Yesterday our manager Vanessa got married to another good friend of ours here in Corozal and the reception was held at our bar. They got married by the bayside at another friend’s house and it was a very small wedding – my mom was Vanessa’s witness and I took a ton of pictures. When we first met Vanessa a little over a year ago she had vowed to us that she would never be married but, as with most things, attitudes can change dramatically and quickly, so this was the case here.
The day was perfect; beautiful blue skies, a slight breeze and not too hot. Vanessa was a nervous wreck – the tears had already been flowing a few times before I had even seen her to help get her dressed and ready. To calm the nerves she took a shot of Crown with my mom and me before the wedding. The pastor performed the ceremony in Spanish so I really only caught about half of it – having been present at multiple weddings I was able to follow everything as it was said – I really need to work harder on my Spanish though. During the ceremony the couple was as happy as can be – ribbing each other every once in awhile and looking into each other’s eyes with deep love; it was just like them. By 4pm the whole thing was over and I was headed back to Scotty’s to get everything opened up and ready. Everyone else would follow after a few more pictures. We had planned on closing down the bar for the event so when I got to the bar I unlocked everything and turned the music on. Everyone else started to show up about a half hour later and, wow, did they show up! It was supposed to be a small affair (maybe 20 people at the most had been invited) but people just kept coming in so by the time everyone had shown up we had close to 70 people in the bar. We had not planned on this many people so we were worried about the amount of food that we had. Luckily a friend of ours had brought two huge containers full of tamales as a gift. That completely saved us and there was enough food to go around. Since there were so many people I was incredibly busy handing drinks out and just making sure everything was running as smoothly as possible. Another friend of Vanessa’s had made a wedding cake and brought that which was beautiful and provided more than enough cake for everyone. I had to take a quick break after most drinks had been handed out so I rode around with a few friends – we stopped to take a look at the huge tigers penned up next to the circus tent in town.
We were in full swing from about 4:30 to 9pm so by the time people started to leave we were exhausted. It was also slightly draining emotionally for the simple fact that this was the first wedding I had attended since my divorce so that brought up all kinds of strange emotions. I’m not sure I could even explain that one and I tried my best to shove all that down somewhere where it wouldn’t surface. During the reception Vanessa had a ton of emotions going through her – she was excited and happy for her and Ducky’s celebration yet she was upset at some of the people who had arrived uninvited. Overall they had a blast and took their leave around 8:30pm to the honeymoon hotel we had set up for them in town at the Almond Tree Resort.
Amongst getting prepared for their wedding we had some horrible news early this week. My mom’s best friend passed away after a diagnosis of cancer just late August of this year. She lived in Oregon and this was extremely difficult news for my mom. Overall it has been a draining range of emotions throughout this week.
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Shots before the wedding
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Vanessa and her boys before the ceremony
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Ducky and the boys before the ceremony
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Reception
Flashback 6 years – I’m in Negril Jamaica on my wedding day. We had arrived in Jamaica three days earlier and the trip had been amazing so far. I almost forgot that the reason I was there was to make a lifelong commitment. Will and I had started to date when I was 19; he was 6 years older than me and already had a failed marriage under his belt. We had hit it off immediately as friends and that’s how our relationship started; strictly friendship. He became my best friend and he appreciated my intelligence as well as my physical appearance which was so different than my experience of boys had been up to that point – they were so fixated on my looks that nothing else came in to play and it had gotten old. It was refreshing to find someone who got the whole picture and could have a great conversation with me without making some sort of sexual reference. Will wanted to have a romantic relationship with me from the beginning of our friendship and I had always resisted that because I didn’t have those passionate, romantic feelings for him. As a little girl I didn’t dream about my wedding day, a family or a happily ever after so it made sense to me to approach this in a practical way with my head – not necessarily my emotions. Over time my head was telling me that it made sense to date this guy because in the end friendship must be the most important thing – my heart resisted at first because I thought that maybe there should be more than a great friendship for a relationship to work. I was only 23 on my wedding day and fleeting thoughts would go through my head that maybe I’m just too young to be making this decision – I hadn’t even graduated from college yet. My parents were also skeptical of our relationship, they didn’t say a lot to me about it but I knew they had reservations. In fact, on the day we got married my parents told me that if I changed my mind they would be 100% supportive in my decision. I went ahead and walked down the aisle but there was a small, nagging feeling in my heart that I wasn’t making the right decision.
Between that day and moving to Belize there had been a lot of events that stressed our relationship. I began to change which happens to people in their 20’s. He was changing as well and overall we seemed to be moving in opposite directions. The communication between us had been gradually diminishing and suddenly I was sitting in my new home in Belize feeling like I didn’t even know this person. My energy was changing based on his personality. I felt myself morphing in to a person I didn’t want to be.
Flashback one year – Sitting in a Chevy’s restaurant Will, me, my mom and dad were eating happy hour food and having a business meeting. The situation we were going to put ourselves in was bizarre; Will and I were going to be moving to a foreign country with my mom – his mother-in-law. Will and my mom had a fragile relationship. My mom is very sensitive to negativity and abruptness and Will has a tendency to be both negative and abrupt. Will has a hard time dealing with people that are overly sensitive so this was a potential problem for a business venture and especially one that required us all to live under the same roof. We had to discuss this and have a game plan ready for when the situation would inevitably come up. Will and mom were so excited about the move that they didn’t really understand that importance of this. I sat down with them both and told them that we have to come up with a method of communication that would work for everyone. We needed to be able to easy convey ideas and conflicts without taking it personally. They both insisted that this wouldn’t be a problem – I was a little skeptical because I know both of them and I didn’t think it would be so easy. I ended the conversation a little uneasy but what could I do, these were both grown people and if they tell me they can handle it then they must know what they’re talking about.
So it had been a couple weeks since the move and we were thick in to decision making for the business. We had to agree on a menu, what drinks we would serve, our hours, who we would hire and other equally important decisions that we could all potentially have differing opinions on. At first Will and mom were very careful how they spoke with each other and it went okay but the next phase was that they communicated directly about some topics and then used me as an intermediary on other topics which they felt more strongly about. This started to cause some initial tension. It was as if a little seed was sprouting and this was the type of plant we did not want to see. It was coming, slowly but surely. The first major issue that came up was Will’s mental attitude and energy level. He didn’t like his surroundings here in Corozal and so he started moving in to a negative mental state which was very frustrating for both my mom and I because we both have the tendency to keep positive attitudes. Frustration levels were rising and communication was falling. It was a volatile combination that would only lead to bad things.
November Real Time | admin | November 14, 2009 | 
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