Marta Acosta has offered up three ARCs of her new book Bride of Casa Dracula for Bitchery readers – and all we want is your best or worst wedding memory. Easy, right? Doesn’t even have to be your own wedding. Could be someone else’s.
For example, I know a certain Smart Bitch who was once a bridesmaid, and the dress was a certain shade that turned that Smart Bitch a very greenish shade of green, without the added enjoyment of nausea. To add fun to frolic, said Smart Bitch was the lone short dark haired attendant among a sea of tall, lithe, blonde, and tanned Southern bridesmaids. Oh, it was lovely. I mean, compared to some dresses out there, she got lucky, but still. Oy.
Marta says, “I actually don’t have a worst wedding memory. City Hall ceremony, small gathering at my parents’ house, margaritas and Mexican food. Okay, except that my husband and I woke up the next morning and we both said, ‘What the hell have we done!’”
Now, my very favorite worst wedding story, one that I reread for added laughs when I’m having a hard day, is the Titanic wedding dress story from Etiquette Hell. Enjoy – but do not feel like your comment has to be that long!
I’ve often said that people do two things at weddings: they get married or they get offended. I usually try to make sure I’m not in the latter group, since I’ve already participated in the former. So what’s your best or worst wedding memory? Share! Your comment enters you in a chance to win an ARC – you have 24 hours, and Marta will pick the winner. Ready, set, go!
My best wedding memory was my own wedding almost two years ago—both sides of the family got along great and everything was beautiful, despite a few hiccups (my new husband abandoned me for the first part of the reception because he was annoyed at the dj for not being a super computer hacker). I still get teary-eyed when I think of my sweetie getting teary eyed when we were exchanging vows 🙂
But one of my favorite memories is probably one of the worst for my parents. We asked my uncle to read a poem during the ceremony. My uncle is my father’s youngest brother and is the crazy one (but in a good way) of the family—tattoos, punk rock attitude, etc., and my dad is a straight-laced CPA. So a few months before the wedding my grandma informed me that she was making my uncle a renaissance outfit, feathered hat and all, and he was planning on wearing it to the wedding. I didn’t think it was a big deal, it suited his personality perfectly, but I “forgot” to mention it to my parents. So they saw the outfit for the first time right before the ceremony! Apparently the expressions on their faces were so horrified that the people they were with both immediately offered to take my uncle out back and kill him then and there! I would still pay a lot of money for pictures of their faces as I wasn’t there at the time! But everything went smoothly despite the outfit, and when my uncle was finished with his poem the minister said, “i don’t know about you, but I really wanted to hear what he was going to say!” It still brings a smile to my face, but I never told my parents that I knew ahead of time what he was going to be wearing!
I have managed to avoid being in a wedding – mine or anyone elses. Of the weddings I’ve been to – I have almost NO memories.
I do remember something from a wedding in the mid to late sixties (I was 3 or 4): the bride and groom first kiss lasted for EVER and seemed quite passionate. Now this was in a very conservative church with mostly OLDER members. I remember everyone looking around at each other and starting to whisper.
That makes me smile
I don’t have any bad wedding memories. Mostly I remember having a good time. I think the worst thing was that a couple of friends of mine and I were supposed to help hand out programs at a wedding, and no one told us we had to come in early to do so. We got there before most guests, but the bride was a bit angry that we were “late”. I felt really bad and guilty, but I honestly didn’t know. This was a minor issue though. The wedding was beautiful and the bride forgave us. I think she was more stressed than really annoyed. She still speaks to us!
This is funny that there is a wedding themed giveaway today though – I’m getting married next week. And I am even giving away stuff at my blog for it! cool coincidence.. I feel like I’m seeing “wedding” everywhere today!
It wasn’t the worst wedding, but I did attend one wedding in NYC where, because of the size of the space rented (it is NYC, after all), there weren’t enough chairs for everyone to sit and eat the lovely catered dinner. Elderly relatives were standing around leaning on walkers! When I asked the caterer what was going on, she said that they had thought some people could eat while others danced, and then vice versa. The only problem was that once people claimed seats, they weren’t giving them up. My friends and I ate on china plates, standing up. Jeez louise, book a bigger venue or cut down your guest list!
Also, the stories above about fainting reminded me of this, one of my favorite ever internet vids: The Best of Wedding Faints (http://www.spike.com/video/best-of-wedding/2684868). I almost fall off my chair with laughter every time I watch it.
My son from my first marriage was getting married and his sister (19 yrs age diff) from my second marriage was to be a flower girl.
