Cal: You know what's a fun game? Take 3 Excedrin PM's and see if you can whack off before you fall asleep. You always win, that's the best part about the game.”40 year Old Virgin”
When we last left our dashing hero, he was sitting comfortably in the front row of the cathedral with his four groomsmen, awaiting the arrival of the bride. It was about 5 minutes before the scheduled start time, when disaster struck…
We were just sitting there waiting for time to pass, and I looked around to see the crowd already filling up most of the church. Two of our friends who were desperate to have any job or position in the wedding were given the duties of ushers – and their main duty was to try to spread some of my massive family over to the brides side to fill in for her very small family. Being that the wedding was in my home town and not hers, this wasn’t really surprising. The boys though had donned immaculate looking suits for the occasion. They tried to find suits similar to the ones worn in “Dumb & Dumber” but settled on a bright green number and the other was a solid purple. Looked pretty impressive.
While gazing back through the crowd, I noticed my uncle standing at the back of the church with his two little children who were the flower girl and pageboy. I wondered how they would go today when we ran for real, in front of a larger crowd. Could be good for a laugh. The flower girl was ready to go, and “Teddy” would be making the trip down the aisle with her today – which was cool, because Teddy’s pink fur just happened to match her brand new dress. The pageboy was in an identical suit to the groomsmen, and it looked absolutely perfect.
My mother was down the back of the church talking to my uncle with the kids, when she came running down the front to where dad and the rest of my family were sitting, a row or two behind me. In a matter of seconds, we could see all the blood drain from mum’s face – something was wrong and the look of panic on her face set in. The whispers started, and sensing the need to let the groom know what was going on, mum came down to the front to inform us.
In my last post, I told you about how mum was stuck in the bedroom without her clothes because my brother had driven off in the car that they were in, and how this would come back to haunt us. It did when we forgot the flowers on our lapels, because mum was the only one who knew about them and she was put into a panic and didn’t get a chance to show us where they were. But that wasn’t all…
The flower girl and page boy down the end of the church looked all ready to go, and were conducting themselves extremely well considering their age and the situation ahead of them (being a large crowd and all). She looked all ready to go with her Teddy and flowers. The pageboy looked like a little gentlemen in his suit and vest…but there was something missing from his ensemble. Wasn’t he supposed to have that little cushion today? You know, the white one with all the lace crap on it? The one with the rings tied to it?
The day before the wedding, mum had taken the rings out of their boxes and tied them to the cushion – all ready to go for the big day. Only mum knew where the cushion was, and since the best man (whose responsibility is usually the rings) had never seen the cushion or the rings, we presumed this would be taken care of. Sometimes the best man is given the rings and he has to put them in his pocket until the time comes, but obviously that was not the case as the pageboy would be bringing them to the priest today.
When my mother was running down the aisle to talk to dad, it was the usual “I thought you had them” talk. Then she came to the front of the church and told me the good news.
“We forgot the rings.”
My first reaction was to laugh – what else could you do? All the boys thought it was pretty funny, but we tried to keep it quiet while we sorted out what to do. Another uncle offered to drive back to the house to get the rings left in the bedroom still tied to the cushion. He left with much haste, and was gone only a minute or two before dad said “Does he even have keys to the house?”
When the answer came back in the negative, we sent our second operative back to HQ to retrieve the rings. Dad left again with much haste, and later told us how as soon as he jumped in the car, the little red needle hardly moved off the “E”.
While we sat and waiting, making a few jokes to ourselves about what we could use as substitute rings, and members of my family behind me accused me of visiting the pawn brokers before the wedding, I noticed a face at the end of the church I didn’t expect to see – it was the mother of the bride. But that meant…Oh yes, the bride was here and ready to go. It was about 3 minutes past the hour, which is probably the earliest a bride has ever been. She was here, and yet the rings were still not. We hoping that dad would return with them any minute and hopefully the girls were still sorting themselves outside the church and wouldn’t enter for a few minutes.
The mother of the bride came down to take her place, and stopped to congratulate/thank/wish me luck while the video guy watched on. I called him over for a quick “talking head” shot.
“I just said hello to the mother of the bride and I don’t think she knows that we forgot the rings yet”.
The bridesmaids had started to climb the steps to the front of the church, so the priest did the only thing he could do and went to the back of the church to tell them the news – they would have to wait for a few moments until the ring arrived. Thankfully, they all saw the funny side of it. By now, the entire church had learned why the ceremony had been delayed, and I think it actually put everyone in a good mood. What could you do but laugh?
Eventually dad came back with the rings, and even though I haven’t seen it yet I’m told the camera guy got some great shots of him running into the back of the church with the pillow and rings.
With that little drama sorted, we got on with the ceremony. Despite a good showing in the rehearsal, the flower girl lost the race down the aisle by 4 lengths to the pageboy. I was already up $10.
The entire ceremony went ahead as planned. I was a little concerned that the bride would be a dribbling mess of tears for the entire ordeal, but she seemed to be holding it all together at the alter with what could only be described as “Lamaze” breathing techniques. It did get a little teary during the vows, but that is to be expected. She did forget to say one word, but before she could get the word repeated the priest had moved on to the next bit. I thought better of trying to make a joke out of this while standing at the alter – which was a big effort on my behalf mind you – but what was the magic word she forgot in her vows?
“Fidelity”.
So I guess she gets a free pass on that one.
We were announced husband and wife, left the church for the photos outside and to meet everyone, and then to the historic building next door for the first half of our 3 hour photo session. All went well, and then we left for the second half of the photo session, which would be out at the golf course.
Since we were running a little late, they decided to our shots on the ninth green instead of half way around the course as we had planned. The best man was told to grab a golf buggy at the club house and drive it down to meet us, which wasn’t a problem.
I don’t know much about golf etiquette, but I know driving the golf buggies on the green is a big no-no. But after their efforts this morning, I took great pleasure doing in seeing how many donuts we could manage on this glorified lawn. We were to have pictures taken with the entire bridal party surrounding the pin, and the first girl to step on the lawn noted how deep her heels dug into the turf. We encouraged them to walk around a bit to aerate the soil a little more. I don’t think we did any permanent damage, but it sure felt good. After a certain amount of time, we had all the photos taken that needed to be, and I was quietly confident that we had some real rippers in there. These photographers were top notch so I’m very optimistic about the outcome, when final results should be a few weeks away.
With the photos done, we headed back up the hill for the reception, and yet more shenanigans were in store for us…
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