We have an amazing wedding party!  And to prove that fact, we wanted to share a bit about each of them with you.  So we’ve assembled a face book of sorts (no, not that facebook…) for you to read all the hilarious stories about how we all met, the crazy stuff we’ve done together, and even a story about pants. “Huh?” you ask?  You’ll just have to read every single story to find out! :)

Bridesmaids

Becky Cannon

Becky Cannon

San Diego, CA

Alexa and Becky met through friends of their parents one fateful day over the salty goodness of Azteca tortilla chips little knowing that they would spend the next 8 years as on and off again roommates and perpetual partners in crime (figuratively of course). Initially bonding over milkshake runs, a shared wicked sense of humor, and 80’s music, they have remained as close as ever despite the seeming increasing distances. As for Ben, Alexa met him during a time when her friends were beginning to believe that she made up this imaginary Becky friend that was spoken of but never seen (in no small part due to her job the Navy). Thankfully, Ben was able to meet Becky, thus assuring the world that Alexa was in fact not crazy, and she was very real.

Becky spent most of her life in one part of Washington or another before her career as a Naval Officer sent her packing to the most barren and inhospitable piece of land known as San Diego. Do you know that it stays 75 degrees and sunny here 320 days of the year? Becky enjoys good wine, good friends, and really cheesy movies…not necessarily in that order.

In her own words, “If I had to lose my Idahoian common law wife to someone, I couldn’t have picked a better someone then the adorable and lovable Ben Betz! CONGRATS ALEXA AND BEN!!”

Jenn Phipps

Jenn Phipps

Vancouver, WA

Alexa and Jenn go back to preschool, though neither of them really remember being in class with each other.  But despite being oblivious at the age of 4, the two became friends in 3rd grade and the rest is history!  Jenn and Alexa were dorm-mates and roommates in college.  The had a blast with antics such as spying on roommates, waking up to a drunk guy trying to get into the house at 2 am, 80s night at Valhalla, and late night Dissmore’s runs.  Jenn met Ben at a New Year’s Eve Party in 2007 (the same night as Alexa and Ben’s first kiss, which Jenn may have encouraged!)  Jenn says: “When Alexa was with Ben she was happy and panic-free :) I knew they were right for each other.  Congratulations Ben and Alexa!”

Kristin Duvall

Kristin Duvall

San Diego, CA

Kristin is lucky enough to call both Alexa & Ben, two of her best friends! She first met Betz back in May 2005 at her housewarming party in Belltown. The two soon became good friends and have stayed close ever since, even combining their birthday celebrations each year for the last 4 years! BBetz/K$ Birthday Bash – SHOTZ!?! Kristin met Alexa in December 2006 when Betz brought her to a party, and they soon became close friends. They have bonded over being Seattle locals, Tuesday Night Dinner Club, wedding planning & making fun of the boys. Alexa’s sense of humor always keeps Kristin cracking up and they’ve had lots of adventures together in exciting locales such as Vegas, New Jersey, Topeka, KS & Tahoe!

Kristin grew up in West Seattle, then attended Washington University in St. Louis. She came back to Seattle in 2004 and has since been working as a Corporate Recruiter for Washington Mutual Bank and now Starbucks Coffee Company. She recently moved to San Diego, CA and is planning a wedding of her own for August 2010!"

Julie Klein

Julie Klein

San Francisco, CA

Julie met Ben through her husband Drew back in 2006.  Julie remembers a particular conversation one late night with Mr. Betz, where he laid out his list of all things his perfect woman would have.  This included, “scuba diver” “athletic” “funny” “tall” “hot” and the list goes on…and on…and on.  Julie was a bit skeptical – the list  was very specific, “a hot blond scuba diver”.  A few months later, Julie met the fantastic Alexa and really had to hand it to the guy – Ben got everything he asked for! Alexa and Julie became close friends – who wouldn’t want this sassy ball of fire as a best friend?  They’ve enjoyed bachelorette parties, Tahoe excursions, a couple of Vegas trips and oh…just a few dinner parties together.   Julie cannot wait for the good times to keep on rolling with two of her most favorite people!

