Shaina In New York: Surprise Wedding!

Despite having lived in a couple of the most desirable locations in the country, I have a soft spot for the lesser known "underdog" cities. Louisville, Kentucky has never disappointed me, and, if you can meet a friend like Kelly Gold, it will never disappoint you.

Kelly Gold is the curly haired, rollerblading, rock-climbing, raw-egg eating, "fern" that everyone loves. Though she has an actual twin (hi, Evan), I have always made it my goal to be as twin-like with her as possible.

In high school, she had this German exchange student boyfriend. After college, Kelly lived in New York where she had a lot of fun until she didn't. That old high school boyfriend called her up and said, "wanna move to Germany?" So, Kelly packed her bags and never looked back. Then he proposed. Kelly was going to marry her first boyfriend!

Because they love Germany, they decided to get married in Benny's hometown near a beautiful lake in the south of Germany. In the meantime, Kelly's family and family friends decided to throw the couple an engagement party in Kelly's hometown - Louisville. Since it was a great excuse for everyone to get together, no one had any hesitations about going.

When Jess and I were picked up at the airport in a LIMO and taken to the beautiful Marriott, we knew it was going to be a special weekend.

We were greeted with gift bags!

The ~~Engagement~~ Party

I'll start with the highlight of the weekend - the "engagement party."

We pulled up in the limo to Kelly's family friend's home. This is one of those homes that has a name and the street is named after the home. The same architect who built the New York public library near Bryant Park also designed this house. You could tell.

We entered the vast hallway through the large columns and were greeted with mini beef wellington and glasses of bourbon. We excitedly caught up with old friends, met and ate the delicious hors d'oeuvres, while having our bourbon glasses refilled multiple times. Finally, we came to the part in the evening where we were going to watch the engagement video that Jeanice put together. Jeanice is good at these videos and takes them very seriously. As we watched and danced in our seats to the cheesy German music on the video, Jeanice began fuming because Kelly and Benny were not in the room to watch what she had worked so hard on! At the end of the video, we were told to enter the middle room for another activity.

When all 100 guests were assembled, Paul Gold (Kelly's dad) stepped to the front of the room and said the next activity would require the assistance of Meredith, Shaina, Jessica, Jeanice, Julia, Lisa, Stacey, Lynne, Annie, and Becky. We all looked at each other as we were ushered to the back. No one knew what was going on and Lisa kept telling Julia to calm herself down and not rile the crowd. In a very surreal moment, we were lined up at the front of the room and handed bouquets. The music began and Kelly and Benny burst into the room having changed into wedding attire.

Bridesmaids and Bride

Me and Kel before we knew what was happening

For once in my life, I didn't have to bend down to take a picture

So excited to celebrate Kelly and Benny

iphone5 rocks

Did I wear white to one of my best friend's weddings? Yes. Do I blame it on the fact that no one knew it was a wedding or the fact that I still wanted to be her twin? We'll never know...

Moments before she was hitched!

Feeding her groom cake

The Bourbon

The weekend involved a lot of other Kentucky traditions...mostly drinking bourbon. We all got decked out in our Kelly and Benny T-shirts and went off to moonshine university to learn the distilling process but mostly taste the final product.

We surprised Kelly and Benny with the shirts

Standing in front of a masher

Back in the limo traveling to the next bourbon establishment

We went to lunch

Drank some tea

And woke up the next morning for more bourbon tasting at Woodford Reserve where we got to see all of the aging barrels.

And drink more bourbon...

...Before noon

Ryan photo bomb!

Later we walked around Midway Kentucky for some antique shopping.

Julia's a good instagrammer

Like, really good.

This is a Kentucky "hot brown"

I don't think I'll have it again.

The Gala

To top the weekend off, Kelly's brother, Evan, was the chairman of a Gala to support the MS society and her family bought us all a table! This gala had everything from a 6 course meal prepared by Louisville's best chefs, to dancing, to girls in skimpy outfits, to bourbon.