Yingxi (Rona) Shi & Jeff Kuntz

When: Monday, May 30th, 2011

Where: Turtle River State Park, Grand Forks, ND
1st Dance Song: "Eyes on Me" from Final Fantasy

This was actually an outdoor ceremony and indoor reception.  The couple met as students in the UND meteorology department.  There was a brief panic in the morning when lightning knocked out the area's power, but the park runs on propane, not the electrical grid, so my mad scramble for a generator on Memorial Day Monday was unnecesary.  There was some misting rain as we all arrived for the ceremony, but in all, the day was quite beautiful.  The ceremony went off without a hitch, though the pastor's mic was on mute, his voice carried fine.  The reception, however, was perfect til about 9:30pm, when tornados were spotted around Grand Forks, sending many of our meteorologists on their way, and the rest of us to safety.  Which wasn't too bad, since we had to be done at 10pm (per park rules) anyway.

I'm very used to pronouncing difficult names, but that's usually Polish or Norwegian.  This is Chinese, a whole new set of phoenetics.  If you're wondering, Rona's name is pronounced like 'Ing-She'.  That's the easy one.  Have fun trying to pronounce Shaoyue or Zhe.

The reception was pretty traditional.  Rona's parents flew in from China for this, and her dad wanted to do a speech, done with a translator (her cousin), who learned just how hard that is to do well.  Not everything in Chinese translates easily into English very well, or at least, not literally, but he did a pretty good job.

Rona and Jeff choreographed their first dance song, all five minutes of it, making a great impression on the guests.  For those who can, 12 lessons or so is all it takes to put something together that will get noticed.

Aleesha Ruff & Andy Nicholson

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When: Tuesday, May 17th, 2011

Where: Woodland Lodge, Turtle River State Park, ND
1st Dance Song: "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain

Alee and Andy were married on a Tuesday.  They both just graduated, he's now commisioned in the U.S. Army, so it was a now or never thing for them if they wanted their friends there before everyone scattered to the winds.  They did end up competing with a Tim McGraw concert, but it didn't seem to be a problem.

The Woodland Lodge is a bit small (space for 100 or so indoors) but is actually pretty nice: full kitchen and central air.  There is also a patio area if the weather is nice.

To get Alee and Andy to kiss, guests asked them questions.  So a guest who knew Andy well asked Alee about him.  Because of this we learned that Andy is into power kites.  I'm not sure what that means, but one is 13 meters long.  That's enormous and I now feel bad because I still have trouble getting the regular little ones off the ground.

One last note, I would have never expected a bunch of ROTC/military guys to be so into Rebecca Black's "Friday."  Curious.