12862, 11561, 67, 2465, 762, -178, 938, 1292

What are these numbers– winning lottery numbers?  The numbers printed on the mysterious hatch on the television show “Lost”?  The combination to my luggage?

No, these were the table numbers at our wedding.  Instead of starting at 1 and ending at 8, we decided to make  our table numbers have multiple purposes.  In addition to telling people where to sit, each number represented an important milestone in our lives– measured in days.

Anyone who has been to a wedding with a buffet knows that you can’t just let everyone get up and start filling their plates all at once.  So I went around to tables and asked them what their table number meant.  It got a lot easier once the first table figured out to answer in the form of, “number of days since…”

Here are the answers:

12862:  Number of days since Omar was born.

11561:  Number of days since Katherine was born.

67:  Number of days we were officially married

2465:  Number of days Omar worked at UPS, or number of injury free days for Omar at UPS

762:  Number of days since we adopted our dog Maury.

-178:  Number of days until the baby is due.  (This got quite a few people’s attention.  Not everyone knew she is pregnant, so we figured this was as good of time as any to announce to everyone.)

938:  Number of days of safe driving for Omar at UPS.

1292:  Number of days since we met.

Some people were very fustrated by their numbers.  My UPS supervisor ended up having a bit of trouble getting the number of days of safe driving number, but it was a lot of fun to make fun of him with a microphone in a room full of people, many of whom were fellow UPS drivers.  His table ended up going to the buffet last, after giving him several big hints.

So when all was said and done, it was a fun activity to keep people occupied during the buffet down time.