« and we're gonna stay together for a million years.... | Main | Not Skeerd »
It's like rain on your wedding day
by anna at 07:04 PM on August 19, 2004
The reason most wedding receptions aren't as fun as MG's is that there are too many requisite old people that must be invited from both sides. Usually you can only invite so many people and Uncle Charlie, Aunt Ruth, Grandma and the parents are all a given. This crowds out the rowdy friends that make for a better party. Alas.
My wedding was held 7/23/88 in a small country chapel with no AC. You could hardly breath. The reason we had it there is because my folks' country home is 3 miles down the road. We too were nervous. One of her friends generously offered us Valium---big mistake---this isn't a day for being overly relaxed. It shows in the pictures. Mellow isn't the word. Maybe dazed.
We had a poolside reception with one of those humungous tents over the buffet in case it rained, which it did. Well, it misted. I'd promised to go easy on the drinks but you combine a few of those with the sedative and whatever to counteract that and you're a mess. But I held myself together well enough.
My old friends were all under strict orders to keep things cool. No convening in hidden rooms in the basement, no hitting on my wife's sisters and friends etc. I have pictures that prove they ignored the latter rule. Sis didn't seem to mind a bit. As for the first one, it seemed to go as well as could be expected with this group. (See prior posts about Whore Hey and his crew i.e. us.) But evidently, after we jetted off to Lake Tahoe, things got a little dicey. Luckily some of my closer pals were able to keep things from getting way out of hand as it well could have in a house with twenty five room, 8 of them bedrooms with locks. A good time was had by all. And Tahoe was great: Dining, drinking, gambling, dancing by the waterside by night, hiking and horseback riding in the mountains by day (all financed at the tables.) But to swim there you need a wetsuit. Brrr!
I've been thinking about it lately because we were so poor the only engagement ring I could afford was a 1/4 carat speck from the floor of the diamond factory. For our last anniversary I supplemented it with one of those anniversary bands. It looks pretty good but it would look better with a 3/4 carat solitare. I offered it, but she would rather have a riding lawnmower. Or a bobcat. Not the animal, silly, the earthmoving machine. Really.
Well, I know you've heard a lot from me lately. I shall be mum for some time as we're beach bound once again.
comments (6)
ooo... you figured out the extended entry thing.
I had the luxury of joining as an author after that was standard issue. Your authorship must predate it.
by chuck woolery at August 19, 2004 9:55 PM
I can't have imagined doing the wedding high. I already had such a poor grasp of time and space that day, I can't imagine what having a chemical running through me would have done.
by mg at August 19, 2004 11:27 PM
We weren't high per se, just real relaxed. And it was ok because my mother-in-law had All Matters Planned and Accounted For as always.
I'm reminded of that scene near the end of Spinal Tap where David goes, "Well, I'd probably feel a whole lot worse if I weren't so heavily sedated."
Chuck, I am just clueless. If it's standard issue on your screen, why wouldn't it be on mine?
by anna at August 20, 2004 7:45 AM
Anna,
You weren't kidding about Tahoe. I'm going up there again tomorrow with girlfriend and her family. The water up there is great to look at, but it is cold. I've swam in Tahoe three or four times now, and the water is always dangerously cool. My hard and fast rule of thumb is that, if you can see lots of snow from the beach, the water will be too cold to swim in. No matter when I go (usually August), there's always a lot of snow still on the mountains. It's a little discouraging.
Once I went in and was only able to swim for about fourty-five minutes before I had to get out because my scalp hurt. I think that it was so cold, my scalp was contracting and gave me a terrible headache. The only other place I've swam that did that was the Pacific ocean off the coast of Washington. At least I really did have a wet suit on that trip.
Also, as I'm fond of saying, I'm so Irish that I get a sunburn by just looking out the window. If I absolutely need to venture out under the dayball, I have to wear a beekeeper's suit just to keep myself safe from its evil rays. The absurd elevation at Lake Tahoe means that the effects are multiplied ten times over. Plus there's plague up there. Seriously. If you look around by the bathroom's at King's beach and some others, there are warnings that the small woodland creatures might be plague carriers. That makes me nervous.
by Mike Sheffler at August 20, 2004 3:48 PM
Yeah I had that scalp effect too. But when you've flown 3000 miles to San Francisco, then another 300 back to Tahoe on a puddle jumper where the pilots sometimes close the little divider thing they have separating the cockpit from the passengers and when you ask them why they say it's only when they're dancing, you feel like you must sample the ice cold drink.
by anna at August 20, 2004 6:53 PM
Getting back to the wedding, the weirdest dynamic of all was my sister. She was supposed to be in charge after we left. This is like leaving the fox to guard the henhouse. She knew of my friends' reputation and would have liked nothing better than to see things degenerate into Caligula-style partying. When everyone stayed on their best behavior, she's like, "You guys must have gotten old or something." And we have.
by anna at August 21, 2004 8:58 AM