During rehersal I was so proud and she walked dow the aisle and hit all her cues. The day of the wedding as she walked down the aisle she saw various friends and family and kept stopping to say hello. Everyone took it all in stride but my face was so red!!!
My favorite wedding story is one that makes the still makes my cousins groan and shake their head in disbelief. My dear (ahem) cousin Ann decided to have a small, tasteful affair (only inviting every Italian cousin on the business side of the Atlantic-plus a few straight from the village) with 10 bridesmaids. Unfortunately Ann didn’t have 10 friends she wanted to torture with her bubblegum pink prom dress nightmares. So she convinced my underage sisters and I to join in on the “fun”. She must not have been thinking too clearly at the time because my eldest sister Danielle hates weddings, hates dresses, hates anything formal, and is so ill-mannered that after 4 years of cotillion failure the headmistress closed-up shop and moved far, far way.
So Danielle did what any person forced into an uncomfortable situation with an open bar handy would do…she got knees over elbows drunk (we’re Italian…its what we do). Then she decided we needed to go on a walkabout through the club golf course so that she could “get some air”. Upon realizing Dani was in no state to make good judgement calls, one of my michevious cousins decided to dare her to walk out 5 feet over a waterhazard on nothing but a thin rickety board. Dani has never turned down a dare in her life…especially when she is drunk and invincible (in her own mind). So she wobbled out on the board, threw us a smile and tried wobbling back. But the board wasn’t quite up to her weight class and decided to break when she was about a foot away from victory.
Her shriek of surprise brought not only several golfers, but also our parents, several other guests, and of course the bride to witness her slogging out of 2 feet of brackish pond-scummy water. By the time she got back on shore she was dissolving into giggles while my cousin fumed and my parents scolded. The dress was ruined as were her dyed-to-match shoes, but she certainly made the wedding photographer happy by adding a certain creature of the black lagoon atmosphere to the whole event.
Needless to say Dani hasn’t been a bridesmaid since….
My worst wedding memory is from my own wedding. We got married in a small chapel on a university campus. This beautiful, darling little chapel was located on the edge of the Graduate School of Business quad. Normally, not a problem on a weekend—the b-school jerks were typically absent. Not so this day. On this day, they were having some sort of competition which included tricycle races. For which they had blocked off the quad. The quad where I, as bride, was going to park.
I drove up with my father and mother and the quad was barricaded off. My father got out and removed the barricade and we drove through, pulling up on the sidewalk to park as we’d been instructed. The head B-School bastard (no, I’m not bitter) charged over with his clipboard (seriously, he had a clipboard) and started, in his oh so condescending voice, to explain to us that we couldn’t park here. Um, bride? In a wedding dress? We first attempted to explain to him that I was getting married and had been told that not only was it allowed, but expected that we would park there. He was having none of it. The conversation escalated in both volume and violence, culminating in me advancing on him while shaking my bouquet and screaming, “I’m the fucking bride asshole. I’ll park wherever the fuck I want.” Ah, the dulcet tones of the bride.
It’s funny as hell now but then? Not so much. At least not after about a bottle and a half of champagne at the reception. It got a lot funnier then.
Ok really my wedding was lovely but there were a couple of things that went wrong.
The wedding was set to start at 4 pm, so I asked family and the wedding party to be at the church at 2 pm so we could take some photos. Well everyone was there at 2 pm except for me and my father who had left the key to the church on the kitchen counter. We had to drive back and get it. Meanwhile, it’s 95 degrees outside and everyone is hot and thirsty. My mother in law (a German – in fact all family from the groom’s side lives in Germany) said she’d go get drinks. So she comes back with 4 six packs of beer (and nothing else) that she wants to pass out in front of this Baptist church in rural Kansas (I had signed a contract that no one would drink alcohol on church property!).
By the time we got there with the key, several family members were pretty tipsy and everyone was sweaty. Made for some interesting wedding photos at least.
No horror stories from me, although I do have a slightly ironic tale.
We planned pretty much all of our wedding ourselves and went into it with the mindset that so long as we were married at the end of the day, it was a success. After all, that was what it was all about.
Since it started pouring with rain very early in the morning and never let up, it seemed a good mindset to have.
Despite the rain, everything went very well and we headed off to the reception happily, safe in the knowledge we’d been right. We were married and therefore the day was a success.
Ooops. As the reception progressed the church clerk (also a family friend and wedding guest) came up and asked for our copy of the wedding certificate back. It turned out the priest had forgotten to sign it. He’d arrange to get it done first thing in the morning and then return the certificate to us.
So according to our preset condition for success, despite everything going beautifully, our wedding was a failure. We weren’t legally married by the end of the day and had to wait until the next morning for everything to be complete and legal.
