Wedding Weekend : The After-Party

We knew we wanted something low-key and totally awesome to do after the main event.  The reception ended at 11pm and the idea of going to the hotel bar made me want to vom.

So we booked Millionaire Row at Corner Alley – a bowling joint just a hop, skip, & jump across the street from the wedding venue.

Corner Alley is a small step up from our local smoke-filled, BYOB dive-alley.  And yeah, a white gown was a little different than your standard jeans & t… but isn’t that the fun of it?

It was a blast.  Our little area had four lanes that everyone just kind of jumped in and played when they wanted – most people were courteous and waited their turns and knew how to share play time…

There was a quiet little corner with a pool table, where my new men-in-laws (cousin & brother) entertained my dad.  Dear Dadio is the few-beers-at-home, asleep by 9, quiet type – and I was SO impressed (and happy!) that he hung with the party animals all night.

Love you, Daddy, thanks for the fine beer palate social anxiety issues  :)

What else did we have?  A dedicated bar they allowed us to contaminate by drinking straight from the taps.  Life = COMPLETE.

Seriously can you take us anywhere?

Once everybody was sufficiently bowled-out, we said our goodnights and headed towards the hotel.

… and a small group of us trudged the .9 miles through downtown for some delicious 1:30am Paninis overstuffed sandwiches and a few more longnecks.

(yes, still in my broken-bustled dress. you do NOT want to see how dirty it is from dragging that train all over the sidewalks of C-town)

If you’re ever in Cleveland, there are 2 things I demand you do : drink lots of Great Lakes Beer (and smuggle a bunch to me in CA), and eat a Paninis sandwich.  I’ve heard sandwiches in Heaven are served with fries & coleslaw stuffed between slices of delicious sourdough.  I’m not super religious, but someone told me that once.

souce (pre-picnik’d)

(btw, Pittsburgh, shut up.  Nobody wants to hear about Primanti Bros)

It took a while to get our food since everybody in CLE requires a Panini-fix before turning in after a long night.  When glory finally delivered, I took my time covering the inside of my fried egg beauty with hot sauce, and finally sank in.

(angels sang. the world rejoiced. I immediately gained 4 lbs and didn’t give a flying shit. delicious.)

And then clumsy-ass-of-the-world SD Friend knocked over her beer, creating a nice little Bud Light pool for my sandwich to swim in until my boozey reflexes could react and rescue it.

I salvaged as much as I could, but soggy sourdough & beer-slime eggs aren’t really my thing.  Sad, sad Sarah.

After my sandwich pity party we headed back to the hotel.  I made sure to get some cardio & an upper body sesh in to off-set the calories…

And THAT my friends, is how you celebrate getting officially taken off the market.  Bowl a few frames, chug beer upside-down from the tap, drag your wedding gown through dirty-ass streets in search for the holy grail of sandwiches, and cap it off by climbing a 10-foot wall.

Bing, bang, boom.  You’re fired married.

Sarah OUaL

I’ve got one final wedding recap for you, and then sadly (over a month later) I’ll be all wedding’d out.  Well mostly.  Maybe.  Kinda.  We’ll see…