Joe & Jackie: The Multi-day Wedding Extravaganza
Still dark out my parents pull up to my apartment and I frantically scramble out of the door with my bags. Somehow I had managed to fit two suits along with a few other essentials in just my carry on, taking more photography gear with me than I did clothing.
Not far from my tenement nor the airport I remember I forgot something… My coffee…
“Do you want us to go back so you can get it?”
”Nope, I don’t need it.”
(I needed it)
We make it to the airport, mild comedy ensues, we bored the flight and take off.
Wake up call,
“We’re on our way, be ready!”
Joke’s on them, I never went to bed. Over the years I’ve developed this bad habit of not packing for trips until 24 hours before I need to be at the airport and staying up all night while packing. There’s something about the delirium of sleep moderate sleep depravation that I find makes traveling with my family easier.
The flight itself was fine. The wedding was in Northern New Jersey and the dreaded Newark airport is a very quick flight.
The night before I made sure to buy plenty of snacks for the flight, one of which being a whole box of cookies. Yes, it was in fact an impulse buy.
I spent the majority of the flight watching Way Of The Househusband while gluttonously eating about half a box of the aforementioned. Snapped some photos here and there but if I’m being honest they’re all crap so don’t expect to ever see or hear about them again.
We land.
More comedy ensues.
Our rental car pulls up, a mini van.
There’s just barely enough room for the six of us and our bags. Thankfully I had only brought backpack and a carry on. The same couldn’t be said for the rest of us.
Vic had to sit on her boyfriends lap. A photo of this moment exists but do to fear of death at the hands of my sister I will keep it private…
We couldn’t check into our Airbnb until later that day and had a bunch of time to kill.
You may wonder what a family of half Iranian children, their Iranian immigrant father, and their Italian-American mother do fresh off a flight to Jersey. We get Persian food, kabob and rice, aka mother’s milk.
Here we see Baba Joon interacting with technology. Usually he is reasonably tech savvy, and when he isn’t is when I finally add value to the family.
Does he squint because he can’t see the letters of the screen clearly or is it in an attempt to understand how to pay for parking?
We ended up having to walk a bit to get over to the Persian restaurant that we aimed to feast at. It wasn’t a long walk but time is all in the perception and it felt like a million years passed as we trekked our way through the quaint little town we found ourselves in.
The meal was very good and even more satisfying. I enjoyed every grain of rice I scooped into my mouth. Fun fact: eating kabob and rice WITHOUT a fork and spoon is basically a foreign concept to me and all us Iranians. How else are we to load the maximum amount of rice onto our spoon without the aid of the fork?
Still having time to kill after our meal we stopped off in the town of Fair Lawn, NJ, where I grew up for the first 12 years of my life in a little community named Radburn. Quite a historic place as well. My mom also grew up in this same community. We walked around, took in the memories, walked past the old places we used to live. Merely to reminisce
The three photos below, a gargoyle I used to walk past every day on my way to elementary school. I would always stop and touch it. I was always so fascinated by it as a kid and now that I’m this mediocre photographer I am back to take it’s photo.
A tree I did not carve my name into… Not that I can recall at least…
The sundial is a memorial to a woman who had died of cancer, leaving behind her husband and their daughter. Her husband would fall into alcoholism and later succumb to it.
The sundial is a memorial to a woman who had died of cancer, leaving behind her husband and their two children. Addiction isn’t one of those things that someone just wakes up and chooses one day. You could say it’s a coping mechanism that one eventually falls into the habit of due to circumstances that they simply aren’t able to cope with. While addicts may make horrible decisions that end up hurting not just themselves but those around them, especially those who love them, they are suffering just as much as you or I. We should be thankful that those of us who can cope in a healthy way are able to do so. Addiction is truly a heartbreaking disease to witness…
Carrying on…
Our Airbnb was an odd little cottage that is worthy of it’s own little story so I’ll skip the details. Just know it was nice yet very bizarre
The next day we attended a dinner for the family members of the bride and groom.
The dinner was fantastic, in fact all of the food I had at the wedding events was some of the best I’ve ever had in my life.
We had arrived at the resort and were escorted to this absolutely incredible wine cellar that was beyond any comparison to anything I’ve ever witnessed. Once all the guests arrived we were escorted through this cave like maze with windows into each of the rooms as the head sommelier explained everything to those who were paying attention. I personally was too engrossed in photographing every little detail I could as I knew I’d never see something as amazing as this ever again.