Who cares. It was a wonderful day.
I had a friend in my wedding who was not only a few years older than me, but also thinner and more “urbane” than me. And of course, she never let me forget it. When I chose my bridesmaids’ dresses of course she had something to say. And I completely ignored her (take that Olive Oyl!).
So a few months later when it came time for me to return the favor, I KNOW she chose her bridesmaids’ dresses with revenge in mind. How else would you explain PeptoBismal pink polyester suits with HUGE 1984 powerbitch shoulder pads and a large silver button at the waist the size of a grapefruit? I mean really. And of course I had gained about 10 pounds by the time the wedding rolled around so the overall effect was just plain ghastly. But she still (13 years later) refuses to let me forget that the dresses she chose cost less than the ones I chose. If you ask me she should have paid me to wear that damn thing.
Okay—I’m a big woman. BIG woman. And there I was, 5’10”, size humongulous, among all of these 5’1”, 95 lb. bridesmaids. My dress had to have special panels put in on the side because it only went to a size 12. (BLARG!!!) My shoes didn’t fit—I’m a size 12 in women’s shoes—they only made a size 9 1/2. And I’d been in a car accident the week before so I had a big green/yellow bruise down the side of my neck.
So the bride ignored me and my family when we got there, expected me to shove my feet into those shoes at the last minute, and begged my 2 1/2 year old, CH son to be the ring bearer. I was sitting in the pews during a ceremony-laden Catholic service, literally busting out of my dress, and hoping my kid didn’t throw a core-meltdown on the floor, when I realized that the four gallons of apple juice we’d given him to keep him happy had sopped right through his diaper and his new suit pants—and he was literally shining the stone floor of the church. I hadn’t been to the rehearsal (car accident, remember?) so I figured, okay, everyone is standing up and sitting down—they all stand up again, I’ll grab the kid, take him back to his father, and then go back to my pew.
I got the kid to his father, turned around, and realized, OMG, all of the bridesmaids had stood up to LINE UP BEHIND THE BRIDE. HOLY SHIT! I go running behind all of them, get down to the pulpit, and feel my foot slip a little on the stone. It’s slipping a little on the stone because I’VE FORGOTTEN MY SHOES. And there I am, at the end of the line. Taller than everybody else—including the short groomsmen. Fatter than everyone else—yes, even than the groomsmen. And shoeless.
The bride blamed me. She said I’d done it on purpose. We haven’t spoken in fifteen years.
Me? I had a kegger in the park, screaming kids welcome. I don’t regret it for a moment—I’m still talking to everyone who attended.
(uhm, except for the bride of the bad wedding—don’t talk to her anymore:-)
Um, screwing up the speech at my sister’s wedding when I was maid of honor, and ending up giving something more depressing than touching, heartwarming, or serious. We don’t talk about it.
Oh, Leah, I LOVE that you were almost late because your family was enthralled with the Colts! Shouldn’t have planned your wedding on a game day 🙂
My wedding was mostly o.k. I did throw a fit near the end of the reception. I had mentioned repeatedly and threatened physical harm to anyone that decorated our get away car. I know it is silly, but I just hate that tradition. I stormed around, asked for keys to ANYONE’S car and yelled, snarled whatever at those that did the decorating.
We ended up driving off in the decorated one, but I made my DH stop at the nearest gas station to clean it off. I think it lasted 3 miles.
Then we went to a bar, I had a drink and the rest of the night was just fine:)
Sam
It’s been over six years and the husband and I still cringe when we talk about our wedding. As a favor to the hubby-to-be, I agreed to let my future-mother-in-law make my wedding dress. She likes to sew and asked to do it so that we could “bond” or something equally silly. I bought a pattern that had the size I was currently wearing, and went up to two sizes bigger than I’d ever been even at my biggest weight gain. She kept putting off the shopping trip for fabric, but in the end I sent her off with everything she would need six months before the ceremony.
Four months before – she makes a practice sheath under dress (It was a Renaissance wedding, so there were a lot of heavy fabrics she didn’t want to ruin) out of some cheap fabric and I try it on. She walks around me, tutting the entire time, and tells me that it’s too small and I must be bigger than I told her I was, and she didn’t think the pattern would be big enough. Rather than realizing she was out of her mind, I started crying.
Three months before – she makes a second sheath under dress. It falls off of me. I can’t keep it on, the neck hole is big enough that it slides off my shoulders. She tells me I must have lost some weight. By now, I realize something is up, and tell her that no, I was the same size I was the month before.
