Season 10 Greattasticly Ever After Blog 6.9: Artistic Representation

 Artistic Representation

I love writing. I really do. But… It can be really annoying. The Andersons are not real. My immediate and extended families, my coworkers, Elana, Noah, Paige, everyone I write about, they are not real. They are just artistic representations of real people. That’s just the nature of the beast. The problem is there are some real people who I care about, that don’t usually fit into the art. When I was probably around 2 years old, my parents made friends with a family at church. We’ll call them the Loftmens. Mr. And Mrs. Loftmen had 2 sons, Gavin and Shaun. Mom and Dad met them at OLP as they were also parishioners. Mrs. Loftmen ended up on the Koblot softball team (which was a thing that they had like the first few years of the company's existence). This is all to say that the Loftmens and my family were really close until they moved out of state. 

We stayed at the Loftmen’s Beach House twice growing up (once was in the summer of 2009. I remember because Michael Jackson died on that trip), and I have seen Shaun a couple of times over the course of Rules for a Greattastic Life. 

Shaun got married to his wife, Sabrina, last fall and my parents went to the wedding. When they were there they found out that Shaun had been doing some contract work in Columbus. The day after Mom‘s birthday Mr. and Mrs. Loftmen and Shaun were in town, and we all had a big dinner. During this dinner, we found out that Sabrina was pregnant, and Paige Shaun and I bonded over our newly married lives. 

This is a weird mini installment. Realistically I will write another installment in the near future that effectively renders this one irrelevant. It will go into more detail about my family‘s relationship with the Loftmens. I’m writing this for one reason. I have stated that if I write about you (as more than an ”extra”) I love you and you’re seared onto my heart. I have always loved the Loftmens, but I have not had the ability to include them in my writings. Since this dinner, Paige and I have become very close with Shaun and Sabrina and I wanted to finally include them in the story! 

To be continued…

Season 10 Greattasticly Ever After Blog 6.5: Catching Up With Shane (& Jessica)

 Catching Up With Shane (& Jessica)

Shortly after Paige and my wedding, my former roommate Shane, moved out of the Gleason Road apartment, and moved into his fiancée, Jessica’s apartment. On Friday, June 12th 2026, Paige got off work at 4:00. I was off at 3:00 so I went from work to the Barnes & Noble by Paige’s Panara to wait for her to call me. 

I arrived at 3:30, and I walked around for about 10 minutes before my phone started to buzz. It was a FaceTime call from Shane. I was glad to hear from him. During the snowstorm back in February, Shane had asked me to be in his wedding, but I hadn’t really heard anything about it since. 

I answered the call and greeted Shane and Jessica. They asked me how the wedding was and I filled them in then I asked how they were feeling about their upcoming wedding. They were obviously both excited and Jessica told me all about the table arrangements and the wedding colors. 

This wedding is the second wedding party that I’m in. If I was excited for Greg’s wedding then I’m ecstatic for Shane’s. For one thing, while I’ve known Greg my whole life and I love Temi, I was never really involved in their love story until the wedding. I was the event coordinator, in all but name, for Shane and Jessica’s engagement; I feel like I have more of a stake in their relationship if that makes sense. Not to mention I was (more or less) single when Greg got married and of course now I’m not. Can’t wait till October guys!!!!

To be continued…

Season 10 Greattasticly Ever After Blog 6.3: Cover Band

 Cover Band

Thursday June 11, 2026 was Mom’s birthday. The day before, I was at Luke and Josh‘s and I asked them if there were any plans. They didn’t know of any so after I got off work and I picked Paige up we called my brothers and found out that Mom‘s college friend Anita and a few others were going out to a bar to see an R.E.M. cover band (R.E.M. is one of Mom’s favorite bands).

We got to the bar at 6:30 (the show was scheduled to start at 7:00). We got into the venue and around 7:15 when the band had not started playing yet, I walked out onto the patio because I needed to burn off some stim energy. While I was out there, I ran into my grade school music teacher, Mrs. Millington and her husband.

We all went back into the venue, and we all hung out until the band started playing. There were a few technical difficulties (that we thought really could’ve been fixed during the hour that they made us wait) and I only knew a few of the songs. It was not a bad night, but spending it with family and friends made the not so fun parts worth it.

