All good stories start with "once upon a time", right?
Once upon a time, there was a girl. She was kind of a tomboy, given to jeans and polo shirts on the weekends, and dowdy skirt suits for work, but when it came time for her wedding, she went all out.
Because she was very attached to her grandparents, she elected to honor them by getting married on their wedding anniversary. Alas, that year, their wedding anniversary fell on the Friday before Labor Day – not a time when anyone wants to be traveling, but no matter, she was the bride and it was her decision.
The wedding was scheduled for six o’clock on that late summer afternoon. In order to get there in time, guests had to take all or part of the day off, traveling alongside all of the merry folk heading for end-of-summer beach weekends.
The church service – a Catholic mass – went off without incident, though it was an hour and a half long, in a un-air-conditioned church, the air heavy with incense. The bride wore a gown, beaded, seeded and encrusted with lace. Her hair, usually hanging limply at her shoulders, was swept into an up-do, and her face had so much pancake make-up that you could have scratched lines in its thickness, revealing the skin below. In short, she was transformed into a “Bride”, wearing a costume unrevealing of her ordinary self.
After the ceremony, the guests left the church for the reception hall, and the wedding party decamped by limousine to who knows where to have their pictures taken. And taken. And taken. The guests ate all of the hors d'œuvres, and drank to abandon, wondering where oh where the bride and groom had gotten to.
At last the happy couple made their appearance. The guests were ushered into the dining room, at 10:30 pm. Appetizers were served. Appetizers were eaten. The band played hoky wedding staples, and the DJ narrated the entrance of every last member of the wedding, “and here’s the lovely sister of the bride”. The main course finally arrived. The Chicken Dance was danced. At least one guest passed out in her plate, felled by a combination of the late hour and the copious amounts of alcohol. Sometime after midnight, the cake was cut, and the couple squished it into one another’s faces, and all the guests were released from the hell of the worst wedding that I have ever been to.
Is it any surprise that they aren’t married anymore?
If you're wondering why I felt compelled to tell you this excruciating tale, it's because Mayberry Mom asked "What’s the story you end up telling and retelling about your wedding, or one you attended?" and it was too long for a comment. And no, it was a stranger at our table who passed out in her plate.
16 comments:
There are quite a few of them, but the one that springs to mind right now is the one where my husband's aging yet irrepressible grandfather got up during speeches to tell a joke involving golfing, owls and 'not being able to f*** worth a hoot or hoot worth a f***'. Good times.
Oh dear. Not a very good beginning, no wonder it didn't last.
(Dinner at 10:30 pm? Yikes!)
Oh, I do love a good wedding disaster! I saw a few in our years doing wedding photography. "No pictures until after the ceremony" is completely ridiculous, and if I was unable to talk the bride out of it, I charged extra.
We once had a groom attempt to get away, but they found him and dragged him to the altar. They were separated in 2 weeks and didn't pick up the wedding album for a couple of years. For some reason the bride decided she wanted it then. A cautionary tale for her children was the only reason I could come up with.
I will forever be grateful that I went limp on everything but what mattered most to me and allowed the current to take me in the direction that caused the least familial strife.
Ours is how my husband's BFF was following the limos on the long drive to the reception and his truck broke down (and the limos got separated from each other). Being from WAY out of state, he had no ides where he was going (or what hotel he was in that night). And this was before cell phones were prevalent.
He finally got someone at the main holiday inn line to tell him what hotel he was booked at and then got a very expensive cab. Eventually we located him at the hotel and got him to the reception.
oh, that is BAD. At least you got to drink to abandon.
hmmm.... i am debating if I should leave a comment here about the story I tell, or if I should blog it myself. hmmm...
couldn't resist:
http://paintedmaypole.blogspot.com/2010/03/benefit-of-straps.html
That sounds miserable. Although, I am pretty darn good at the chicken dance and my kids LOVE it.
Ah... memories. At least the groom and I had a lot of fun getting our "pictures taken."
And I totally am just kidding. Because my wedding, though similar in many respects, did not involve a Catholic mass. At least as far as I can remember.
I will never forget the extravagant Jewish wedding of a friend where the bridesmaids all wore the shade my mom calls haloshes(cheap)pink & the maid of honor's hat looked as if they'd taken a hubcap and squashed it flat.
Or my brother's wedding. They insisted I be a "bridesmaid" even though I was a matron with a 2 year old. We had sleeveless silk dresses from J Peterman--lovely, except that the maid of honor had a very large tattoo on her bicep. And of course,(as I had predicted), SC had a crying fit when she was in the audience and I was up there with the wedding party....
I did enjoy that story, and even felt like I was THERE to witness the face squishing. Thank you.
Very vivid.
And there's nothing classy or respectful about a reception where cake gets squished into other people's faces. Yuck.
Ah, yes, I remember it well - right down to the passed-out chick at our table (who, as I recall, was dressed in an astonishingly slutty fashion!)
Gee, did they divorce on her grandparents'wedding anniversary as well?
I love Alex's review!
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