Two months before – using the pinned up second test dress as a guide, she’s made the first part of the real dress. Once again, it falls off of me. Again, she tells me to stop losing weight. There has been no weight change. Period.
One month before – the entire dress is finished and hangs off of me like an elephant skin. My hands are encased in cuff, my hemline is a good six inches longer than my legs, the neckline is barely hanging on to my shoulders. And the fitted over dress? Doesn’t.
The week before – my future SIL shows up with the dress and it is a mess. MIL has decided to just pleat the back of the fitted dress, rather than cut the fabric, has covered other alterations with random rick-rack in random colors and designs, and it still DOESN’T FIT. I take off work and drive an hour and a half to her house and refuse to leave until she has pinned the thing to me, with the promise that it will be ready by the day before the ceremony.
It isn’t. I walk down the clearing steps, at noon, on the hottest day of the year, in velvet and satin, holding the front of my dress up to keep from flashing my undergarments at all the guests.
Don’t even get me started on how the In-Laws (who were in the wedding) didn’t bother to show up for the rehearsal and were late the day of the wedding and have still never actually met my parents to this day, the MIL came to the ceremony in a pinned together dress that started to fall apart when she stepped forward to do her part, how the person video taping the wedding realized she was running out of batteries on the camcorder and just stopped filming half of the ceremony because “it was boring”, or how I spent my wedding night in a driveway with a drunken wedding guest as he decided to finally come out to the world and by the time I got him settled in on the couch for the night my husband was out cold.
When my cousin got married, he invited the entire giant extended clan. And of course the wedding just had to be held in his fiancee’s church, which was far too small for all the guests. We were jammed cheek-to-jowl in the pews and on folding chairs at the ends of the aisles, with people standing in the back and in the foyer. The groom’s attire involved black jeans, a bullriding belt buckle, and a Stetson, the bridesmaids changed out of their dresses into cutoffs and tank tops before the reception (which would have been more or less fine if anyone else had been given notice, but no, the rest of us were stuck in our dressy clothes) and again, the crowd was so large they would not fit in the church reception hall. So they’d set up tables outside.
In August.
In Alabama.
It was over a hundred degrees. Plus humidity. Plus mosquitoes.
Note that the wedding party, including the girls who’d changed for the heat, had a table inside the nice air conditioned building.
I got nothing on these, but I’m still pissed about this.
My father left my mother for his junior engineer just before I get engaged. They get engaged after I do, married before I do. I’m forced to go to their wedding by my father threatening me with not going to mine, and I burst into tears when she starts walking down the aisle. The minister tells me that my father is marrying into a wonderful family. I don’t say, “Yeah, he left one, too,” but I wanted to. My father then yells at me about my behavior next time he sees me and is yelled at in turn by my fabulous husband-to-be about his unrealistic expectations for me.
Anyway, the only thing I’d had in common with the step-monster was weddings, so we’d talked about that. I had told her that my bridesmaids would be wearing hunter green, that my dress was velvet (December in NJ) and had an empire waist. Then she shows up at my wedding in a, you guessed it, velvet, empire waist, hunter green dress. I was SOOO pissed. I realize now (for the first time! OMG!) that it was probably revenge, but it still pissed me off. When I tell this story, men don’t get it and women are outraged for me.
::shrug:: We get along okay now. I even mostly get along with my father.
Mine is a memory-by-proxy, because it happened when I was young enough that I don’t remember any of it. I’ve been told about it by my mom and her younger sister.
My dad’s youngest sister was getting married for the second time (total has been four; none of them have worked out). She asked my parents to allow me to be the flower girl. I think I would have been three, based on the dates on the pictures my mom has.
During the rehearsal, my mom had to tell me about half a dozen times that it was okay to throw the little pieces of paper towel on the aisle, as she’d always told me not to do that. (She says she regrets letting me do this, as this was the start of a downward slide in getting me to not drop stuff on the floor.)
The next day, I managed to do my duties as flower girl, then was standing next to the matron of honor. At one point, the entire wedding party turned, and I got nudged under the altar rail. I raised my head up, and I apparently cracked my head hard enough the entire church heard it. Everything went dead silent while they waited for me to let out a scream. But, I took a deep breath and held it in. The best guess was that I knew that screaming, however justified, would have spoiled the wedding.
My mom slipped out to the back of the church and waited for me to toddle back. Once there, she picked me up and carried me into the bathroom just outside, where I let out a blood-curdling yell, followed by about about 5 minutes of crying and sniffling. She washed my face then gave me the doll that was my gift for being part of the wedding party, and we went to the reception, where much was made over my being such a sweet little girl who didn’t spoil the wedding.
