Many months before the wedding, my mother asked, “What religion is Bob?”
“Oh, his family’s Jewish, but he’s not.”
Mom kept a relatively straight face, a fact which I have appreciated more and more over the years.
Oh yes, the wedding: I walked down the aisle on my father’s arm. The small Peoples Church chapel was stifling. June. Ninety-plus degrees, the occasional rain drop when the air was simply too heavy to contain it.
I was in some sort of ecstasy. The wedding ring about to be put on my finger would not be removed until my death. It was a crowning moment.
Blam! A flashbulb directly in my face. Fury overrode judgment. There was a rule against flashbulbs during ceremonies, but my wrath was all about the smashing of my once-in-a-lifetime dream.
I reached the altar to stand beside Bob. “Reverend Tefft! Reverend Tefft!” I whispered urgently. “Tell them to stop taking pictures!”
The good reverend thought I was upset about broken rules. “It’s all right,” he assured me, and continued without a pause.
Marriage one, lesson one: Some things just cannot be controlled.
Wedding two: I was 45 years old. Russ and I were to be married in Las Vegas, largely because my friend Jackie had insisted. “It has to be in our house,” she said. “You must float down the staircase, a beautiful bride. It’ll be perfect.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I said. But she was insistent. We rented hotel rooms for family, had everything in order. But two weeks before the wedding, Jackie called.
“Don (her husband) doesn’t think the wedding will work, here. I’m sorry.”
I wept. Russ and I searched out dingy rooms in fancy hotels. Nothing. Finally, friends Carl and Jo Lynn said, “Have it on our patio. The back yard is big. We’ll put the tables there.”
“What about the Steinway grand?” said Russ. He was determined to rent the instrument so that my son Andy could play during and after the wedding.
“It’ll go on the patio,” Carl assured us.
The date was May 13. “Guess you guys don’t have triskadecaphobia,” teased my daughter Erica.
The rental office was very skeptical about the Steinway on the patio, but finally they agreed. It never rains in Vegas, certainly not in May.
It rained. Oh, how it rained. It held off until after the ceremony, then dumped on the tables, the arrangements, the crepe paper – everything. In what seemed to be seconds the rental people arrived to rescue the Steinway. To whisk it away, in fact, improbable as that might sound.
“You can’t!” yelled Russ. “It’s fine under the patio roof! I already paid for it!”
They didn’t even bother to respond. We dragged the tables inside and crammed them into Carl and Jo’s tiny living room. Bare, beat-up tables and sodden folding chairs. It evoked homeless shelter, if not skid row.
But we were joyous. The cramming-in led to a whole lot of group jokes, stepping on one another and trying to squeeze past people without inappropriate touching. But there’s something to be said for that, even.
Marriage two, lesson two: Some things just cannot be controlled.
Wedding three: I was 64; Jack, 65. Our romance blossomed around the fact that email had been invented and Jack and I were about to share a high school class reunion, East Lansing High School, Class of 1949. On email, Jack looked very good. East Lansing had regained its luster after my many years in Los Angeles city, Phoenix, and northern Los Angeles County, arid and season-less places, all.
I traveled from California to visit Jack in East Lansing. Four days later we agreed that a wedding was on. At our ages, no time to waste. Almost the minute I got back to California, Jack phoned. “I thought we could get married in the old high school auditorium,” he said.
“Sure, fine. Sounds good.”
“I stopped on the way home from the airport,” he said. “We can rent it for $100.00.”
We had no formal invitations, just sent email to family, friends and co-workers and to all members of the class of ’49. Quite a lot of them showed up.
At the rehearsal I told the minister that he didn’t need to ask who would give me away. I was too old for that, surely. At the wedding, he asked the question, “Who gives this woman . . .?”
Oh no! I cringed. Then there was a shout from the audience, “We do! The Class of ’49!”
Jack had put them up to it, bless his heart.
Wedding three, lesson three: Some things just cannot be controlled.
This brought tears to my eyes. What a rich life you’ve lead, and continue to it seems. Thanks for giving us a peek into some of the most intimate and hilarious moments in your past!
Love your sense of humor, and Jack’s graphics! I see your hair went from blonde to a lighter shade of “blonde”, and he kept your girlish figure-he is a good man.