A Love Story continued ...

And now for the wedding …August came rushing toward us and that meant the wedding day. All of the last minute stuff was being done, and to be honest I don’t remember a lot of it, not because I wasn’t aware of it but the details don’t compare to the event and the life after. The day of rehearsal was full of greeting people who arrived, setting up the church and cringing at things that were being changed without our consent. Of the guys who stood up with me the only one had seen that summer was my brother. So there was a little bit of catching up that we did when they all arrived. My memory is that rehearsal went relatively smoothly, but I could be blocking some things out. I do remember it took too long and as a pastor now I am a stickler that rehearsals don’t need to be more than 45 minutes once everyone arrives. Everyone understood where they were to be and most agreed on when they were to be in their places.

You must understand that given all the things Jody and I desired in the wedding that were changed on us one of the points I refused to budge on was that the wedding would start on time. I wanted people coming down the aisle at the stated time of the wedding. My mother in law had read that the mother of the bride should enter 10 minutes after the stated time. Not sure where she read it, or why someone thought that was right, but it was her firm belief that this was correct. I insisted more firmly that an article didn’t matter to me and that at our wedding we were starting on time. That night the guys and I spent the night at the home of one of Jody’s bridesmaids, we didn’t do anything wild, we did talk a lot about how much life was changing. I was the second of us five of us who was getting married. We realized things would not be the same, but we said we would remain friends. Sound familiar? Well you should know that the five of us are still friends and still keep in touch. We live in 3 different states and all took different career paths, we have 16 children and about that many grandkids. For the past 3 years we have gotten together for a weekend to catch up and deepen our friendships. Sometimes those college dreams live on.

The day of the wedding dawned and we made our way to the church. In those days you took almost no pictures ahead of time (I like the pictures ahead of time). In the room where we were getting ready a startling discovery was made, some of the tuxes were missing pieces or were the wrong size. There were phone calls and a hurried trip to the rental store to correct the problems. I don’t know if Jody heard any of this or not. We were ready early and the word was so was Jody and the girls. I was waiting in a little room just off the front of the sanctuary, anxiously waiting. Word came that we were about ready to begin but no one could find Jody’s mom. Remember the issue of when the wedding was to start? That’s right my mother in law was hiding so she could start on her time. My dad got word of this, he said “I’ll be right back. Later I learned that he searched for and found my mother in law. He returned and said, “We are starting now.” I have never learned what my Dad said, he won’t say and she never would either. All I know is we started on time. My Dad rose even higher on my hero list that day.

Jody was beautiful. We made it through the wedding. My mom’s nose was red from tears, they were tears of joy. My Dad and Jody’s pastor, Rev. Andree, did the ceremony. Jody’s brother and sister in law sang and we got married. We went had the ritual known as the receiving line (that seemed to go forever), then we went and cut the cake and the reception began. We went back in the sanctuary for pictures and they took so long that by the time we finished everyone had left the reception and the cake was gone. At that point I didn’t really care, I wanted to change get in the car and head to the honeymoon. We changed, got in our car that was covered in drawings and writing from my buddies. We stopped by Jody’s parents home for something and then were on our way.

My buddies wanted to pull a prank on us. So they lifted my keys to our trailer and were going to have people help them do stuff to our trailer. They got a little nervous and asked my Dad if the keys they had were to our trailer. My Dad looked at the keys and said, no those to the place they are going on their honeymoon. We had already left and there were no cell phones …