Best wedding memory:
On my mom’s side of the family during the reception it’s a tradition to annoy and/or embarrass the hell out of whichever relative tied the knot.
My second cousin Daniel absolutely hates the song YMCA, whenever it plays he refuses to dance or sing, he just sits there with his arms crossed and glowers- since he’s a big sports fan, he does this quite a bit. Anyways, his cousins (my mom included) got together during the reception and prodded the DJ into playing the hated song- hauled Daniel out onto the dance floor and made him dance to it while they “serenaded” him while dressed in full Village People regalia.
My wedding was absolutely awesome and NOTHING went wrong, except that my husband broke the solemn pact we made not to smash cake in each others’ faces (the real problem is that he broke the pact before I did… I should have been faster with my cake smashing hand).
However, I was the MOH of a wedding that had MANY MANY MANY issues. Like dominoes falling.
1. We showed up at the church only to find that it was not air conditioned, as they had assured the bride it was. The wedding was on July 15th, and it turned out to be the hottest day of the year… imagine a windowless sanctuary in 102-degrees during a humid Michigan summer.
2. The photographer showed up in a holey t-shirt and cut-off sweat pants. Stay classy, guy.
3. The music is playing, the bridesmaids are walking down. I see the groom standing, a tear in his eye, waiting for the love of his life to walk down the aisle. And she turns to me with eyes the size of frightened tennis balls and says, “I can’t do this. I just can’t do this.”
Her mother talked her into doing it. Turned out to be a disastrous mistake, but for that moment, the wedding was saved.
On to the reception, and the absolute best part. Nikki, a friend of the groom who was not in the wedding party was charged with decorating the reception venue. And she didn’t show up to the wedding. We kept waiting for her and waiting for her to show up, and she doesn’t show to the ceremony. We sent my husband, who was not in the wedding party, out to the craft store for some stuff we could McGuyver into cheap decorations, just in case.
Now, Nikki, this friend who was supposed to decorate… I’d been saying for months that I thought she had a thing for the groom, and they had been physically involved in the past, so I thought I was making a reasonable assumption, right? “No,” everyone tells me, “you’re being paranoid, Jen. You’re a nut bar.”
We get to the reception hall, and it’s decorated, so Nikki did her job. Great! But there is no sign of Nikki. The wedding party is introduced, the bride and groom are introduced… and just SECONDS after they walk through the hall doors, in comes Nikki, behind them.
Dressed in a black sheath dress and a black funerary hat complete with veil and black sunglasses.
She was in mourning.
This is actually a family memory as it is a yarn that we LOVE telling over and over again, especially on the eve of another wedding. My Aunt E is notorious for being a Diva. This woman can make a wake all about her, who needs to hire professional mourners when you’ve got Auntie E? She nearly fell into a grave once with her histrionics. You get the idea. So Auntie’s eldest son is getting married. She loves him, he is the apple of her eye, and is far more adored by her than her other children or her husband. It’s very oedipal. Auntie hates her daughter in law to be. She’s too fat. Her hair is too short. She’s too dark. Auntie tries to talk her son out of marrying his fiance. She sullies the girl’s name to all and sundry. Her son is steadfast, he is going to marry his fiance and that is that. We all breathe a sigh of relief. Far, far too soon.
On the day of the wedding, Auntie shows up in a long, white dress. Not a motherly white dress, a wedding dress.
When I got married, a woman I worked with at the time asked if she could come to the wedding. She said I gave her hope: if I could get married, anyone could!
Best memory: Not yet married myself, but I’ve attended my fair share. When my closest friend from high school got married a couple of years ago, I wasn’t a bridesmaid but I was singing in the ceremony and so I was considered part of the wedding party – which means I was there early the day of the ceremony and got in on all the pre-wedding drama. But, no matter what went wrong – the straps on the bridesmaids’ dresses unraveling, or losing the “something old” (a brooch that was a family heirloom) for the bride to wear, and the bride’s mother completely freaking out over every little thing – my friend looked like she was on cloud nine. She had the biggest, goofiest grin on her face for about 12 hours straight. Her fiance looked so nervous as she walked towards him down the aisle, and although she was trying desperately to look more serious as she obviously thought she should, she could not keep that ridiculously happy smile off her face. If there are images from our life that we will always associate with certain emotions, when I think of joy, I think of my friend’s face on her wedding day.
Not so much worst as funny – my younger brother was the first one in our generation of the family and first one of his friends to get married, at 24, meaning that most of the guests were young professionals or university students. All the unmarried women were herded onto the back lawn for the bouquet throwing. The bride threw the bouquet – and every single woman, including me, stepped backwards with her hands at her sides so as not to catch it! Fortunately, there was a romantic 12-year-old who grabbed it as the rest of us burst out laughing.
