Suffice it to say, there are very few times in life you may find yourself in the type of situation that would generally only occur in the movies. One of those "I can't believe this is really happening" moments. Had this not happened to me I probably would not have believed it, but it did. I, by no means, want this post to feed into any stereotyping. I wholeheartedly believe the most saintly act that anyone could commit would be kindness. However, stereotyping does exist and in some instances can be ridiculously hilarious - ESPECIALLY if you find yourself in the situation that I did, on my wedding day, no less. After all, in the name of stereotyping honesty, I am a white chick, from the south, who went to Vegas to get married while already three months pregnant...... but I digress.
As some of you know, my sister is a photographer. So, when the day came that I was to wed of course she was my shutterbug of choice. The wedding wasn't until nine o'clock that night, partly because it's too fucking hot during the day in Nevada and partly so that my sister could snap some photos during that perfect time of day that hovers in between early evening and sunset.
My sister and I scoured the city looking for photo ops. In case you are wondering, there are about a million breathtaking spots screaming to be used. Our challenge was to find one that would make an interesting backdrop but kept the fact that it was in Vegas a bit of a secret. Honestly, when someone looks at your wedding portrait you don't want the first thing out of their mouths to be "Oh cool! I've been to The Bellagio too!". This was a little more difficult than we had anticipated. We drove around for what seemed like hours. It was probably more like 45 minutes or so, but when you have a veil stuck to your head and three miles of wedding dress shoved up your ass, trust me the time moves a little slower.
We ended up at one of the hotels rear entrances. It doesn't sound all that great, but it was beautiful and the light was PERFECT!! Best of all there were no neon lights nor Elvis sightings, not that there's anything wrong with either of those..... So, we set up for the shoot. I stood on the sidewalk in full wedding regalia as I waited for her to get things in order. Those "things" included tripods, several different cameras, various lenses and even those big, hand held, light reflecting thing-er-ma-bobs.
I am not into the posed, highly artificial, "traditional" genre of photography. That being said, my sister had me all over the place getting tons of shots and to our surprise no one had even so much as walked though this area the whole time we had been there. Strange, we thought, but appreciative of the privacy we carried on. That is, until a group of around 100 people on a bus tour showed up in what looked like a motorcoach on steroids. Upon the arrival of said bustrocity (yep, I made it up) we stopped the shoot and kindly stepped aside.
No sooner than the bus came to a stop, there were smiling faces in damn near every window facing us. There were ooooh's and aaahhhh's being thrown all over the place and a steadily building, giddy chatter among the passengers. Through one of the open windows my sister and I heard a someone start speaking over some type of in-bus PA system, giving what we assumed were instructions on when to meet back at buszilla (yep, did it again, I am the biggest dork on the planet). Well, instructions is what we figured were being verbalized, since neither of us spoke Japanese the bus voice could have been giving pointers on how to reach Nirvana and we would have been none the wiser. We did begin to notice something as the bus voice carried on, though. Those faces that were gleefully peeking out the windows had risen in number and there were quite a few people now beginning to point and talk about something they had spotted and were terribly excited to have found. My sister and I turned and looked behind us, in what we thought was the direction they were gesturing towards. For the life of us, we couldn't see ANYTHING that would warrant that type of reaction.
It turns out that we didn't have to wait long to find out just what could have been so very exciting. The bus voice seemed to be done telling everyone how to beat video poker, or whatever it was he was saying, as the PA system made that horrible static filled "CLICK" as the mic was turned off. I swear, the only things missing from the opening of buszilla's doors were the theme of " 2001: A Space Odyssey" playing, and everyone moving in slow motion...... which, come to think of it, would have been pretty cool. (that's right, not only am I the worlds biggest dork, I am in fact, a total geek..... and you are now collectively feeling sorry for the guy I married that day, aren't you?? I can tell, no biggie. hehe)
The people that were aboard that bus should give classes on how to exit any mode of travel in a safe and TIMELY manner, because I have never seen it done quite so efficiently. The doors swung open and everyone hastily made their way towards the object of their continued interest, but not before strapping their cameras around their necks and taking all sorts of pictures of, well, of damn near everything around them. Maybe it was the glare of way too many camera flashes or the fact that I was still trying to figure out what these people were seeing that I wasn't, but I didn't notice that a small group of people started to form around me. I turned around one last time to try and get a glimpse of this mystery thing. I still had no clue.
Upon turning back around I was nearly nose to nose with the most excited of the group. Nearly falling on my ass from trying to simultaneously back up and say hello, I realize that nearly everyone on the bus is standing, staring straight at me. My sister, by this point, had inched away from me so that she was outside of this semi-circle of temporary fanaticism.
From that point on there were lots of handshakes, some hugs and pictures with just about everybody on the bus, save the voice of buszilla. To this day I have no idea who they thought I was or why they were so very trilled to meet me. As the last of my adoring fans fulfilled their wishes for pictures and hugs, they merged into a group again and made their way inside the hotel, camera flashes and shutter clicks-o-plenty. It was probably the most surreal moment in my life. I look over to find my little sister laughing her ass off and telling me "Apparently, you're huge in Japan." hehe Yep, apparently.
Until next time.....
be kind,
me
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