Julie grew up in the land of big hair and malls, the beautiful garden state – New Jersey.  After years of hairspray and too many trips down to the Jersey shore, Julie had to get out – she took a job with Microsoft and ventured out to Seattle where she tried to beat Google .  There she met her husband and an amazing group of friends.  After a short stint in the very frigid Midwest, she’s back on the West coast and happy to be closer to her West coast buddies.

Gail Schaar

Gail Schaar

Seattle, WA

Gail met Alexa when they were both working at Comcast, shortly after Alexa graduated from Washington State (the Cougars!)  How the two of them never met when they were both at WSU, no one knows.  Here’s the story of how they met in Gail’s own words:

Oh my dear, Alexa.  I remember my boss at Comcast, the infamous D.G., telling me that he was thinking about hiring this Alexa girl, in large part because she was a Cougar. Having passed the major qualification-test needed to work at Crapcast, er, I mean Comcast, Alexa was soon spending hour, after seemingly endless hour, cooped up in her “cubicle” otherwise known as her “pen,” next to me.  Alexa and I soon were spending our coffee breaks, lunch breaks and other assorted sanity breaks together consoling each other and telling ourselves that it would all get better soon. 

Here we are five years after we met, and things have actually gotten better… on some very major fronts.  The lovely Miss Alexa met a Mister Ben that everyone could not be happier with and to top it off, he encourages her love of yard gnomes! [Eds. Note: He even bought her one for her birthday last year!]

I love you guys and GO COUGS!

PS:  As of press time, this right here is the only single bridesmaid and I’m accepting boyfriend applications!

Groomsmen

Danny Betz

Danny Betz – Best Man

DeKalb, IL

It should be pretty obvious how Danny knows the happy couple.  He’s Ben’s brother and thus has known Ben his entire life growing up in DeKalb.  He has known Alexa for a little over 2 years now and could not be happier with Ben’s choice for a wife!  Since he doesn’t have a fun or interesting story about how he met Ben, Danny decided to share a story from their childhood that he feels best describes Ben.  Here goes…

One hot summer evening in DeKalb, our family and some friends decided to go to Ollie’s for frozen custard.  To set the scene a little bit, there is usually a 30-45 minute wait for Ollie’s on summer nights such as this.  This will ensure that at least 1/4 of DeKalb and their family is there.  As could be assumed, us kids tended to get a bit rambunctious during this wait.  Once we got our custard the families tended to stand around and socialize with one another.  This is when I decided to carry out my master plan to pull down Ben’s pants.  I snuck up behind him and yanked his athletic shorts down to his ankles and jumped back waiting for the repercussions.  However the response I got was not what most people would expect.  Pulling up his pants and tackling me on the cement? Fists to the face and stomach? A combination of both? No.  Instead, Ben decided to turn his face to the stars and yell "DAAAAAANIEL!" as loud as he can.  Not only did Ben draw the attention of every single person within a 1/2 mile, he also forgot to pull up his pants before doing so.  Thus, exposing his bright tighty whiteys to everyone, while I escaped unscathed. 

Congrats to the happy couple!

Joe Trdinich

Joe Trdinich

San Jose, CA

Joe’s life with Betz started at a new grad (read: nerd) social event early on in their tenures with the evil empire.  He was holding a beer and talking to a few ner… Um, new grads… when Joe heard talk of fantasy football across the room.  Joe immediately told the new grads he was talking to that it wasn’t them, it was him, and he set out to find the only conversation in the room that wouldn’t make him want to rip his hair out.  After talking about the pros and cons of taking a tight end early in the draft, Ben and Joe quickly became good friends.  It’s also quite possible that conversation led to this union between Ben and Alexa as well, because Ben may not have ended up down in Des Moines to do his open water diving course had Joe not shown him the way.  Joe says: “So I’d like to think I have made Ben’s life way better by contributing to him meeting Alexa, and Alexa’s life way …. more interesting …….”

These days Joe’s moved down to San Jose and is working as the Commissioner for Yahoo! Fantasy Sports (oh, the irony).  He likes sports, good food, good wine, good people, and everything Pittsburgh.  You’ll be able to spot him at the wedding because he’ll be the drunk one with his tie tied around his head dancing all night.