My WORST wedding memory has to be the best man who, in his toast to the happy couple, told an anecdote about a pregnancy scare the bride had (with another man). Not so funny, especially since it was a story the groom hadn’t heard before. When I left, the bride was locked in the bathroom crying, the groom was drinking himself into oblivion, and the best man was in the car park with some of the groom’s fraternity brothers, getting the shit kicked out of him.
Oh, and I should say that today COULD have been the source of some worst memories. My son got married today, with the following possible contenders:
1. The bride was in a car accident on her way to the hairstylist. (She’s okay, the car is a write-off.)
2. The groom fell getting out of the shower and injured his back.
3. The MOB fell too (not the same shower) and cut her face, right beside her eye. The MOG (me) thought it needed stitches, but she wouldn’t go—just kept dabbing it with petroleum jelly to keep it from dripping blood.
4. The photographer FORGOT HIS CAMERA and had to take all the pics with my little digital Fuji.
5. Parents of the happy couple included four fathers and three mothers, most of whom don’t get along very well (or had never before met, in a couple of cases). Way too many in-laws!
6. My former MIL, SIL and BIL were there. Haven’t seen them in more than eight years.
7. The bride’s brother, on leave from the military for the wedding, kept drinking shots of tequila and getting others to join him. At one point the bride’s entire family, supposed to be having a picture taken, was found in the bar doing shots instead.
8. One of the bridesmaids upset her notoriously jealous BF by dancing and flirting with all the groomsmen; he broke up with her later in the evening.
With those highlights, the potential for disaster was strong. And yet it was a beautiful wedding, and that potential wasn’t reached.
Best moment for me? My son couldn’t say his vows without crying, because he loves this woman so much. And she does him—by the time they finished “I do” there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
My worst wedding moment/memory is when my uncle got drunk. He was of course the groom and his bride didn’t notice he was a bit tipsy because she herself had over indulged but my uncle was the worst. He had to be stopped from hitting on women at the party after the ceremony.
My wedding was interesting, to say the least. From the get go, it was all pretty much shaping up to go smoothly, or so I thought. Seriously, I had no problems getting things lined up, I was going for simple, inexpensive, and not too much muss and fuss. Seemed like a good idea, and I had a friend offer to do my flowers, another friend who was going to do the ceremony, my boss was going to let me use his place of business for the ceremony and the reception, it had a built in sound system, etc. All on target, right?
One would think so, anyway. Now, on to the story itself. My husband is a Marine. Has been for some time now, and was at the time of our wedding. Now, it’s not exactly the easiest just to take time off whenever one needs to when one is in the military. Not without taking leave time, etc, which he didn’t really want to do. So, some things were left til the last minute, but they were things that normally don’t take that long to do anyway. So, it was on the Friday before our Saturday ceremony that his command decides he can take half the day off to go and get our marriage license. There are a couple of things we need to pick up along the way, and to prevent doubling back and such, we map out our plan to go do the stuff from the nearest to the house to the farthest away. Which starts with going to the uniform shop to get some things for his Dress Blues, grabbing a bite to eat, and then to the cleaners to pick up his Dress Blues. We get to the cleaners and…they lost his Dress Blues trousers!!! Seriously, they could not find them /anywhere/. Now, this is not good, because you can’t just go buy a pair off the rack. They have to be tailored specifically to the Marine. So, they are going through literally every single piece of clothing they have, and they are not a small cleaners. I happened to be 4 months pregnant, and at one point, I am a hair’s breadth away from having a serious breakdown, right there in the Exchange, because they have lost and can’t find his pants, and our wedding is the next day. We are there for a couple of hours, going through log books, finding his entry, they are looking for his pants, everything. I am not dealing well, but finally they found them! And, so we are off to the courthouse to get our marriage license. And…we get there five minutes too late. Five minutes. We can’t get our license. And the ceremony is the next day. On a Saturday, when the courthouse is closed. After the fiasco at the cleaners, combined with my pregnancy hormones, I was done. I did lose it. Complete, just shy of hysterics, meltdown.
But, the officiator of our ceremony happened to be a friend of ours, who also happened to be a Staff Sergeant in the USMC. I figured if I explained the situation to him, he’d do the ceremony, and we could do a simple, legal deal on Monday with the paperwork. Thankfully, he agreed to do that. There was no way I was going to reschedule all I had done. Nope, wasn’t going to happen. We were going to do the ceremony one way or another, with or without official paperwork.
