Let me preface this story with this: The events of this night are not, I repeat, are NOT exaggerated in any way!! This stuff really happened. Some of the actual comments may be a little different, because I can’t remember exact phrasing, but these events truly happened!! This was the ABSOLUTE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!!! I am OFFICIALLY a Jon AND Don girl!!! J
I leave work at 4:30 in the afternoon and arrived at Mohegan Sun at 6:15ish, after coasting up the highway, hitting absolutely NO traffic!! Must have been a sign of what PHENOMENAL things were to come tonight!! I meet up with Heather at her office, where we quickly change into our clothes for the night!
Then it’s off to the meet and greet. Heather was told that we needed to go to Lucky’s for the meet and greet, so we head there only to find that anyone and everyone is being let in. We ask the woman who is sitting there where we are supposed to go and she sends us to the box office. When we get to the window at the box office, they tell us that we have to go to the Cabaret theater, because that is where the meet and greet is, and they have our VIP passes located there….so off we go to our third stop before FINALLY getting into the meet and greet!!
We arrive at the Cabaret Theater a couple of minutes after 7pm, and we proceed to wait there for Donnie to show up! Of course we are all IMPATIENTLY awaiting the birthday boy’s arrival! We chat with a few of the other girls in our vicinity and it starts to make the time go a little faster. As we are waiting for his arrival, I am planning out what I hope to say to him in my head. I tell Heather my plan of course. I decide that I am going to give Donnie the Boston Red Sox Dog Tag that I have hanging around my neck for his birthday and that I am going to tell him that it’s my birthday when we go on the cruise and ask him if he can sing to me.I’m so nervous and excited to meet Donnie that I am thinking to myself, “I’ll be lucky if I just get out the word Hello” when I meet him!
FINALLY around 8pm, the moment arrives! DONNIE HAS ENTERED THE THEATER!!! He comes down the right side of the stage and lucky for us, we are seated off to the right side of the stage. He has a photographer and a camera man following him around as he begins to greet all of the fans. There are four girls before he gets to Heather and me. I am so nervous about meeting him at this point that my whole body is shaking. He greets the four girls before us with hugs and pictures, and then he arrives to me and Heather.I’ve lost all thought process at this point, completely forgetting to take a picture of him hugging Heather (sorry hun!). He gives Heather a hug and then IT’S MY TURN!! I get a BIG hug from Donnie, where he whispers “thank you for coming” in my ear and I whisper “Happy Birthday” in his. I get a kiss on the cheek as he pulls away from our hug. I look at him and tell him that I want to give him the dog tag around my neck. He smiles, and as I pull it off from my neck, he takes it from me, looks at the Boston Red Sox symbol, and IMMEDIATELY puts it on!! Then he pulls me into his arms while smiling and saying thank you for another hug and kiss # 2!! Heather and I then pose for our picture with Donnie! After the picture, I smile, say thank you, and tell him that this is my FIRST time meeting and hugging him. He smiles, takes my hand, and tells me to “come here hun! That deserves another hug” as he pulls me in for another hug and kiss # 3! This time on the lips!
As he starts to walk away, I remember that I wanted to tell him about the cruise! I place my hand on his arm and he turns back to me. I tell him that I’ve come here to celebrate his birthday and that my B-day is during the cruise. He smiles, takes my hand, and leans in to me to ask me if I am going on the cruise. I tell him that I am. He then asks me if I went this year, and I tell him “no, next year will be the first time.” He squeezes my hands, and tells me that the cruise is a crazy , amazing time and we will have such a blast. I ask him if he will sing “happy birthday” to me during the cruise for my birthday. He leans in and tells me “Don’t worry hun, I’ll make sure that we do something special for you!” He pulls me in for another hug and kiss # 4, again on the lips, and then asks my name as he is pulling away. I tell him my name and he says “Thank you again Melissa and I will see you on the cruise” with one more hug and kiss on the cheek before walking over to the next group! All in all, I had a good 4-5 minutes of facetime with Donnie as well as numerous hugs and kisses from him!!!!
(See the longer dog tag around his neck...that's the one I gave him!)
