Fort Worth, Texas: A Wedding in the Hills

This was really three trips stitched together — Dallas, then the Fort Worth side of things, then Austin — all in one hot August week. The reason for it was the wedding in the middle: a Michigan teammate of mine was getting married out in the ranch country west of Fort Worth, and I was a groomsman.

One night in Dallas

I landed in Dallas with a single night before the wedding stuff started. My boy Chris and I made stew and rice in his kitchen like we were back home, hit Velvet Taco over in Richardson, drove around Addison. Dallas was lit, and then it was over.

Through the Stockyards

On the way out we cut through the Fort Worth Stockyards — wooden boardwalks, a buffalo head bolted to a wall, a steakhouse that's been "internationally famous" since before I was born. Fort Worth wears the cowboy thing without a hint of irony, and it works.

Groomsman duty

The wedding was at one of those mission-style venues out in the hills — bell tower, arched everything. The morning was six of us in a getting-ready room playing cards and refusing to tie our ties until the last possible second.

At the reception somebody produced a maize-and-blue flag, because of course they did.

The ranch

The venue backed onto a working game ranch. We took a safari truck out over the dirt roads and there were longhorns, and then — genuinely — zebras. In Texas. Nobody could explain it and nobody really tried.

The lake

Last day before Austin, we went out on the lake near Azle — all coves and sandbars and everybody's boat. A dog swam over and put its whole face in the camera. Ten out of ten trip.

Everything practical about the city — the Stockyards, the museums in the Cultural District, where to eat barbecue — is in the Fort Worth travel guide, and the Dallas night has its own Dallas guide. Full footage in the vlog below, edited by @topaz_ziii. Wedding-travel questions? Bring them to the community.