When we arrived in Myrtle Beach we still hadn’t managed to have Peggy’s window replaced. We had been making do with a bin bag and some plastic covering the hole as we had not been anywhere near civilisation (during opening hours at least) since leaving New Orleans. We had been sticking to back roads and enjoying life out of the city.

Once in Myrtle Beach we found a McDonalds, hijacked the wifi and found a couple of car window fitting shops. The problem we found was that as Peggy is a bit old so old it would mean ordering a specialist part, waiting for it and it costing quite a lump of money to fit.
As we ummed and aahed about this prospect we passed a glass cutter that offered to cut us a piece of plastic to fit the window that would be as secure, take an hour to do and cost us very little! We obviously went with it and before too long we no longer had a hole in the side of our van! Peggy was once again secure and if anyone tried again to break into our replaced window they would struggle as the shiny new plastic window is bullet proof!

We left the shop happy as clams and tried to rush to meet August in time to get to a dress fitting he had arranged for us that day. August being the alligator wrestling, extreme wedding planning photographer that we were just DYING to finally meet. After being in touch with him for so long we felt like we had know each other forever and when we did meet, that was just as it was!

We met up, realised we had missed our small window for a dress fitting, rearranged it for the next day and went to a small restaurant to meet some more very special people.

We had a good chat with August and were getting so excited about the 5 weddings in 5 days when we asked him (after all of this) how the ball had started rolling for him. He explained that it was thanks to two people that he had ever even heard of our adventure and we were about to meet them.
August had met Spike and Tasha when he took their wedding photographs for them a few years ago. Tasha since then had followed Augusts work via social media and remained interested in his progress around Myrtle Beach. Then, just by chance Tasha saw us on Yahoo and immediately began to follow our story…from. THE. beginning.

This girl has patience never blessed to anyone else ever before! She was hooked and loved our adventure so much that she told her husband Spike and between them they decided they should tell August that he HAD to get in touch with us and ask us to come to Mrytle Beach for a wedding! And of course August and Spike BOTH know that what Tasha tells you to do…you just do and the rest really is history! There we were, in Myrtle beach for not one, but 5 weddings and about to meet the couple responsible!

We met, we hugged, we immediately laughed and got on like we had never not been friends. The 5 of us talked the night away until the restaurant threw us out at closing time and then we talked more outside in the car park as we explained to Tasha how we lived without ANY closet space. August, Spike and Tasha loved Peggy and were more excited to meet her than they were to meet us…and not even secretly either! We were instantly great friends and will be for the rest of time.

That night we moved into a condo on the beach with August, even after insisting we would be fine in Peggy we were invited into his home and made extremely welcome. We chatted some more, drank some wine and eventually, begrudgingly went to bed. We had a good few busy days ahead and needed as much sleep as we could cram in before the 5 day wedding extravaganza began!

We started as we meant to go on the next day and dared each other to wake August up. He had told us to go in and wake him in time for breakfast but neither of us dared to. Like kids we crept into his room one at a time but neither of us daring to wake the snoring bear hidden under the sheets with just his feet sticking out of the bottom of the pile of covers! Eventually Alex had to man up and give him a shake as no matter how much noise we made his earplugs made him impervious to the racket.

Once we were all up and had had breakfast we got straight into wedding mode. Stop one was at Coastal Bridal to try on 3 wedding dresses for 3 weddings and then to Amandas to try on MORE wedding dresses for MORE weddings! I was having a ball, the boys started to fade a little after a few hours but luckily Debbie whose daughter owns and runs Gigi Noelle Events was meeting me at Amandas and happily took the enthusiastic comments reigns from the boys. Debbie was so excited to be helping with the planning and the decor of the weddings and having worked so closely with Amandas and Coastal Bridal in the past helped us all pull together every last detail.

I loved all of the dresses I tried on and was so excited to have so many different outfits to wear for 5 very different weddings!
Alex was in a different room also being dressed for 5 extremes and by the time we were done we were exhausted!

We were due out to dinner to meet some of the team and some of Augusts friends that night. We ate at The Brentwood Restaurant a French restaurant in an old haunted house! We listened to ghost stories and chatted with our new friends Jennifer and Meagan and good old friends August, Spike and Tasha. We had amazing company, great food and amazing wine and even had a ghost encounter! As we were leaving someone stroked the back of Alex’s head. He turned around and there was nobody there!!!! That gave us all the chills!

The next day was Thanksgiving and we had been invited to several homes to join in the festivities. We made so many friends that day and had such a great time with them all. We ate turkey until it came out of our ears and could barely move! We had some of the best turkey we have ever eaten that day. Deep fried turkey IS the future! Aparently one of the biggest causes of house fires in America but oh my it was good! The turkey is made (mainly outside) in a huge drum of fat over a garden fire. The oil is brought up to temerature and (the VERY thoroughly dried) turkey is dropped (more placed I suppose than dropped from a great height!) into the oil whole. The skin was crisp and the meat inside so tender and juicy and not in the least bit greasy. We also tried smoked turkey and good old traditional roast Turkey which would put most dried out English Christmas turkeys to shame.

After more good food and good company than we had ever anticipated we curled up on the couch and waited for our food to settle before bed. We would need our sleep, we had only one more day before the wedding extravaganza was due to begin and we had a mechanics appointment for Peggy, more dress fittings and a LOT of errands to run before we tucked ourselves up again in anticipation of 5 weddings in as many days!

Are you holding on to your wedding hats?

Apologies for the lack of pictures in this blog…we didn’t have a camera 🙁 BUT fear not, there will be plenty coming up!