Weddings are very stressful; mine was no exception. That hot August day, and the week leading up to it, all play back in my memory like a Monty Python rendition of “Clash of the Titans”. If that does not provide a vibrant enough visual image for you, I can offer no further help. Suffice it to say that the night before, when my husband and I headed out to a romantic dinner to mark our “last date,” we came very close to running off and eloping. I still wonder if we made the right decision.
I have a few specific memories of the day, the rest of it “resolving itself into a dew.” Those that I can recall, however, are forever etched into my brain. I remember being particularly impressed that my about-to-be husband heeded my wishes and memorized his vows. We did not do anything fancy or creative, however, I felt we should say our vows to each other rather than repeat them from a third party. My husband turned to me, holding my eyes with his while he conveyed the obligatory promises with an impressive amount of feeling—for a guy. Kudos, babe!
I remember a number of friends who traveled long distances to be with us that day. I remember how beautiful all my bridesmaids looked—each a friend that held secrets from my youth. I remember my friend Richard playing the harp as I walked down the aisle, filling the hall with heavenly sounds. I remember our friend Andy grabbing someone’s guitar and the microphone to fill the band’s Union break.
Then there was the ‘other’ wedding: the party for my parents and a hundred or so of their closest friends. Early in the evening, as I was wending my way through the guests who were each recalling the last time they saw me, my husband of fifteen minutes approached, asking me to talk to my father on his behalf. Apparently, a couple of his friends—well north of the legal drinking age—had asked the bartender for a beer and were refused. I agreed to intervene, but wondered if this was foreshadowing a deeper divide in the father/son-in-law dynamic.
Trying to be graceful while balancing atop four-and-a-half inch heels, I sought out my father. I explained that the bartender needed approval from him to serve beer to my husband and his friends. What I thought was a miscommunication turned out to be by design. My father, it seems, felt that beer would degrade the occasion. He had provided the best in top-shelf liquor for the guests and would not lower his standards. Let them drink Scotch!
This was his last word on the subject. It did not matter that my husband and his friends had no taste for hard liquor (if only that were still the case!); he would not compromise on this point for anyone. After all, it was his party and not mine. I returned to greeting his friends.
Sometime later it became apparent to me that my husband was missing. Here I was at my own wedding and I could not find the groom anywhere. A six-foot-four redhead was hard to misplace, especially as my mother, disregarding my selection of a stately grey morning coat, (again, NOT my party) had ordered him a hideous white tuxedo. He looked like the “Man From Glad.”
Fortunately, there were a few fonder memories that helped save the day. There was the way my husband removed my garter with his teeth. And the indelicate way my brother’s girlfriend dove like a Navy Seal to grab the bouquet (although to no personal avail!) There was also a huge bouquet of balloons delivered to the reception from a dear friend who could not get out of Chicago to attend. When we later retreated to the honeymoon suite, the balloons were tied cheerfully to the headboard.
A few days after the wedding we left on our honeymoon, and then slowly made our way back to the real world. Weeks later we got an angry call from my father. In the aftermath of the wedding, as he was sifting through the paperwork, he found a charge for $84 on the bill for our hotel room. He insisted that we pay for whatever it was that we ordered. I assured him that we had not ordered any room service, nor had we eaten in any of the hotel restaurants. It had to be a mistake.
He called the hotel, telling them that these charges were invalid. The following month they billed him again. Once again, he called me demanding that I pay for our room service charges. I continued to assure him that we had not ordered anything.
This $84 charge plagued my father to distraction. He considered it harassment; he took up matters with the hotel manager and then followed it up the food chain through corporate management. He was so relentless that they finally wiped out the charge, but not before he spent at least nine or ten glorious months fighting it tooth and nail. It became his cause celebre; he would call me just to share his pride in each scathing new letter he drafted.
Twenty-five years later, I made a big party for my husband’s fiftieth birthday. For the occasion, I reached out to many of his high school and college friends. Three of his four groomsmen still lived in the area and attended the party. After a little lubrication, one of them began reminiscing about our wedding. He remembered how my father refused to allow them to drink beer. It seems that when my husband went “missing” from the wedding, it was because this cadre of buddies dragged him to the hotel bar to have a beer. Then the final piece of the puzzle snapped into place. After my husband rejoined me at the wedding—and the guys downed a couple more rounds--his friends gave my father’s name to the bartender to close out the tab. This was the mysterious bill that was charged to the honeymoon suite. All those years, our friends thought they had tricked my father into buying them beers after all. Little did they know, he always got his way. Even without knowing it, my father had the last laugh.
It is an interesting footnote that my husband never said a word, even when my father went to such lengths to obliterate the charge, even though he alone knew the charge to be legitimate. When I asked him why he did not speak up his answer was simple: my father never asked him.
Tomorrow's blog: Trivial Pursuit
Tomorrow's blog: Trivial Pursuit
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