Adam DePue

Adam DePue

Seattle, WA

Like Ben, Adam is originally from the Chicago area, attended college in Indiana, and is a developer at Microsoft. Ironically, none of the specifics overlap…  Adam grew up in St. Charles, IL, attended Purdue, and works on a different team at MS.  Ben and Adam met during an internship at Microsoft in 2003, and a year later ended up relocating to Seattle and becoming roommates for the next 5 years. During that time they developed a great friendship rooted in crazy stories (strawberry milkshake Oreos?), lots of fun (late night trips to Beth’s Cafe?), and being there whenever the other was needed (broken ankles and concussions?). Adam says: “I met Alexa right when she and Ben started dating and was instantly a fan and knew that she actually balanced out Ben’s craziness.  I could go on like this forever, but need to save something for the wedding day. Cheers!”

Andy Schmitt

Andy Schmitt

Madison, WI

Andy was Ben’s roommate at ΔΧ for two years, and practically lived in his dorm room Freshman year, even though he “officially” lived across the hall.  Since Ben brought Alexa back to the Midwest for Andy’s wedding, she and Andy have become pals.  Andy is currently a post-doc at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Andy has this to say;

I am married to Kristin Briney, sorry ladies. Kristin is the best, sorry Alexa.

If you are reading this, you will undoubtedly come to know me well, as Ben and Alexa have. As such I left a list of things I would appreciate no one attempt in my presence while at the wedding (specific actions relating to our fraternity brothers, all others can ignore):

A#1) Body shots—it’s a wedding, let’s try to class it up a bit.

A#1a) Playing through—see A1.

A#2) Hitting bottles with golf clubs, unless they are plastic—self explanatory.

A#4) Setting up Christmas lights—shouldn’t be a problem in the Spring, but you never know…

A#4b) Shirtless backrubs—actually these are ok, as long as it is not Skip sans shirt.

A#3) Ranching.

Nick Foose and Beth Foose

Nick Foose

Rochelle, IL

Nothing bonds two men together like Ricky Martin and silky silver shirts.  Nick has known Ben since they were in 5th grade.  They were on the swim team in High School, as well as the football team.  Nick has some hilarious memories of the many years he has known Ben, some of which will make exceptional stories to tell Ben and Alexa’s future children.  For instance, it’s always a good idea to lace brownies with Ex-Lax to get your point across.  Nick says: “Ben made sure that I saw the potential in myself as a teenager, and has always been one of the closest friends I have.  I was lucky enough to have him stand at my side when I got married in 2008, and consider myself honored to be able to do the same for him.”

Ushers

Anthony Girolamo

Anthony Girolamo

Kirkland, WA

Anthony meet Ben in 2003 while both were summer interns at Microsoft, and Alexa in 2006 when Ben brought the "the girl from scuba" to a mutual friend’s birthday. He shares Ben and Alexa’s enjoyment of winter sports (Ben helped teach Anthony to snowboard), good food and wine, watching the Biggest Loser on Tuesday nights, and questionable decision making.

Anthony grew-up outside of Detroit, Michigan, before attending the University of Michigan (please, no jokes about the football program, it is too soon). He relocated to Seattle in 2005 to pursue a career at Microsoft as a software development engineer. He is also an avid world traveler, marathon runner and award winning chili cook.

bena_for_betz_ap2

Ben Ahroni

Seattle, WA

The Bens met early in their Microsoft careers and quickly became good friends. Between marathons of the show “24”, beefy cheesy nachos, ski & snowboard vacations to Jackson Hole, exploring Seattle’s nightlife scene, and numerous NEPBs (Never Ending Pasta Bowl at Olive Garden) and EJKVTs (Everyone Joe Knows Vegas Trip – an annual trip we all take) it was easy to become close! Ben B. later became Ben A.’s SCUBA instructor, and Ben B’s interest in photography has resulted in some amazing shots between the two guys. Ben A. says: "Best wishes and a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Ben & Alexa!”