To be continued…

Season 10 Greattasticly Ever After Blog 6: Breaking In Roger

 Breaking In Roger

In the installment, T-2 Weeks, I said “A few days before my bachelor party, Noah finally purchased his first house! Noah and I hadn’t seen each other since my bachelor party because we were both preparing for some major life changes.” That wasn’t entirely true. Noah and I had seen each other one time between my bachelor party and me helping him move during the events of T-2 weeks. On Saturday, April 18th, 2026, Paige and I went on a double date with Noah and a girl he was seeing at the time. At the end of the date, we went to see his new house. We weren’t able to go inside because 1. He wouldn’t officially move in for another three weeks, and 2. More importantly he was having people do work on it. The most important thing that we found out was that Noah had named the house Roger (because the house was built in 1945, so it would be Roger the draft dodger). 

On Saturday June 6, 2026 Paige’s childhood friend, Miranda, who sang at our wedding, showed up at our apartment at 11:15. You see, Paige's Maid Of Honor, Nicole’s bridal shower was that afternoon and Miranda and Paige decided to have a debrief about our wedding before the shower. I walked with them to a coffee shop nearby called Jim’s Coffee, got some coffee, wished them a good day, went back home and finished getting ready and drove to Roger. 

As I was driving back past Jim’s coffee from the apartment, it started pouring down rain. Noah and my plan was for him to show me around Roger, help him with a few chores, and then we would go to Alum Creek beach. The chores were 1. I had borrowed my mom‘s MacBook to help Noah update his phone because he didn’t have quite enough storage 2. We had to return a microwave that wasn’t going to fit in the kitchen. I called Noah as soon as it started to rain and  he said that he had checked the weather for around Alum and it didn’t look like it was going to rain there till about 7:00. After he showed me around Roger we got to updating his phone. I had never updated a phone that way so it took us a while to figure it out. Once we got done, we changed into our bathing suits, I took off my ring, and we drove to drop off the microwave. 

After we dropped it off, we got some snacks and drove to the beach around 4:30. We found a spot, had some snacks, and then, we got into the lake. When we were about hip deep into the water we stopped, and hung out. As we talked for about an hour, the only notable thing that happened was I had a couple minor panic attacks when I forgot that I left my ring on Noah’s kitchen table. 

At around 5:45, I just happened to look behind me at the beach. There was a giant storm cloud directly above it. “Ummm Noah,” I said, “we need to go right now!” 

“Storm?” Noah asked. 

“Yep,” I replied, “we have like 30 seconds.” 

When we made it back to shore the rain began to pelt our faces and Noah said, “man, you really weren’t kidding!”

We ran to our cooler as the rest of the beach cleared. Just as we were about to leave the rain started to slow down. I looked back at the lake and in the middle of the lake there was a rainbow as the storm raged on there. 

As I described the scene to Noah, I smiled. See Noah and I met in 2019, and while we hung out a few times that year, our friendship didn’t really take its current form until January 2020. With the break that we had to take because of Covid, I only hung out consistently with Noah in the apartment I met him in for three months before he moved into his previous place. Noah has been talking about getting a house for the last few years and while I was  excited for him, when he told me that he closed at my bachelor party I felt a little sad because we had the majority of our memories in that apartment. This was such a sudden serene image it helped me see that this would be the first memory we would have while Noah owned Roger.

To Be Continued…

Season 10 Greattasticly Ever After Blog 5: Family Days

 Family Days

There were about 3 iterations of Paige and my wedding before the one that actually happened. The only important version, for the sake of this installment, besides the actual wedding, is the previous one. Paige’s dad’s side of the family has a yearly pig roast on Memorial Day weekend. The original plan was to have a small ceremony on the Friday, May 15th, have a small “friend reception,” on the 16th,  and then take over the pig roast for a “family reception,” the following weekend. Of course we ended up just doing a more traditional set up on the 15th.

Paige’s friend, Miranda dropped Paige and I off at home at 2:00 am, on the morning of the 16th and after we woke up at 9:00, we went to her parents house for a gathering for her mom’s side of the family. After that we went to my parents to see my family that was in town (basically the whole Florida family except for Martin and Pam who left early that morning, and my cousin Paige who stayed at home with her kids). I took Monday and Tuesday off. Initially, we had a couples massage scheduled for that Sunday but Alexander and Alexa ended up staying an extra day, so we pushed it to that Tuesday. I don’t think I have ever been that relaxed in my entire life. Also, something that isn’t super important but I still thought was cool was that Tuesday night there was a minor flood at school, so everyone was off on Wednesday so for my wedding I got a six day weekend! 

