Heafy Gets Married: Part 2

Jeremy Grey: Gloria, I've been doing a lot of soul searching recently, and I think I'm ready to take this relationship, our relationship to the next level.
Gloria Cleary: Jeremy, I am so ready to take it to the next level.
Jeremy Grey: Really?
Gloria Cleary: Yeah. Do you want to watch me with another girl? How about those Brazilian twins we met at the ball game?

”Wedding Crashers”

We move on to the big day, Saturday 15th of October 2005.

The girls were all staying in a flat while I was at my Grandparents place. They had a shower schedule starting at 7.30am and appointments at the hair salon from 8.30am. I got up at about 8ish as we had booked ourselves a 9.30 tee-off for the morning. We had one pull out, being my younger brother (he’s 21, so not too young but you get the picture). I called him at 8.30 to see if he was ready but he only got in 10 minutes earlier so it was safe to say golf wasn’t on the cards for him.

The rest of us trotted out to the golf course for our 9.30am tee off. We knew Saturday morning would be busy with the golf club members, but the best man had booked this tee-off time some weeks ago.

All looked well, until we got to the pro shop and they told us our tee-off time had already passed – at 9am. Since I was with the best man when he made the booking, I knew where the mistake had been made and it certainly wasn’t by him. The next available time they could get us on was 11.30, which was a bit close to the wedding.

We went back into the car park and talked about our options. I was pretty pissed off because this was the same golf club that we were holding the reception for the wedding – so we were pumping a fair amount of money into the place that very day and they couldn’t squeeze us onto the course for a quick nine holes. The best man and I went back in and gently reminded them of this, and eventually they let us go out in front of the ladies who had their competition day. Man, how hard is it to give these guys business?

We planned on skipping a few holes to get ahead and then come back to play them later, but the “Ladies Captain” – who had no hesitation telling us she held such a regal position within 2 minutes of speaking to her, was being a bitch right off the bat. What is it that this place has against people under 40 years old? I kept telling all my friends from the city how nice country people are – which is true, save for the only exception being this golf club, where they are complete wankers. Our revenge would come in time.

Of the group of 9, I think maybe 3 of us have held a golf club before. To say the quality of play was poor would be a gross understatement, but at least they had fun taking pot shots at emus. Yes, one of the many hazards on this county course was the roaming emus that litter the grounds. There was even a special rule posted in the club about the added hazard of emu droppings on the course. You won’t see that at Augusta, I tells ya.

When we whipped around in quick time and got back to the pro shop, I still hadn’t paid for the Gatorade I took the first time I went in. I told him about it the second time I went in, but forgot to pay for it yet again. I kept the empty bottle for the entire nine holes so I could bring it back to pay for it just to show him how honest I was.

Me: “Here mate, I still forgot to pay for this, sorry about that.”
Him: “No, it’s ok. You can have that one for free, thanks for going around quick.”
Me: “Nah I’ll pay for it, I carried the damn bottle all the way around the course just to come back here and pay for it, so now I’m going to pay for it. How much?”
Him: “$2.90”
Me: “$2.90?!?! You’ve got to be kidding!”
Him: “Hey, I said you could have it for free”

I don’t think he could see the sarcasm and irony in the whole situation. At least I got a laugh out of the guy standing next to me. I did think it was a little funny that we were spending about $6K upstairs that night with the golf club and along with $250 we just spent playing 9 holes for the group of us (plus we just ordered 2 rounds of beer), and here he was generous as anything offering a free $2.90 drink.

With golf over, we headed back to my grandparents house for lunch, and with the added bonus of there being a cricket game on TV it would be a pleasant lunch watching the Australians vs The Rest Of The World team with a few beers before the wedding.

The day was also Caufield Cup day, the second biggest horse racing day on the Australian calendar. I decided to lie down on the lounge room floor with my beer (grand father’s home brew, mind you) while watching the cricket and reading the form guide in the paper. My soon-to-be mother in law came around to check something out or to confirm something – who knows – but all in a rush and panic because the wedding was 3 hours or so away. She was quite shocked to see me in my current state, spread out on the floor reading the paper. I guess I am just a little more relaxed than everyone expected.

Seriously, it was unbelievable how much I was getting hassled about it all. So I am an easy going type of guy, who cares? Every second person was doing the whole “So, getting nervous?” thing whenever they saw me, and I guess they just thought I was trying to play it cool but I’m just like that. It doesn’t bother me all that much. But an ace on the board when I’m holding QQ? Yeah, that usually worries me a little more. I have a problem.

Eventually it gets close enough to the start time to warrant me to begin getting ready, always with one eye on the cricket. I had four groomsmen for the day, 2 brothers and 2 high school friends. The suits were all ready and looked a treat, so lets get this thing going shall we?

Hang on, my older brother thought white shoes would look cool with the black suit. I didn’t even get to say anything about it before mum jumped in and played the motherly roll and told him to go get his black shoes which were at his girlfriends house. So off he went in mum’s car – which also contained mum’s clothes. So mum had a shower and started getting ready when she remembered the dress was in the car, and then realised that my brother had decided to take that very same car for a little drive to get his shoes. We were not late and had plenty of time, but this becomes very relevant later on.

Eventually we all got ready and I called the groomsmen into one of the rooms to give them the run down for the day. The orders were if anything goes wrong during the ceremony, their first duty was to laugh at it. It’s no good things going wrong if we can’t get a laugh out of them. Mistakes are bound to happen, if we just roll with the punches then it will all be ok. If a page boy decides to go for a run around the alter, grab him and give him a piggy back ride. At least we know where he is then. Secondly, I gave them each a present for rocking up on the day – a glass decanter with four port sippers. I bought an extra one for myself too.

We got our act together and headed off in the cars to the church. We got to go into a side entrance through the priest’s entrance and hung out there until it was time to enter the church. The priest came out and said hello, how is everything – the usual stuff. He was a very cool priest all up and was great. He said “Oh, so you boys are not wearing flowers then?”. That’s funny, I’m pretty sure I had this discussion with the Distraction and I lost, meaning we would be wearing flowers today. However, a quick glance around the room revealed that not one of us had a flower on us. Mum knew where the flowers were, but she was too busy before to let us in on the little secret. Anyways, this was no big deal and an uncle drove the 5 minutes back to the house to get them. They arrived back with us in plenty of time and we had averted the first problem.

About then a man walked into the room we were in holding a video camera and was already shooting. It took me a moment to realise this was the guy we had actually paid to do this, but he failed to introduce himself or anything like that. He was a bit of a dick, but I have seen his finished work and it’s top notch so I guess post-production is his speciality.

Since I already thought he was a dick, I didn’t give him any straight answers for his questions. Besides, I was getting a little bored waiting in the wings like this.

“So, are you nervous about today?”
“No, Australia has a pretty good hold on the cricket. Warney is in top form and should clean them up by tomorrow.”
“Anything else going on today?”
“Yeah, we played golf this morning. He hit an emu!”

Time comes around and the priest leads us into the cathedral. We get to sit in the front row and wait for the bride to make her fashionably late entrance…and then disaster struck!

Tune in to my next post to find out what drastic event occurred next, which threatened to postpone the wedding!