A quick stop in Cold Lake

The weekend right after mine and Julia's wedding was Erik and Sherri's. Erik is a friend of mine from college, and he got married at the on-base chapel in Cold Lake, Alberta. Getting there was definitely a challenge since Cold Lake is about 3.5 hours from Edmonton, where our flight was arriving the night before. Once at the airport I tried to go get our reserved rental car only to find out it was quite impossible since I had a driver's licence in my name but only credit cards in Julia's name. (This doesn't seem to be a problem in Germany at all, as we've done it several times, but this is also a country where hotels sometimes take only cash.)

After Julia got all our luggage she joined me and I told her the bad news. She had unfortunately left her driver's licence in Germany so we couldn't change the reservation to her name. After calling the bus station and finding out that the once-daily bus from Edmonton to Cold Lake would only get us there at midnight on the Saturday of the wedding, we were getting desperate. Fortunately, a very nice man from Hertz was able to help us out with a car that had just been returned. If it weren't for that, we would have had to rent a very expensive pick-up which although fitting in in northern Alberta would have cost a fortune (not to mention the gas, which was much more expensive back then). But we finally got a nice Yaris for a good price thanks to the nicest car rental employee ever.

We got to Cold Lake after sleeping near the airport that night and driving 3.5 hours. Once in Cold Lake I had to rush to the bridal shop to get fitted for my tux for the wedding that was that afternoon. The tux fit great and soon we were at the chapel waiting for the ceremony to begin. Here is a picture of me and Erik about ten meters from the chapel with a beautiful construction site back drop.

The ceremony was a nice simple Catholic wedding complete with participation from the bride and groom's family and friends reading the lectures and all. Here they are officially hitched and walking back down the aisle.
After the ceremony we took pictures next to the chapel, down by the Cold Lake beach, by the harbour, out on Erik's boat, up on a hill overlooking the harbour, and finally in a big field of canola in bloom. Here we are at the harbour.
Unfortunately our camera crapped out during this and we were only able to get a few pictures here and there. After the picture taking session, we went to the officers' mess for the reception. There we had some nice food and I had to say a few words about Erik. I said we was a great guy but warned Sherri about his encyclopedic knowledge on boats, planes, fishing, hunting and all the other subjects he won't shut up about. Here we are at the head table at the reception.
After the formalities we went downstairs for the beautiful cake that Sherri had made her self, a few more pictures and drinks. We then danced until the end of the night with everyone but mostly with Erik's siblings, Joel and Jill. They were dancing machines. We had lots of fun.