Today we went to Star and Martin's wedding! Steve went to work in the morning and then one of Steve's colleagues, James, gave us a lift as the wedding venue was about 120 miles away in Monterey! It took us about 3 hours to get there as the navigation tool on James' iPhone only updated every couple of minutes so he kept missing the exits on the freeway! But it was a fun car journey as we got to talk to James a lot and get to know him.

Luckily we got to the venue at 6pm, just before the ceremony started. The venue was a place called Tarpys Roadhouse (sounds a bit tacky but it was nicer than it sounds!) and it was part restaurant/part vineyard. The ceremony took place in a small courtyard outside the main restaurant and it was quite pretty with the flowers and ivy. Star and Martin were already legally married (at the City Hall) but they wanted to have the traditional wedding ceremony and reception so that they could share the experience with their friend's and family.

After the ceremony they served an appetizer buffet of fruit, bread and baked brie pie with pesto (yum!) in the courtyard. Then we went upstairs to a private room for the reception dinner which was either pork tenderloin (which I had) or pasta & prawns in a lobster bisque (which Steve had although his came without the bisque!). The food was nice and we were sat next to a couple who were really fun to talk to as the guy worked in games and the girl was a cook! They recommended some good places to eat and said we must go to the pizza place that she works at - hopefully we'll get a discount!

This "American Wedding" was no different to the british style, they had the usual speeches (very informal which I think is good), the first dance and the cutting of the cake. They had a few nice touches: the wedding favours were special as they were little jars of Apple Pie Jelly (Jam) which Star's Auntie had made and the wine bottles had pictures of the happy couple on them.

It was a nice wedding but a bit awkward as we didn't really know many people but I'm glad we went. Luckily another of Steve's workmates, Chris, gave us a lift home so we got back to the hotel after midnight totally shattered!