Get Me To The Church? On Time

Saturday morning....dawned clear and windy and COLD. There was talk of a group of people getting together for breakfast, but already plans were seeming to change on a moments notice. So we were all left to ourselves with the understanding that we would gather in the afternoon for the caravan to the desert.

To get some exercise, a couple of us walked from The Stratosphere down to the Wynn. Although cold, it was a nice day to walk, and even with all of the massive construction projects going on, walking was still not too bad an option. The Wynn was beautiful, walking through the hotel and shops was a stark comparison to the same walk I had just taken at the Stratosphere not an hour earlier...different crowds, with different things on their minds. We managed to get a table at the Terrace Point Café - a lovely restaurant overlooking the pool and cabanas of the Wynn. Although windy, it was very relaxing and a welcome moment of peace and quiet during the rush of this wedding weekend.

Enter the second of the unexpected and unplanned realities that wreaked havoc with the weekend. For whatever reason, while in certain places in the city you have absolutely no cell phone reception at all. Whether the casinos plan it that way or not, I am not sure, but for a wedding that was practically being made up as it went along, it turned out to be a disaster. Instead of making changes aware to all of the scattered guests throughout the city, only a select few actually got the messages, the others were left voice mails that never made it to their phones.

After looking around after lunch and casually walking back to the Stratosphere, we got a frantic call from one of the bridal party asking where we were....apparently one of the voice mails that did not go through was in regards to the timetable being pushed up and everyone was needing to be ready to leave in the caravan in 30 minutes. We were still a good 2 miles away, so we had to take a shuttle from the Wynn to the nearest monorail site to catch the monorail to the Sahara and then from there back to the Stratosphere. We nearly ran from the monorail station to the hotel, only to find out once we arrived that even the Bride was not ready after the latest time table change, she was still on the strip getting hair and makeup done. So we were granted a few extra minutes to dash in, shower, iron my shirt, change and make it downstairs before the caravan was to leave the hotel. Amazingly, shortly thereafter everyone was in a vehicle and waiting for the motor home containing the bride, groom, and wedding party, photographer and minister to lead the way out of town and into the wilderness.