Oh, if that had been all. But, it wasn’t. I had gone twice before to get my husband’s ring, but no matter where I got it, or what size I got, it wouldn’t fit. Finally, on the morning of the ceremony, I had one last chance, and had to go all the way across town to get another ring, and hope it fit. It did, but I had to deal with a rude and inconsiderate salesperson and customer who decided to cut ahead of me in the process. By the time I got his ring, I had spent over an hour in that store. I came out, got in the car, started to back up, and had to pull back into the parking space and open the door and lean out where I proceeded to throw up for several minutes due to nerves and frustration.
I get home, go to get my hair done, get to the venue, make sure things are in order, etc, check on various people, and start to get ready. Things are starting to go well, I thought. It’s about time for the ceremony to start, and I realize that my MOH isn’t there yet. Well, the MOH and the Best Man happen to be married to each other, so they both have to be there. They get there, finally. 45 minutes late!
But, finally, everyone is there. Oh, and this was a military wedding, complete with the Arch of Swords, and all. I mentioned that the wedding was held at the place I worked at, but did I mention that it was a bar? yeah, it was the bar I met my husband at, actually. And I think I am the only person who has ever managed to get 20 Marines in full Dress Blues in that bar at the same time. There was also one lone Navy Corpsman in his Crackerjacks, too. And, the Command Master Chief gave me away. My husband’s Best Man was a Chief Warrant Officer 3. The only military member that was a part of the ceremony that wasn’t in uniform was the officiator, and you should have seen the looks on the faces of all the people who hadn’t known that he was an ordained minister when they saw his collar! It was priceless!
So, my almost 2 year old daughter was the ‘flower girl/ring bearer’ and I figured if she were placed in the middle of a large room full of strangers, with her Daddy smack dab in the front of the room, she’d go straight to him, right? Ideally, yes. But, I neglected to take into account the fact that to a 2 year old, everyone that wears the same uniform as Daddy looks just like ‘Daddy’. So, she walks down through the Arch of Swords, pausing between each pair, looking at the one on her right up and down before she realizes that ain’t Daddy, and then to her left. Nope, not him, either. She repeats this process through all five pairs of Marines in the Arch. I tell you what, the Beefeaters at the Tower of London ain’t got nothing on those Marines. I give them massive props for maintaining their military bearing and staying serious through the scrutiny of that little 2 year old. The entire time, my MOH and husband, and everyone at the front calling to her, trying to get her to look up and realize Daddy was up there. Finally, she reaches the end of the Arch, looks down the aisle, and sees her Daddy up there, and you could hear it throughout the entire bar as she screamed “DADDY!” and took off running to be up there with him.
So, now it’s my turn. The music starts, and here I go, on the arm of the CMC, on my way to be (sorta, unofficially) married. I get up there, standing there, and the minister is doing his thing, and my daughter is getting a little bit restless now, but she’s behaving, for the most part, but starting to wander around us a little bit, but staying right there by us. She walks around behind me, and suddenly, I feel this hard tug on the back of my dress. She has found my train, and had decided to sit on it! Right at the base of the dress, so that it pulls me backwards just a little bit. I get this shocked look on my face as I reach around to make sure the detachable train is still attached. The minister gets this puzzled expression on his face, looks around behind me, sees her there on my dress, and almost cracks up. He’s visibly amused, and actually had to struggle a bit before being able to continue with a straight face.
The ceremony part is almost over, and here we go, down the Arch as a couple. And, as is tradition, I get whapped on the rear by the last one in the Arch with his saber, as a ‘Welcome to the Corps’ salute. I almost whapped him with my bouquet. There is picture of me with the flowers raised to return the favor, actually.
The reception went well, we cut the cake with a USMC NCO’s sword, and I then threatened my husband with the same sword with the promise to use it on him if he smashed that cake into my face. He didn’t, so I guess it worked. We stayed on at the bar after the reception for a bit, as did many of our guests, because it was a regular night for live entertainment, and after a while, I had to go and change out my wedding shoes for my good old, broken in, Justin ropers. Man, did that feel more comfortable. No one could tell, though, because I still had on my wedding dress.
Early the next day, I was giving my daughter a bath, and realized she had broken out in spots all over at some point in the night/early morning. I really didn’t like having to call everyone who had brought children to my wedding that my daughter had apparently been contagious with the chicken pox, but I hadn’t known it, so, sorry, but they needed to keep an eye on their’s, for the breakout. Sure enough, several of them did, indeed, come down with it, about two weeks later.
The most interesting part of this all? Today is our anniversary! Well, the anniversary of the ceremony. Monday is the anniversary of the legalities and paperwork. 🙂 I keep saying we should just split the difference and celebrate it on Aug 3rd.