At this point I fall onto the seat next to Heather, where I proceed to freak out about my encounter with DONNIE!!! Heather shows me the pictures she took of me talking to Donnie! LOVE THEM!! Can’t wait to have them sent to me!! Heather and I continue to talk as DONNIE goes around saying hi to all the other people in the room. At one point, some guy (drawing a blank on his name) comes into the area near Donnie, and he announces to the crowd who he is. He asks if anyone has heard of this guy and what he does. No one answers. Donnie says that whoever knows and gets the answer right will “leave with him right now.” Still no one answers, so I choose to be a wise-ass and I point at the guy and say “That’s him! he’s right there!”Donnie looks around the room, says what, and again I repeat, that’s him right now. Donnie laughs and says “that’s true, you’ve got it, you’re the winner!”
I am on such a high at this point that I look at Heather and say “I’m making my mark! I’m getting him to remember me!”
My next encounter with Donnie within the next 10 minutes is a complete and utter blur. He asks another question to the crowd, and I shout out something to him. I don’t remember what the question or comment he said to us was, but I feel like I shouted something like “I love you Donnie!” He turns around, looking again for my voice, smiles and say’s “Girl, you’ve got all the answers tonight don’t you!” I tell him I sure do! Then one of his “entourage” asks him if he remembers my name and he looks at me smiling and pauses. I can tell he’s forgotten it. One of the camera men turns a video camera on me while DONNIE is trying to remember my name. He begins to say “your name is (pause)” I begin to say my name, and he shouts it out with me!He’s not going to forget my name now, as he tells me “I love ya Melissa!”
(The picture of Donnie on the left with the white background is a very important picture...keep reading to find out why!!)
Finally he finishes saying his hellos to everyone and makes his way to the front of the theater, where a giant cake with “chocolate pictures” of him all over it and a big 40 on the top. We sing Happy Birthday to him, after which he wipes his eyes. *tears* love it! He tells us about how the number on the cake is wrong and how it should be a 3 and a 0 and how the cake looks REALLY fatty! He asks us if we are going to help him eat this cake. He also tells us that we have to actually eat the cake and not take it home as a souvenirthinking it’s going to last the next twenty years or whatever! Then he turns to cut the cake. He pulls off one of the chocolate pictures of himself and asks one of the girls at the table closest to him to hold it for him.Then he starts to pull a 2nd one off the cake while yelling “Melissa, get over here girl and hold this for me!” I yell back “OK I’m coming!” as I make my way over to him! He hands me the chocolate picture and tells me not to eat it. I say “Don’t worry I won’t!” I head back to my seat and Heather takes a picture of me with my chocolate DDub!
He takes his piece of cake, takes a few bites of it, and then speaks to us about the taste of the cake again, telling us that its good and we’d better help him eat it! He asks how many of us are going to the party at Ultra 88 tonight, and we scream of course. He tells us that he isn’t doing this b-day party for himself; he is doing it for all of us! For all the fans! He tells us that he loves all of us, thanks us again for coming to celebrate his birthday with him and then looks over in my direction again and shouts “And Melissa, you and me, let’s make some babies together on the cruise!!” I yell back, “I’m there! Sounds good, let’s do it! Love you babe!!”
After saying goodbye, he goes up to give one of the girls he missed a hug, and then heads back towards the right side of the stage where he came from at the start of the party. As he is walking past our seats, I smile at him and he says to me “Love you Melissa! See you later!” I tell him “love you too, and I’ll see you at the party!”
When the meet and greet ended, I took my Donnie Wahlberg chocolate picture, and wrapped it in a napkin and a food service glove (which the Mohegan sun employees were kind enough to give me since they didn’t have a Ziploc bag). I was hoping that this would keep my personal picture of him safer than if I just held it melting in my hand.
(Inside of the club)
We then headed toward the Ultra 88 club for Round 2 of this AMAZING night! When we arrived outside of Lucky’s, it was in time to see Donnie entering Lucky’s to say hi to the fans located there. We jumped in the line for the club, not realizing that we could have gotten in right away with our VIP passes! But we weren’t sure, and no one told us otherwise!!
We met some awesome people while we were in line, who we wound up dancing with all night.Unfortunately as we were standing in line, we learned that my DONNIE chocolate broke in half! *tear* we had put it into Heather’s purse, thinking it would be safer there, but clearly not. So I took hold of it for awhile more, but in the end decided to put it back in her purse. If it broke anymore, oh well, it was still PERSONALLY GIVEN TO ME BY DONNIE HIMSELF!!
