Day 2.14: South Florida Day 5 – The Wedding

We got up and went straight to the pool, hoping to soak in as much sunshine as possible before the early evening wedding. Abe walked about ten minutes to Original House of Pancakes, a chain restaurant he had previously tried in Missouri and was eager to have again for lunch. They didn’t answer their phones when he tried multiple times to call to order ahead of time, but, as soon as he arrived, they took his order of banana pancakes (eight small ones) and hash browns on the side. It wasn’t as delicious as the first time he had it but it was good!

Getting a late check-out at 2pm was always risky, and of course we didn’t get back to Andrew and Lauren’s apartment until considerably after we had planned. We got ready as quickly as possible and managed to get to the wedding during the tisch for Shosh.

The ceremony was lovely, and it was great to see to see two happy people get married.

The schmorg at the cocktail hour was incredible – it’s hard to describe in words. Abe ate like seven servings of the gnocchi, Arielle was a particular fan of the corned beef (which Abe also loved) and the pastrami, and Abe even managed to snag a lamp chop! Arielle got tipsy thanks to the Fuzzy Navel the bartender made her.

We were seated at Table 17 with Ilana, Adina, Shayna, and Brandon, and joined by Shira and Tyler, friends from List College, and two USY friends, David Helfand and Aaron Jacobs, and Aaron’s wife Mazelle, who we had a nice time chatting with throughout the evening. Arielle and Abe both reconnected with old USY friends, David and Shari, respectively!

The salads were very fancy, and we were treated to chateaubriand for the main course. The hora was very lively and went on for a long time, and the whole room seemed to be very into both the Jewish and non-Jewish dancing. The band was particularly phenomenal, and we would enthusiastically recommend them to anyone getting married in the South Florida area! The dessert was chocolate poke cake, alternatively called hot chocolate cake, which we thought was a tasty way to end the night until we saw chicken fingers, sliders, and French fries being served around eleven o’clock, a horrifying thought given how full we were!

It was nice to see Rabbi Elie Lehmann, whose grandfather we had met one week earlier in New Orleans, and he led Birkat Hamazon (grace after meals) to close out the night, which was a great end to a great wedding.

We got some great pictures below of Abe with Steven and Brandon, Arielle with Adina, us with the happy couple, and our big group all together at the end.

We left the wedding and drove back to Andrew and Lauren’s, arriving around midnight and promptly passing out.

Approximate number of miles covered: 22