Picture it… October in Minnesota. The leaves are changing, it’s an unseasonably cold day (about 39 degrees) and we are at a local lakeside supper club for a wedding…outdoors (good thing I ran to Target that morning for leggings to wear under my dress!) where my husband is a groomsman. A little back story, this is the bride’s third wedding and the groom’s second. The entire wedding party is comprised of individuals from the periphery of the happy couple’s lives, mostly co-workers, because their families are sick of shelling out money for weddings for these two.
Anyway, the groom had constructed on his own (he and my husband work in a woodshop) a beautiful arbor for their backdrop, kind of had a cabin/shack look to it but fitting for their event. So, the officiant begins the ceremony, I’m sitting with some of the other wives and co-workers from the shop and the groom interrupts the officiant, grabs a beer from the back side of the arbor, cracks it open and announces “I CAN’T DO THIS SOBER!” takes a big swig and then hands it off to the best man. A few other times throughout the short ceremony he snapped his fingers in the direction of the best man (who unsuccessfully tried to pass the beer down to the last guy in line to keep it away from the groom) so he could take another drink.
When the ceremony ended and we began to make our way inside for the cocktail hour the shop secretary said to me “Did you see that too or am I in a bad dream right now?” I replied that this was real life. The bride went in the back door and straight across the banquet hall and out the front door without saying a word. She got in her car and left. The bridesmaids went after her. The groom defended himself saying “It was just a joke, I thought she’d laugh!” The bridesmaids went after her (she just went back to their home about a mile away) and they convinced her to come back. She was threatening to shred their marriage license instead of filing it. I don’t blame her one bit! Six years later they are married and doing well, but yowza what a way to start your marriage!!