I was going to take you through the events of last weekend in order, but Alicia has scooped me by revealing the surprise ending: the police raid on the after-party.

The Maid-Of-Honor (MOH) had rented a suite for an after-party at the same hotel where the reception was. This suite was like a townhouse. It had a full kitchen, two floors, two bathrooms, and slept eight. It was in a tight complex of similar suites across the parking lot from the main hotel. We had seven people booked to sleep there, including myself even though I only live about 2-3 miles away. It was a good thing too, because I was in no condition to drive.

Two other rooms announced after-parties at the reception, but I think those parties surrendered and joined ours because by the next morning everyone had been to the MOH’s suite. And I say, “I think”, because shortly after it started I sought out a bed in the upstairs loft and sort of slept/passed out. But not before we had received our first noise warning from the hotel management.

Over the course of the next 3 hours I slept intermittently. The loud party which, granted, was in the same room as myself, kept waking me up along with the ringing phone of further warnings. I remember hearing one such conversation in which police intervention was threatened upon the next infraction. The MOH was adamant: they weren’t doing anything wrong, they weren’t being loud.

About 3:45am I was awakened for the last time by someone laughing, pounding on a table, and singing Ring Of Fire at full volume. “We have about 15 minutes before the cops get here”, I remember thinking. The alcohol had released its hold on me by then, so I got up. It was time to wind down this party. There was a breakfast buffet that the bride and groom had arranged for 7.

It took a while to drag my groggy butt downstairs. The group had shrunk to about 10 people. As I sat down on the couch I noticed a gang of “boys in blue” through the window, coming up the sidewalk. I barely had time to get out a warning before there was a knock at the door.

There were at least 6 officers and the hotel’s night manager at the door. They made it clear that we weren’t being evicted. This was our final warning, and if they had to come back the MOH would be arrested, because the room was in her name and that made her responsible. But I thought it was odd that after having delivered this message, they didn’t excuse themselves and leave. They stayed to listen to opposing points of view, which the MOH freely and emotionally provided. She continued to insist that we weren’t being loud, we hadn’t done anything wrong, that we were being unnecessarily harassed, and that the hotel was out of line for having called the police. Eventually her boyfriend, the Best Man, persuaded her to come back inside, and the officers left.

Back inside, discussions erupted about whether the hotel had handled the situation properly. The MOH was firmly on the side that they had not. She had rented the suite as a member of the bridal party of a reception they had hosted… what did they think was going to happen? Of course we were going to have a party, and there was going to be noise. But they weren’t loud. My perspective was that the hotel had absolutely no reason to assume that, any more than they had reason to assume that we would be partied out from the reception and go straight to bed. And that possibly, in her celebratory inebriated state, she was not in the best position to judge what an acceptable noise level in a hotel was at 4am.

I’ve learned before that late-night arguments with this group are a sport, not a way of arriving at the truth. This went on for a half-hour, with some guests firing up the others. Only one other person was on my side (thanks Matt!). By 4:30 I was hung-over, tired, and desperate for some quiet time if I was going to make the breakfast for which I had RSVP’ed. It didn’t look as if this was going to settle down soon and I was afraid the cops would be back because the arguments were getting passionate. So I gathered up my stuff and left. Making myself unpopular in the process, I’m sure. Oh well.

I went home, slept for about an hour, got back up, and made it to the breakfast at 7am. It was poorly attended. To no one’s surprise, no representatives of the MOH suite made it to breakfast.

I heard later that the strategy that the police were using was that they were not leaving because they were waiting for tempers to flare up so that they could make arrests. That would give them the observable reason they needed to remove the noise-makers. Thank goodness it didn’t work. It almost did.

Me? I’m left with a mysterious knee injury. Ah, the “mysterious injury” of drunken debauchery. It had to be the dancing. I’ll bet it was Otis Day and the Nights. “A little bit softer now” (twist)… “A little bit softer now” (twist)… “A little bit softer now” (twist) *pop*.