“Niagara Falls, slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch.”  Suffice it to say “the best laid plans of mice and men…” had it nailed.  We were invited to a destination wedding.  I guess I lived a sheltered life, but this was the first one I had been invited to.   The invitation came in an airline ticket sleeve with each page of the “travel plans” itemized per page.   This was a cousin of mine who is now living out west and his beloved and her family was from the west coast and they had never been to Niagara Falls.   Now my family was from that area of Canada, the falls were old hat, but it would still be a great location for a wedding.

The wedding and reception were going to be at a resort in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  More fun, since that is a great wine area for Ontario.  So plans were made and everything was in order.   We figured that it would be a four to five hour drive, we would check in to the resort, then do some wine tasting and then have dinner with family and new friends.

“Niagara Falls, slowly I turn, step by step, inch by inch.”  Three days before the wedding there was a snafu with customs and the Canadian Government.  The entire wedding would have to be redone on the fly, and I must say the intended couple did a wonderful job.  Since so many people were flying in to Buffalo for the wedding, they found a new hotel, and reserved a section of a New York Park, part of the Grand Island group for an outdoor weeding on the waterfront.  They found a fine restaurant that had a private room upstairs for the reception so everything was falling into place.  One problem that we encountered as well as some other folks, the new hotel would not reserve the same amount of rooms for a rate as the resort, and by the time we discovered the change, we could not get a room at the new hotel, so we stayed at the resort near all the wineries.

The morning of the wedding, we decided to leave the resort at ten in the morning and meet everyone at the hotel and maybe have a group breakfast, since the wedding was slated for two in the afternoon.  We ended up in the worst traffic jam in my life, a trip that should have taken maybe a half hour to an hour depending on customs tied up the road for four and half miles.  It took us four and half hours to get across the border and then we still had to get to the wedding.  How sad that I was going to miss my cousin’s wedding.  My Bride and I kept changing who was driving (parking?) on this journey.  While we were on the bridge (finally) waiting to get through customs, we had rolled the windows down and enjoying the breeze and the view of the falls.  I heard someone yell “How much for the cufflinks?” and I turned to look at a car in the next lane and it was a good friend of mine and his brother (from the Detroit area) on their way to a family reunion.  We were laughing, until we lost sight of each other due to the vagaries of the traffic.

We finally arrived at the site of the wedding, and it had been delayed because of other circumstances, so we were not late.   The wedding was beautiful, the weather was agreeable until after the ceremony ended and then the wind picked up intensity, which made picture taking a little bit more of a challenge.

We arrived at the reception, a very nice restaurant called the Thirtyone Club in Buffalo.  They had a private room and the food was excellent.  There was also enough of dance floor to enable us to have a “traditional” Armenian dance, where our family would dance the new family in, to show our acceptance and happiness to our newest member.

After the grueling time at the bridge, I went up to the bar and inquired what types of wine they were pouring.  There was a most refreshing Hay Maker Sauvignon Blanc 2010 from Marlborough, New Zealand.  It was so crisp with an aftertaste of grapefruit that just hit the spot after a very hot day.  I will for sure pick up some of this wine for the rest of the summer season, as I was very impressed with it.  Later on, I switched over to a Justin Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 from Paso Robles in California which paired very well with the steak I had for dinner, and my Bride tasted my glass and ordered some for herself to go with her grilled salmon dinner.  The restaurant had chosen eight different wines from their cellar to pour for the reception and they were all good choices, and not just wines that would produce the best revenue.  I was very happy, and I told the happy couple that they could overcome any adversity after the week that they had just endured, and I shall drink again to their good health and happiness.