On Friday May 22, 2026, the pig roast festivities started. One of Paige’s cousins, Marcus, arrived with his kids, and they set up the pig roasting pit. The next day at around 2:00, Paige and I returned to her parents house to spend the day with everyone! Spending the day with them was really fun especially when we had just seen everyone the week before. 

That night, one of Paige’s cousins, who we will call Payton, hosted a game of “Midnight Werewolf.” I’ve played a few versions of this game before (Mafia, and the live version Murderer In The Dark) and I had played Midnight Werewolf specifically, but Payton had set it up super cool. She had brought in some battery operated candles and set them around the table for ambience and she did an amazing job narrating the game. 

That next day was the actual pig roast. We arrived at about noon and my family (my parents, Ryan, Luke, Josh, and Pop-pop and Sara who were still in town from the wedding), arrived at 12:45, shortly before the pig was taken off and we began to eat. As we were eating Paige and I sat down with Payton and debriefed about our wedding. 

During that conversation I heard a story that I hadn’t heard before. I met a good portion of Paige’s family about a month after our first date at a bar after she and her cousins had celebrated their grandma's 100th birthday. Apparently before I arrived, Paige told Payton that she was “seeing someone,” and she immediately followed it up with “I think he might be the one.”

This is something that I did not know! I am not surprised Paige is my wife, and we talked about marriage relatively early on, but hearing that she said that to a family member almost immediately made me smile. 

New Story has a summer school program. For the purposes of time at work, other than my six day weekend, my school schedule would not change until July. I did not want to get married, and immediately go on the honeymoon, with summer school hanging over my head. As of the pig roast, Paige and I had been married for a week. But the reality; the everyday-ness of that fact didn’t really hit us since our extended families were still predominantly around. As Paige I left the pig roast, I was thankful for the week of family days that we had had, but I was excited for the first normal week of forever. 

To Be Continued…

Season 10 Greattasticly Ever After Blog 4: The After Party

 The After Party

The official reception ended at 11:00, so at about 10:55, I asked our JD, Ed to give me the microphone. “Hey everybody,” I said, “So the reception is about to wrap up, but this is my dad's studio! We are not planning on leaving anytime soon. So feel free to hang out. My phone is connected to Bluetooth right now, and we're probably going to do karaoke at some point, too. I just wanted to say we're really thankful for everyone who came. Paige and I love you all.”

This was followed by a handful of people leaving. So the main people who stayed were Paige's Brothers (Ryan and Brennan) and Ryan's girlfriend, Yvanna; my entire immediate family and Zach and Eva; a ton of O'Brien cousins; Noah, Nicole, Miranda, Arden, Marshall, Aspen, Kid, and Will. 

As some of Paige’s cousins queued music with my phone, Noah, Marshall, Arden, and I talked about life. Arden is a travel nurse, and while she is based in Cincinnati, she does a three-month rotation in another city a couple of times a year. 

“So I have some good news,” Arden said. 

“Oh,” Marshall interrupted, “you going to tell him about the baby?” 

“WHAT?” I yelled. 

“Marshall!” Arden said, “No, Mitchell, I’m not pregnant. We’ve taken shots together tonight! I’m going to do a rotation in Columbus!” 

“When?” I asked, still eyeing her suspiciously. 

“The beginning of June!” She replied. 

As soon as Arden told me, karaoke started. I was called on stage, and I sang "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. However, I’d been screaming songs all night, so I couldn’t really hit any of the notes. After I sang, Ryan O and Brennan sang "Unwritten" switching off line by line, which was really funny. 

After them, Noah and Yvanna individually sang a couple of songs, and then my brothers, the Andersons and Will, dominated the rest of the night. As the night wound down, I got back on stage and grabbed Ryan U’s electric guitar. 

Growing up, the Andersons would go to Canada for their family vacation. They made friends with a pair of brothers. These brothers introduced my “sisters” to a musician named Jake Scott, and the girls introduced me to him. I have wanted to get married since I was a kid. While I liked a lot of Jake’s songs, one of my favorites is called The Bridegroom. As I said in the installment about Paige and my wedding day, before Paige and I started dating, I wasn’t sure if I would ever get married. But I would listen to this song and look forward to having a wife. 

