First Gig as MC

On Friday, October 22nd, two my friends here in Oz tied the Knot. Lee (a pommie) and Vicky (the south african) were married at Taronga Zoo, overlooking Sydney harbour. It is a geourgous spot for a wedding. Lee and Vicky asked me to be MC at their wedding, which turned out to be a very nerve racking experience, at least leading up to the event. At every american wedding I've been to, there has never been an MC. Most MC duties, being fulfilled by the DJ or someone in the band.

I've only known Lee and Vicky for about 9 or 10 months, oddly enough, about as long as I've been in Australia. ( Funny I didn't meet them before I moved here, huh ?) And I've never met anyone in their family, nor anyone else in the wedding parties. So I was nervous about giving good introduction to all the speakers. I realize this is mostly internal pressure to do a good job, but it is a wedding, and I certainly don't want to be the "jerk" who wouldn't shut-up, and turn the reception into an infamous affair, filled with horror stories of what not to do as MC. So I spent a couple hour trying make up jokes and shcedule the evening, in hopes that the more prepared I was the better it would go.

To make a long story, short, I was nervous at first, I was seen doing quite a bit of pacing prior to my introduction. On bright side, my first obligation was really simple and straight forward basically introducing myself as MC, then introducing the Bride and Groom as they enter the reception hall. I got through it ok, but I much more nervous than I would have liked, I guess I"m out of practice public speaking. After the introductions, dinner was served, and I had a little break to re-compose myself. Miraculously, the glasses of wine with dinner, seemed to help. [go figure ;) , I think it was just coincidence though].

The rest of the evening went very well, the reception was a blast. ( enough about their wedding, since this is my blog, I'll talk about me ...) I think the biggest compliment I got, was Vicky's brother from South Africa who asked me I MC'd alot, and I said this was my first time and he was surprised, so that made me feel better about performance as MC.

With MC duties finished, I could finally focus on consuming more beverages and having a grand ole time on the dancefloor.

Still not the man in the ad

I've had my car for a little over a month now and sadly, I'm still not the man in the ad. Most likely due to the fact that I'm still working like 9am til 10 or 11 pm almost every day of the week and most saturdays as well. On the bright side, our project is scheduled to go live on Oct 8th, so I"m hopeing that will lessen the pressure a bit.

I've made good effort to utilize the freedom of the SUV. So in the last month, I've driven to the blue Mountains for 30km Mountain bike ride, drive to Port Stephens for a bucks night (I even strapped my surfboard to my roof rack, which I thought got me a step close to the man in add, not to mention the man in poor house b/c nothing kills fuel efficiency like strapping roof racks on a SUV)