Colleen Hawkin's wedding: Atlanta and Milledgeville, Georgia

So last weekend (July 21-23) I told Hawk that I would go with him to his sister's wedding. His sister Colleen was getting married to this guy Derek. I had never met Derek but I had met Colleen a little over a year before when she had come to visit Hawk in Savannah. I really shouldn't have taken the weekend off but it was important to Hawk and he's like my brother so how could I say no. Here went nothing.

So, the night before we left for his parent's house in Atlanta (about 4 hours from Savannah) we went dancing at the Jinx.

We got mad dressed up and that was AWESOME. I will most def be going as many times as possible until I move out of Savannah in November. I can't help it... 80's dance night at the Jinx is just so mad fun. The crowd has changed considerably since my freshman year when it was only 18 and up and it seemed like EVERYONE WENT but the change hasn't been bad. I always forget how much I love to dance. Anyway, we didn't leave the Jinx until late and I definitely didn't fall asleep until about 4am. We had to leave the next day at 8am for Atlanta. Burn. We're stupid.

I packed and met Hawk outside my apartment a little after 8am. After finding out that his Ipod wasn't working a mile or so later, we turned back around to get mine. Somehow, after getting screwed over at a gas station and other random things happening, we didn't get on the highway until 9am. Better than nothing though... I wasn't sure I was going to be awake on time in the first place so I figure being only an hour off target wasn't that big of a deal.

Half way to Atlanta Matt asked me if I wanted to drive. He asked me if I could drive a stick shift first. All I could think about was me fighting Nick over and over when he'd tell me "today is the day" when it came to learning how to drive a stick. I never wanted to do it EVER. Why? mostly because Nick's cars were always pretty nice and they were like his BABY... I knew that if I screwed up and did something lame or even worse, smashed into something or broke something, not only would I be in trouble because his car was worth something but I'd be screwed because I would be hurting the thing that my boyfriend put most of his time into. NOT a good idea. I finally did give in and let him teach me but only after I got my motorcycle endorsement on my drivers license and had ridden plenty of motorcycles. I guess you could say that I learned how to drive a stick by driving motorcycles but then Nick really polished it off by teaching me to apply it to a car in his half dissected Jetta. Anyway, I drove Hawk's car for a while down the Georgia back roads that he takes to Atlanta. It was a fun experience.... and helped out the 5 speed confidence.


  
Hawk got to play with his camera a little while I took over the driving.

  

  
ten bucks says he took this one for his myspace page lol. haha

When we got to Atlanta, we went to Colleen and Derek's wedding rehearsal. I got to meet a lot of Hawk's family and Colleen's little baby daughter Theresa. Her fiancé Derek also has a son who is 2 years old. They are both beautiful children. Theresa
was the calmest little girl and (dereks sons name) was my dance partner all night.

So I guess I went there to help film her wedding. I don't seem to remember agreeing to that though... what I DO remember is Hawk asking me to film it a long while back and me saying "absolutely not" and explaining that I didn't want to film weddings, especially those of people who are close to me or friends. I am sure that I said these things. Matt asked me if I was still going to the wedding weeks later and I said of course and packed up my finest and went with him... Honestly, I was under the impression that I was just going as moral support and as his date. When we got to the house Colleen hugged me and was like Thank you SO MUCH for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this. I replied "no problemo" but in my head I was like "HUH?".
So I go up to Hawk later and am like "uh... what is your sister so happy about me doing here?" To which he explains that "We're shooting the wedding, remember?" Um, no I didn't remember but whatever, I was already there and I couldn't really back out so what the heck. Hawk you sneaky con-man you. If I understand weddings correctly and YOU are IN the wedding then I am the ONLY person left to SHOOT the wedding so bam, there you have it. Another weekend of working. Whatever, it was fun.

So long story short, we were supposed to use this kid Chris's GL2 to shoot the wedding and we went to the rehearsal and figured out easy angles and what not and had the whole thing planned out. I even met up with the music guy to make sure I was coordinated with him and how everything was going to go so I would know what to film and where to be when. So then, between the rehearsal and the actual wedding we could not for the life of us get into touch with this Chris kid. He didn't call us back and let us hear from him until 2 HOURS before the wedding. WTF. It took about an hour to get to his house and and hour to get back and he wouldn't help at ALL with getting that camera to us even though it was him that was supposed to get back into touch with us and he didn't so basically we never got a chance to get his camera. What to do? Hawk was frustrated because the wedding wasn't going to be filmed and everything was going wrong. Next thing we know its an hour before the wedding and the wedding planner is like "i have a camera you can use". Good, and then even better, it was a sony HI-8. haha. again, wtf. Good thing I love weddings.