The problem was that Jake Scott married his wife in 2016, and the song came out in 2015. The song references some fights that they had while they were (presumably both) boyfriend and girlfriend/fiancé(e)s. Since it was a commercial release, and the fights were only vaguely alluded to, it’s not terrible, but not super appropriate to sing on your wedding day. As a result, I rewrote some of the lyrics. I had originally been planning to perform this song at the rehearsal dinner, but there were too many people there, and I knew Paige was going to have to be the center of attention through our entire wedding day anyway, and I didn’t want her to have to be the center of attention longer than she had to be. 

As I played the song, I looked down at Paige, my wife of roughly 8 hours, and I smiled. This after-party marked the end of Paige and my wedding. We got engaged on May 9th 2025. That’s 53 weeks; one year and some change of planning, stressing, crying, and overthinking to get ready for this event. While I’ve wanted to get married for as long as I can remember, with all the stress of planning a wedding, I think I hadn’t let myself think about Paige and I having a marriage (at least in a way that wasn’t abstract). I broke eye contact with Paige and looked at Marshall, and “sent him a telepathic message” as it hit me: Dude, that's my wife!

To Be Continued…

Season 10 Greattasticly Ever After Blog 3: The Wedding Reception, Part 2

 The Wedding Reception, Part 2

Since Paige and I have been together she has taken me to two O'Brien family weddings. I didn’t depict either of them because I knew that eventually I would be writing an installment about our wedding reception, and O'Brien weddings are things that you can only write about one time. I walked out onto the dance floor, and began to dance with everybody. Now what was really cool about this dance floor was that we had hung up a “Disco Pig” above the floor from one of Dad's projects. Yes, I said Disco Pig, and yes it is exactly what you are imagining. A few of my family members, not to mention my new wife, asked me why my shoes were off, and I explained that they had been hurting my feet.

Our bartender was a woman named Ammy, her business is called Balila y Bebe. Our specialty drink was a Moscow Mule, but we called it “The Ulibrien.” I went to the bar and got a couple of Ulibriens, and the Andersons, Elena and her sister Jenna, and I took a shot.

During the night I danced with Paige obviously, Kid, Aspen, and Arden, Elena and Jenna, my cousins the Mitreys and my brothers (specifically to TNT), Noah, my cousin Cameron, Dad's high school best friend Martin, my coworkers Elizabeth Lexi, and Greg, and my former coworkers, Clo, Carly, Violet, Emma, Mac and her girlfriend Savannah, Nicole, her fiance Carson, and Paige’s other friend Miranda, as well as my childhood neighbors on the other side of me from the Andersons, Greg Parker, his sister Melody and her husband Rob. While the night was full of dancing and fun, there were two major set pieces of the night (besides Cousin Simple’s performance), both of which have their roots in Paige's parents, and my parents’ respective weddings. Let's start with Paige's parents as that happened first. 

Paige's dad is one of 11, and her mom is one of 6. At their wedding all of her dad's siblings built a pyramid in the middle of the dance floor and her mom laid down in front for a picture. I went to the bathroom really quickly and when I came back, the O'Brien side of the family was in the middle of the dance floor building a pyramid. Paige and I were supposed to be at the top. I ended up getting on top of Paige's brother Ryan, and as she was getting on top next to me, her uncles couldn't handle it anymore, (they had been down there for at least 5 minutes), and the pyramid collapsed!

When I was growing up, my aunts and Mom would sing Paradise by the Dashboard Light, almost any chance they got. Martin had been Dad’s best man at my parents' wedding. Mom and Dad's reception was held at the Ohio Theater. They had the venue from 3:30-9:30. When they were booking the venue, Mom asked, what if they wanted to stay longer and the event coordinator said just to tell them they would like to extend the time by an hour. So about a half hour before the reception ended, Mom and my Grandpa went up to the bartender and told him they wanted another hour. The bartender said, “That’s fine but we've already started shutting down the bar, so there will be no more alcohol.”

“That's fine,” Mom said, “everyone has had enough to drink.”

Unfortunately my Uncle Andy, who was just a boyfriend at this point, wanted another drink. He decided that the best course of action was to go downstairs, and buy a case of beer, and bring it back up to the reception. So there's a video of Mom and Martin in the middle of the dance floor singing Paradise by the Dashboard Light at each other, and the song gets cut off midway because they got kicked out. When Paradise by the Dashboard Light came on, Mom and Martin were finally able to finish their duet 33 years later. 

To Be Continued…