We attended a VW Bus club wedding, helping out wherever we could on the big day. Plus, find out why I took a hacksaw to bed with me!

We stayed with our friends, Bill and Betsy, on our way out to Wanderlust Plantation. WP is the newest project of bus club founder Snoopy and his soon-to-be wife. Before we left, Bill and Luther started up the smoker – Luther is a master judge for the South Carolina Barbeque Association, if I had a firstborn I wouldn’t hesitate to trade it in for his barbeque. They prepped 8 butts for the smoker, along with the requisite butt jokes. This is going to be the main dish at the wedding tomorrow.

Around noon we headed over to Wanderlust Plantation, the bride and groom have been working on this property for weeks to get it ready for a camping wedding weekend. For most couples, it’s hard enough to just plan a wedding, but not these guys. Besides the wedding, they’re also clearing ground for campsites, building a bathhouse, and emptying out years and years of debris from the building on site.

When we arrived, Lisa had some serious crazy eyes going on, so I jumped right in trying to figure out where the stress points were and what we could do to make sure things ran smoothly.

Kyle got to work with the guys, last time we were here they were constructing the bathhouse, and now it was ready for plumbing. They installed a water heater and plumbed up the shower. Then Kyle and Betsy installed a sink. It took two days, but by the wedding, there were three functioning toilets, one hot shower, and one working sink!

I scampered about, working on flowers, getting tables set up, hanging a fabric arch in the tree, and making sure Lisa and Snoopy were hydrated. Finally I had to take a break, because I knew I’d be running around all afternoon and I was already tired. I lay down in the bus for an hour or so, but my mind was racing the whole time, trying to figure out what we needed for photos.

There were a couple mishaps (as there are at any wedding!). The dessert table collapsed! But miraculously none of the pies were damaged and none of the vases broke, so someone reinforced the table and we put it right back together. After everyone but Lisa walked down to the ceremony, I realized that we still had all the bouquets, so Kyle ran the flowers down to the bridesmaids. Snoopy forgot Lisa’s ring, so during the ceremony he tied a piece of pine straw to her finger.

The wedding itself was fabulously chill, Elvis officiated and the groom and groomsmen wore formalwear from Mongolia, an African country, and Scotland. All the attendees brought their own camp chairs to sit in, there was plenty of tie-dye in the audience.

Lisa arrived in Snoopy’s 21-window bus, driven by Bill. Lisa’s father greeted her arrival.

The ceremony was so sweet, and so perfect for them.

After the ceremony we snagged some shots on the tire swing!

I told them to kiss, but I did not specify WHO they should kiss, and apparently the instructions were unclear…

I think after the ceremony was over, the stressful part of the day was done and the reception was nothing but joy! It was a VW bus club wedding to remember.

That night, sitting around the campfire, I was bit on the finger by a fire ant. I react pretty strongly to those, so I knew it was going to suck, but I didn’t think any more of it until I woke up at 2am because my finger was going numb. The bite was on my ring finger, and it was already so swollen that my ring was cutting off circulation.

I got up to see if I could find any first aid supplies, and let me tell you – the 2am crowd is not the crowd you want working on a medical emergency. Bill found me some Benadryl, and after I took it I decided it was probably about ten years old since he said he hadn’t looked through his first aid kit since his boys were in Scouts. Bill chewed up some cigarette tobacco to put on it as well, I think this might be an old wives tale but apparently it is supposed to draw out the toxins. Eventually we found some topical Benadryl and I put that on it.

At this point, I could no longer move my ring at all. I was considering that I might have to choose between my ring and my finger. It’s no contest, of course, but I really love my wedding ring. I still had sensation in my finger and it wasn’t turning purple yet. I took a hacksaw to bed with me, just in case.

The next morning my finger looked like a starfish limb, wide at the bottom and pointy at the top. My whole hand started swelling up. More Benadryl! I managed to survive without cutting my ring off, but it took three days for the swelling to go down enough that I could remove my ring.

Kyle pulled the bus into the garage to replace the axle, luckily with so many buses camping around us there was no shortage of tools or knowledge. The task was straightforward but very dirty since the axles are packed with grease.

The day passed quickly, mostly because I was in a Benadryl coma. Suddenly it was 4pm and we still hadn’t left the campsite. We had plans to meet friends for dinner so we needed to get moving. We started saying our goodbyes – we don’t know when we’ll be back, and the bus club family was our first friends in Charleston. It was nice to go out with a bang! Nearly everyone we met in the bus club made it to Snoopy and Lisa’s wedding, so with everyone gathered in one spot we had a chance to catch up one last time, and say our last goodbyes for a while.

We met up with our friends and had a wonderful night. We finished up dinner and still managed to linger for another half an hour after the bills were paid. I didn’t want the night to end. We’ve said so many goodbyes already, but this was one of the hardest. We hung out outside the restaurant for a while, but I was about to break down so Kyle and I made our way back to the bus. We’re going to miss you so much!

I think I’ve said this before, but we’ve been part of a friend-group of five couples, and in this calendar year three of the couples (including us) have moved away and the other two are having their first babies – big changes for everyone! We are the last ones to leave. We tried to connect with a few other friends this weekend but it just didn’t work out – if we missed you, we’re so sorry! I can’t believe how many connections we made in the 4.5 years that we lived here.

One more night at Bill and Betsy’s, one last family to say goodbye to in the morning.

Then we took off. This was actually the longest trip we’ve ever done in the bus, about an 8 hour drive. The bus needs a tune-up, for sure, but the new axle ran smoothly.

We took the backroads of NC, since we avoid the highways, and after we started looking for a place to stop and eat lunch I think we still drove for almost another hour without finding a park. As we passed through Kinston, NC we saw a sign for a brewery so we stopped there. The brewery wasn’t open, but we made sandwiches and ate on a street bench. A guy who lives in a Jeep chatted with us for a while, he had questions about our solar set up and we eventually talked about boat life and he’d like to get a boat someday too!

As if we don’t have enough projects to work on, I added another one to the list. I was shutting the window and snapped off the window crank. At least the window was closed when I did it (this is an aftermarket crank, and they’re known for having short life spans so we were probably on borrowed time with it anyway).

Since we’d left around 8am, we arrived back at the marina before 5pm. We got everything unloaded, then made some dinner and hit the couch. It was a long, exhausting, wonderful weekend.