Finally, as someone was coming around to see that tickets and ID’s were out, we were informed that we didn’t need to stand in the line, so IN WE WENT!! We learned that there weren’t really VIP tables, the VIP passes had just got us into the club quicker! That was ok, because we also found out later that while some people had tables, they weren’t really able to leave their tables, so they didn’t get close to Donnie like we did when he finally showed up! So we get into the club, and head to the bar to get a drink. As we are standing there paying for our drinks, someone comes up to me and says “You’re Melissa right?” “Yes?” I reply awfully confuse how this girl knows my name. “You are like a F-in celebrity right now! See my friends over there! They were wondering if they could get a picture with you!” Oh sure, why not! So over I went, feeling like a celebrity getting my picture taken with some “fans.” All because of the AMAZING amount of facetime and interaction with Donnie at the meet and greet, people were coming up to me left and right talking to me about it! It was kind of cool having people talk to me about it and comment on how awesome that was for me! I am extremely inclined to AGREE on that one!!
(these girls wanted their pic with me...cuz I'm soooo FAMOUS! LOL!)
Finally around 11:30pm, Donnie arrives for his b-day party! Looking INCREDIBLE too, I have to add! We were all getting pushed back by security, but lucky for me (unlucky for my poor toes, ribs, and neck/face area) I was right up front! I lifted my camera over security and just started clicking away! I got some pretty amazing shots of Donnie!
At one point, during his “greeting” to the fans, he took my hand and held it for a good minute or two while he spoke. It wasn’t like most of the time when a celeb reaches out into the crowd and grabs your hand for a second and then moves onto someone else. HE ACTUALLY HELD MY HAND FOR AWHILE! J
After singing Happy Birthday to Donnie and he cut his cake, the bodyguards shuffled him off to the “VIP area” where his “entourage” was.
Shortly thereafter, Jimmy Marsh performed on one of the small stages inside the club, followed by Rob Lewis.
Then the party really began, when Donnie himself, got up onto the stage and “performed” songs such as “Full Service,” and “Summertime.” He had us singing “Single” to him with the request direct from him that we change the lyric “I’ll be your boyfriend” to “I’ll be your girlfriend” since we were singing to him. I was fairly close to the front again and of course with that came the crazy pushy people who were stepping on my poor toes, jabbing my ribs with their elbows and shoving me to the point where at one point I felt as if my legs were going to give out on me and I was going to be trampled. I’ve got to say I became very good at pushing back!
At about 12:30am, we were told the party was over. Donnie reminded us that he wasn’t leaving the casino until he got a picture with each and every one of us at the party! So before heading out of the club, he said thank you to us all again and ended with something along the lines of “Now let’s go take some F-in pictures!”
We filed out of the club and got in line for pictures. When it came my turn, DONNIE looked at me and got a really big smile on his face. As I walked over to him with an equally BIG smile on my face, I said “Hey baby” to him. He opened up both arms really wide and pulled me in for a picture of us hugging. From what I could tell from watching the previous pictures with people, he had one arm around the back of them. I GOT TWO ARMS WRAPPED AROUND ME IN A REALLY TIGHT EMBRACE! YAY!!
After our picture was taken, I looked at him and said, “Now don’t forget me on the cruise!” He looked me in the eyes with a grin on his face and said “Don’t worry Melissa, I won’t forget you babe!”
LOVE YOU DONNIE!! BEST FIRST MEET & GREET/NKOTB EXPERIENCE EVER!! Donnie not only remembered my face, but also my name from Meet & Greet! 4 hrs after I told him my name, he still knew who I was!! Words cannot begin to describe the feelings I had after this event! The only way this event could have possibly been better is if other members of the group were there! To think, I wasn’t even going to go if Heather hadn’t one these tickets!! Meeting Heather has been the LUCKIEST thing that has ever happened! LOL. I HAVE FINALLY MET ONE OF THE NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK AND IT WAS THE MOST AMAZING EXPERIENCE EVER!! DONNIE WAHLBERG COULD NOT HAVE BEEN ANY SWEETER TO ME THAN HE WAS!! DONNIE STOLE MY HEART LAST NIGHT!! J He is actually tied with Jon Knight at this moment, if that is remotely possible!! THANK YOU DONNIE WAHLBERG FOR THE BEST 1ST MEET AND GREET EVER!!
NKOTB CRUISE 2010!! I’M READY TO MEET THE REST OF THE GUYS!! BRING IT ON!!!IMAGINE WHAT I WILL SAY TO JON KNIGHT!!! LET’S CRUISE THIS!!
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