below).


The riverfront in Peoria was a neat little area. The city was a lot bigger and nicer than I expected. Since we weren't bridesmaids, Crystal and I had all day Saturday to walk around and explore. We ended up on a search to get our nails done. We decided to go run to a place we had seen earlier when we drove to the rehearsal. After a slight detour, we found it. We got weird looks for stopping in the middle of a run to get nails done, but we didn't have a car and we didn't smell too bad.


And on a final note, the meatballs at the rehearsal dinner were the most delicious I've ever had. The bride revealed they were the main reason for choosing to have the dinner at that restaurant. They came with a bowl of pasta, but our table asked for a second bowl of just meatballs. (A good thing about having a pregnant friend is you don't feel bad for asking for seconds and being specific about it. You can just blame it on the prego.)




Actually, on another final note, one of the most awesome parts of the trip was that when we got gas to head home it was LESS THAN $2 A GALLON!!