Matt and I during the reception.

Shot the wedding on High-8. Good luck editing, Hawk. Overall it was fun. The interesting stuff didn't happen till later though. We got to catch up with DOMINIC (an awesome friend from SCAD who just moved to Atlanta) at Waffle house that night LATE and I got to meet one of Hawk's best friends Daniel who, by the way, is hilarious and I enjoyed his company.

Dominic at the WH
The next day we went to church in the morning with Hawk's mom and then to lunch at this mexican place before we had to take off. I had to be back in Savannah around 6pm so I could work on this project for school. It wasn't optional, it was basically a requirement that I HAD TO do. We weren't very smart in giving ourselves exactly 4 hours to get back before 6pm but nothing about this trip was "smart" so whatever, right?

Right... so... Hawk's car BREAKS DOWN about an hour and a half outside of Atlanta near this little town called Milledgeville.

  
After some consideration, troubleshooting, and me trying my best to convince Hawk that this would be the perfect excuse to try to hitchhike home to Savannah together just for the story to tell... yet to no avail, smart old Matt Hawkins decided he'd phone a friend.

Supposedly Milledgeville isn't so small during the school year because there is a college there and some community schools but man during the summer the place is empty... especially on a Sunday. NOTHING was open. Anyway Hawk's car blows the water pump and so no matter where we go or how long we drive it overheats. Good thing Matt knows one of the only girls in Milledgeviille.. well it seemed like that anyway. Bonnie came to our rescue. Somehow we got the car to her house and we were stuck there until late that night. Yes, this means I missed the project I was supposed to be working on and yes that means that I was in trouble the next day.

Bonnie was cool. She let us chill at her awesome house while we tried to figure out what to do. She was a really cool girl. She had this pet rabbit named like some funny ghetto name, I can't remember, that she just let run around the house. It was probably the coolest thing ever.

  
Bonnie and her bunny! How awesome is the phone on my camera.

  

  

  
How could things get weirder? Easy, we go to the only place open in Milledgeville on Sunday which was this college taco and nacho place. Mexican food...again. Awesome. Even awesomer (is that a word) was the fact that when I got into line and finally got to the front all ready to order, the guy behind the taco bar took one look at me and said "You aren't from around here are you?" This caught me SO OFF GUARD. I laughed despite myself and was like "heck, no I'm not, are you?" Turns out his name is Barratt and he grew up there his whole life. Maybe that's why he knew I wasn't local, or maybe it could be because I didn't look a thing like all of the other little plastic divas that filled the taco place. Daisy dukes and pastel t-shirts, that's all I have to say. I think I was wearing my holy jeans, cowboy boots, and a black shirt with a sweaty bandana on my forehead from helping hawk with his car in 100 degree weather. I probably looked like a hitch hiking vagabond. haha. He seemed excited to talk to an "outsider" though so I chatted with him a little. Pretty cool kid.

Already it was night time. Hawk and I went out to the side of the road where we left his car and attempted (successfully) to drive it the 20 mins to the actual town of Milledgeville. It was overheated and smelling up a storm the whole time. Great thing for the engine I'm sure. It kept wigging out and all the lights would go on on the dash and then the engine would cut out in the middle of driving. We thought it was going to explode and we were going to die. What else is new.


  

  

  

  






This is a picture of his dash. Yes every check engine type of light is ON and the temp is way past the red. oh no.

Problem: How do we get out of Milledgeville?
Well, we needed someone to DRIVE US BACK TO SAVANNAH because if I miss one more of my Monday classes I would fail and we didn't want poor Bonnie to have to deal with us all night anyway. I asked Barratt how adventurous he was and if he wanted to drive us back but turns out the kid got a DUI not too long ago and got his license yanked. We didn't want to drive with you, anyway, Barratt, esp not if you like to drink and drive. ugh. Matt ended up calling Dani and Jeff (this awesome girl and dood we both know) and they were all about coming and rescuing us from the small town. They finally got there around 11pm- ish, if I can remember correctly, and drove us the 3 hours home. THANKS DANI AND JEFF!!!

I finally got to sleep and actually made it to class the next morning. I was a few minutes late because I woke up at 8:55am and the class is at 9am on the other side of town but nobody seemed to notice. Awesome. Too bad I was dead tired. It all worked out in the end though and I made a cool friend in a random town in Georgia.

How do I get myself into these messes? At least it was fun. Next weekend: Michigan (yes I'm being serious).