Wedding Story
The Proposal:
We’d come back from a late-night shopping trip, doing our last-minute Christmas shopping. I’d been reading and my boyfriend was sitting at the computer, acting like he was completely engrossed in whatever he was doing. Out of the blue, he announced, “Your Christmas present is in those bags over there.” I just shrugged and went on reading. He loves tormenting me with gifts, playing the “I know something you don’t know” game and I wasn’t going to play that night, because not playing along is my form of tormenting.
“I want you to have it now. Go get it.” I got the bag he told me to get, saw that it looked like a jewelry box and realized what it had to be.
The ring was still in the bag, still in the box, with the top stapled shut on the bag. I handed it to him and told him if it was what I thought it was, he should be giving it to me and not making me get it myself. He took it out of the bag, handed me the box, crossed his arms and with a smug grin said, “Well?”
Deciding to be just as annoying, I handed the box back once more and said, “Do it right, or I’m not saying yes!”
This time he took the ring out of the box, held it out to me and again asked, “Well?”
I just stared at him, trying not to laugh and cry at the same time.
Finally, after a long silence, he got on one knee, asked in a really shaky voice if I’d marry him, and then tried to put the ring on my finger. It didn’t fit! All of that fuss over a ring I couldn’t wear!
The Wedding:
We rented a car and drove to Louisiana for the wedding. My fiancÃ?© had lost his wallet, we couldn’t find his birth certificate, and it was questionable if we were going to be able to get a marriage license in time. We’d decided we’d go through the ceremony if that happened, then when we got back to Indiana, have a civil ceremony when we got his identification all straightened out. His mom had a photo copy of his birth certificate, and the ladies at the court house were sympathetic and accepted it. We told ourselves it would be smooth sailing from then on. Oh, how little we knew!Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
The morning of our wedding, I was staying next door at my fiancÃ?©’s step-grandmother’s house, and since it was bad luck for the groom to see the bride, we called each other about half a dozen times. If he was going outside, he’d call and tell me not to be outside, etc. I finally left to get ready and promptly backed the car into a flower mound that separated the two driveways. Like the good hit-and-run driver I am, I took off, promising I’d tell his grandma about it when I got back. She didn’t find out who did it for 2 years!Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
At the church, I got into my dress, my mother-in-law was helping her step-daughter, our flower girl, into her dress when the first disaster of the day struck. My first hint something was wrong came when I heard the words, “That’s all right, Mama, they’ll dry,” come from the stall. The kid had dropped her tights in the toilet!Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
When it came time for us to go around to the front of the church, just as we went outside, it started to rain. While this was unwelcome at that moment, it was a drought at the time, so I couldn’t begrudge them the little bit of rain, even if my maid of honor and my sister were both water-drop speckled
At this point, I have to fill in a gap in information, because if I don’t this next part won’t make sense. My parents weren’t able to come because of bad health, so only my sister, brother-in-law and niece were there on my side of the family. Since we weren’t sure until the last minute about my sister and her husband being there, I asked my husband’s step-father to give me away. He called and officially asked my dad, who’s got a wicked sense of humor at times, if he had permission to give me away. Dad’s exact words were, “Sure, tell him to take her!” So, when we got to the front of the church, during the “who gives this woman” part, he said, “I do on behalf of her parents,” and in a voice I don’t think he meant for the rest of the church to hear, but it’s clear on the video, “take her!”
