I’ve
always known that I’m surrounded by some of the greatest people on Earth.
I think that God has blessed me in many ways by providing me with friends
that care for me deeply and will support me eternally. This weekend, I got
to be a Groomsman in the wedding for one of those people that I hold very,
very high: Jeromy McDerment.

Jeromy and I were Sophmore roommates back in my zany days of college.
During that time, I was off persuing my own ways, trying to figure myself
and my life out; meanwhile, Jeromy was a strong Christian influence on me
which was unwavering and never-ending brotherly love. He and his brother
Cliff, and Cliff’s wife, Brooke, always amazed me at the amount of pure love
and respect they had for each other. They don’t know this, but they were
my idols back in college. Jeromy and I always used to kid about who the
other people was going to marry and about our futures. (Ahem…Annette McDerment!)
And now I got to see this lucky girl who Jeromy asked to be his wife. I
first found out about Cathy when Jeromy told me that he was engaged. I knew
that they were perfect for each other after seeing this picture of them.

Now onto the wedding:

I carpooled with some of Jeromy’s current friends and one of my old Tulane buddies,
Aaron Kirtley. (One of the smartest men I know, who just finished MIT graduate
school and knows at least 3 languages and is a very humble and pleasant person.
Pretty good for someone who also looks like Matt Damon.)
We caught up and had lunch together at the mall where we discovered the freaky
chicken guy. (Some white guy who wore lots of makeup, had dreadlocks which
he wore up while some dreads beaded down his white beret.) We got to the
hotel to discover they had Krispy Kreme
right across the street. My taste buds were more than happy to take some
free samples and eat some for breakfast, dinner and lunch the following days.
After the rehersal and rehersal dinner, I crashed after getting only 2 hours
of sleep in the last 48.

The wedding went almost flawlessly, except for the limo driver who didn’t know what he was doing and passed the church on more than one occasion.

Here’s some pictures from the wedding:

One of my favorites: The bride and groom getting heart shaped sugar-paper tossed at them.

After the wedding, the two of them couldn’t keep their hands (or lips) off of each other. We then went to this beautiful park
to take some pictures. Come to find out, we weren’t the only ones to have
that idea. There were about 5 other bridal parties taking pictures at the
same park that time. Some of them apparently had a hard wedding and needed
to help loosen up. Some people were also fishing at the park and caught a biggie. Jeromy learned that if you ever need support, to just call on your friends.

Following the picture taking was the reception. Were the women had their hands up most of the time either catching stuff, or doing the YMCA. And of course, what would be a wedding w/o the ceremonial wrapping of the groom’s car. Maybe I should get out of the way.

The next day I went to Niagara Fall’s
with some of Jeromy’s buddies and we had a good time talking about the follys
of life, Krispy Kreme, women and of course…how to meet them. The best
thing we could come up with was following in the footsteps of this one guy
who we saw walk past us with a T-shirt that said, “Available.” How much
easier could it get except for adding your phone number to the back?

Needless to say, Niagara Falls
was breaktaking. I forget how many gallons of water flow over each minute,
but it was some number larger than my bank account. Oh, and here’s something
I didn’t know. Niagara Falls is actually two water falls. One is “America Falls” and the other is “Horseshoe Falls“. People say that the Canadian side has a more attractive view, but I think that it couldn’t get much better than where I was standing. One thing I really liked was the cloud of vapor that rose from the Horseshoe Falls. Me and the guys also went on a boat ride to the middle of Horseshoe Falls which was awesome. If you’re ever there, you MUST go. Oh, and yes, I took all of those pictures myself.

All in all, it was an amazing experience and I am so glad that I was able
to be a part of my good friend Jeromy’s wedding. Many blessings and much
love to you bro. Thanks for everything.

8/5/02 – Just in case you were wondering if I had any fun. 🙂 (That’s Cliff and Brooke in front of me.) Here’s another good picture of the couple.