For months my co-worker talked non-stop about her son’s impending wedding, which gave me ample time to prepare my excuse. When she finally announced the date, I sighed and shook my head morosely. “Darn!,” I said, “that’s the day I always spray the lawn for cinch bugs.” Barb looked hurt. “Can’t you do that another day?” I shook my head. “That would just complicate things,” I said vaguely.
I knew I would get an invitation anyway, but it didn’t matter. I don’t go to weddings of coworkers’ kids since I always end up at a crappy table too near the band and too far from the bar with all the other D-list guests.
Soon after, the invitation arrived and when I opened it, the first thing I saw was that the “honour” of my presence was requested and this hardened my resolve: I hate that pretentious misspelling that says, “This is a classy gig; we’re spelling like the Brits.” But then I saw the asterisk.
I had never seen a wedding invitation with an asterisk before. Here, the asterisk appeared after the date of the wedding, October 8th, and as I scrolled down the invitation I read in small print at the very bottom:
“* The wedding date may be postponed if the bride’s divorce is not finalized by October 7h.” Enchanted, I knew that I could not miss a classy gig like this, but first I did a quick, crass calculation to make sure the cost of my wedding gift would not exceed the projected cost of the reception dinner, which I assumed would be sausage and beer.
Thankfully, the bride’s divorce was finalized on October 7th, so on the 8th I showed up at the hall in West Palm Beach with a group of coworkers. It was a sensory smorgasbord. First, we saw a swan sculpted of ice, clearly executed by someone who had never tried such a thing before. A disco ball spun overhead while three women dressed like minor Greek goddesses played an ill-advised version of Pachelbel’s “Canon.”
The ceremony was scheduled for 2:00 but at 2:25 we were still waiting which gave us time to make unseemly comments as to the nature of the delay. Eventually, the double doors were thrown open and the guests turned expectantly, just in time to see the groom, horribly hung over from the bachelor party, vomiting copiously onto the lawn.
It was an auspicious beginning to a memorable afternoon. The bride wore white and carried her infant daughter. The bride and groom wrote their own vows, done in poorly scanned verse, and illustrating the difficulty in finding words that rhyme with “love.” The bride’s 10-year old son from a previous boyfriend sang “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling” while the bride and groom had their first dance as a married couple.
At the reception the beer flowed like water and my favorite memory of the day is of the bride pumping the keg, a cigarette in her mouth, with the baby dangling from her free arm. In the background the bride’s mother was slow-dancing with a much, much younger man, holding him so close that even we spectators could feel the heat. “Who’s the kid with the bride’s mother?” I whispered to a coworker. There was a pause. “It’s her son,” I was told and I nodded, speechless.
After that, it was all an anticlimax, and I left the reception hours later with a beer buzz like I have not had since college, and a general feeling of well-being. I was glad I decided to let the cinch bugs wait.