The second wedding malfunction of the day came during the lighting of the unity candle. My gown had rather long floppy sleeves, and I was paranoid about them catching fire. I’d seen enough videos of flaming bridal gowns that I was worried about that more than anything else. My mother-in-law, being the creative lady she was, had decided to put some of those flattened marble things on the table with the candle, as well as some in the candle holders we’d use to light the unity candle. My husband caught on pretty quickly that they’d fall out and used his free hand when he tilted the candle holder to keep them from falling. I hadn’t noticed them; I was too worried about the flaming bride thing, so as I tilted my candle, the little blue glass things dumped everywhere!Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
We’d chosen a song for the unity candle lighting and had asked the sound lady to fade it as soon as we’d finished lighting the candle because it was a really really long songâÂ?¦ after lighting the candle, while we were standing there, looking into each other’s eyes, and trying to keep from giggling, he whispered, “She’s standing at the bottom of the steps, looking at us!” She wasn’t in the sound booth at all! Four and a half minutes later, the song ended and the wedding continued. During that four and a half minutes, we had a mini-brawl between the ring bearer and the flower girl. The flower girl, my husband’s step-sister, was singing along with the song, rather loudly. Our ring bearer, my niece, being older and slightly bossy, had told her to hush. She’d kept singing so my niece pinched her, and we were all treated to a very loud, “OW! STOP IT!” My sister gave them both the hairy eyeball, and they hushed.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
On our way back up the steps to the pastor, my bridesmaid, preoccupied with making sure I didn’t trip on my gown, stepped on the front of hers and very nearly flashed those of us in the front. As it was, my groom, the best man, the uncle with the camcorder, and the pastor got an eyeful, but didn’t quite get to see everything.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
At last it was time to say our “I dos” and I got mine out just fine. When it was my husband’s turn, just as he was saying “I do” the one and only boom of thunder from the rain drowned him out. Six years later, we’re stillÃ?¯Ã?¿Ã?½not sure if that was a sign of approval, or disapproval, or what! As we prepared to exit the church, the sound lady goofed once again. We’d made a tape of music to play, in order, but the tape had gotten turned over somehow, and the song we exited on was definitely not the one we’d planned on! It was battle music from a video game! We hurried out of the church so we’d have a few minutes to get over our mortification.
Unfortunately, our luck didn’t get better. After the reception, before I changed since I didn’t think it’d be a big deal, we went over to the pastor’s house to wash the rental car off. While standing out of the way to let my husband wash the shaving cream off the car, I stepped in a fire ant bed and discovered they CAN bite through panty hose. I ended up yanking my skirt up above my knees and having him hose my legs off to get rid of them. On our way back to the church to gather our things and give me a chance to change, my husband glanced off the road for a moment to look at a softball game in the local park, and when he looked back up, there was a huge four-wheel drive coming at us. He ran off the road to keep from hitting it- we weren’t that close, but he panicked- and ripped a hole in the tire.Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½
We tried Fix-a-Flat, but it was a sidewall hole, and the air leaked back out within minutes, and some good Samaritan had decided to load our trunk for us while we were changing clothes. Everyone had left the church, so there we were in the parking lot, a flat tire, and a trunk loaded with small appliances, towels, pots and pans- all of which had to be piled out to let us get to the spare tire. It looked like we’d just robbed a Wal-Mart!Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½ At least there were no fire ants and I was wearing jeans now!
It was nearly dark by the time we’d gotten the tire changed, and since we’d been led to believe someone was getting us a room in a hotel as a gift, with the reservations already made, we hadn’t tried getting anything for that night. We didn’t find out until after the wedding when the person in question handed my husband money and apologized for not getting the reservations made. Instead of having a nice cozy room, we ended up out and about until after ten that night looking for a hotel with a room, and ended up getting one of the few left because of some sort of Pilgrimage back to Natchez booking everything. We ended up in a place that had a t.v. older than my husband in it. We hadn’t eaten, and the only restaurant in the area didn’t deliver. So on our wedding night, at 11:30, we found ourselves in a Pizza Hut in Vidalia, Louisiana. Ahhh, the romance!
We made it home a few days later. We were tired, nursing sunburns, and in my case, jellyfish stings (five minutes into my first time in the ocean and I walk into a large cluster of them!) but happily married. I wish I could say that life has gotten easier, but our luck hasn’t changed. If it’s going to happen, if it’s going to make people shake their heads and cluck their tongues, it’ll happen to us! It doesn’t matter anyway, we’re together and staying that way, no matter what life throws at us.