LOL! the security question is group24. I had a group of 24 active duty military members from two different services in the bar, at one time, all in their dress uniforms! That is priceless!
My worst wedding memory comes from my brother’s wedding. His (now ex) wife picked out “Victorian” wedding colors (or what she thought was Victorian), yet decided that all of the bridesmaids should wear pale champagne dresses. I am very pale, and have a problem tanning due to a) the fact that I burn, peel, then go back to blinding white, and 2) my doctor states that I am never to go out in the sun for an extended period of time without sunblock of at least spf 50, so I tend to remain pale through out the year.
Well, said shade of said dress matched my skin tone EXACTLY. Seriously, you could not tell where I ended and the dress began. (Now ex) Sister-in-law demanded that I had to go get in a tanning bed (this was in the days before self-tanning was practical), because all of the rest of her bridesmaids were tan, so why couldn’t I be. This demanding went on for two months, until she finally backed off when I threatened to have my doctor write her a note explaining why it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to try to tan.
I’ve been to two weddings that could be said to be signs of things to come. The first, I was a grooms(wo)man. They were both still in high school and the parents were pretty clearly unhappy about there being a pregnant teenage bride. There were many little things that went wrong but what I remember best was the candles.
The church had candles that were very soft wax that was spring-loaded into metal casings so that they never appeared to get any shorter. This, while a nifty idea, was not so great in practice. One candle kept oozing out of the top of the metal casing. When they twisted the two individual candles loose to light the unity candle, the bride’s exploded. I bit my lip hard enough I tasted blood to keep from laughing. That was one marriage that did NOT work out.
The second was my best friend’s wedding. The lead up to the event was full of the usual little burps. They’d wanted it outside but it was all blustery like it would rain. Luckily, being intelligent mammals, they had a church ready to go just in case and we used that. The ceremony itself went along just fine and it meant that we were right beside where the reception was to take place. So then it’s all over and the guests lined up outside. The wind is picking up and I’m afraid it’s going to pour rain any second. Instead of tossing rice, we all had cute little bottles of bubbles… And when the bride and groom proceeded to the horse drawn carriage that was waiting for them, the wind that had picked up blew this huge mass of bubbles all around them both and the carriage. It was probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen and fairy-tale perfect. They rain held off right until they were out of sight. 🙂
I’ve been lucky with dresses. As a grooms(wo)man, I got to choose my own dress. For another friend’s wedding, since it was Halloween themed, the bridesmaid dresses were very simple black velvet sheaths that could be worn to other things (and have been!). My best-friend’s bridesmaid dresses were something of a miracle, managing to flatter all kinds of body shapes and skin tones. They’re a peachy pink, which I was horrified to hear till I saw them. I’ve been able to wear it to other things since.
Mine’s not an epic tale of love, loss and drama. Just short and simple.
My cousin’s wedding reception gave 80% of the guests dire food poisoning. One wedding we all remember, if only for the abdominal cramps. (Thanks to the joys of being vegetarianism I got to watch my parents and brother being violently unwell and playing Florence Nightingale to them.)
Oh, and of course it’s pretty much a family ‘secret’ that cousin Edward bats for the other team, so to speak. We think his wife told him he was marrying her and he was too frightened of her to object. She’s an indomitable lady.
Here’s hoping the wedding I’m off to in October ends less memorably.
I *am* vegetarianism? Oh dear, if I carry on at this rate I’ll be disqualified from speaking my native language. Dear readers, please try and ignore the stupid.
While trying to say my vows, instead of “lawful wedded husband”, I kept saying “I take you as my awful wedded husband”. Took 3 tries before I could say it correctly. I should have recognized the sign and backed out then.
My wedding went well, seeing as how I expected something to go wrong. The wedding night, however, landed us all in the hospital while my husband watched his grandmother pass away. And yes, she did pass away on our honeymoon night. At one point, sitting in the hospital room, I looked up to see a man stretching his arms over his head, his shirt riding up to expose his somewhat ample gut. Thinking it was my new hubby’s gut, and wanting to cheer him up (not to mention the fact that I have this horrible habit of performing the most god-awful acts at the most imappropriate moments), I reached over, and with a “boop!” sound, poked him in the gut. Boy was I surprised when my new uncle-in-law dropped his arms and looked at me like I was insane. ‘Why, hello, you’re not my husband.’
Luckily, his wife got a chuckle at it and he gave me a smile (one he surely needed at the time). No harm, no foul. And they’ve been my favorite in-laws since. 😀 But damn, was I embarrassed.