Every wedding has a story….

My Niece Annie made me a card for my wedding.  This is one of the pictures in it.
My Niece Annie made me a card for my wedding. This is one of the pictures in it.

This is our Anniversary weekend so I thought it made sense to tell a bit about our wedding day.

I don’t think there is a single wedding in history that goes off without a hitch. There’s typically something that stresses the bride out, flowers aren’t right, the groom does something stupid (think ‘Father of the Bride’). Our wedding and the time leading up to it is no different.

As a bride, I was lucky. We were getting married in Richmond, I lived in Chicago, so Michael did all the planning, running around, etc. He is an admitted control freak, so the arrangement was perfect. He had created a binder with all these categories and had copies of quotes, different invitation samples, etc. He even created a chapter for “registration” so we could make a list of what we needed to register for given we were combining 2 households already, we really did have to think about that.

For me, my responsibilities were getting my dress and planning the Honeymoon. For the dress, I knew exactly the style I wanted. Funny thing is, it was not a ‘typical’ style that all the other brides wanted so I had a hard time finding it. Jamie and I had gone out one Saturday looking, found maybe 2 dresses in the style I wanted and gave up – we went to Chili’s for Margarita’s instead. The following weekend, I was on my way to David’s Bridal in Lombard, IL when an accident occurred ahead and took out a power pole. Imagine no working traffic lights in a busy road. I am not a patient “waiter”, so as I am sitting in traffic, I look to my right and what do I see but a bridal shop aptly labeled ‘BRIDE$MART’. You will note the S is really a dollar sign.

It was easy to migrate through the traffic to get over to BRIDE$MART. They didn’t have power either and no customers were in the store, so I wandered in, told the salesperson what I was looking for and she pulled a few dresses for me. I had to use a fitting room near the entryway to the fitting area to get enough light to see, but we made it work. I tried on the first dress I liked, walked out to look in the big mirror and said SOLD. It’s amazing to me when I watch the ‘Say Yes to the Dress’ shows now and a bride’s budget is in the thousands of dollars. My dress price – $200.00 cold hard cash (including the veil). Sure, it was used, but who cares? It wasn’t previously used by me. J I must admit, however, I did have a moment of panic when I paid for the dress and left the store without Jamie having been with me. The deal was done, so I just had to hope Michael liked it.

Fast forward a couple of months to the weekend of the wedding. My brother Todd and my Dad flew into Baltimore and drove down, Neal and Robin were here, Jamie was here…we were ready to go. I went to meet Todd and my dad for a drink before the rehearsal only to find when I get there that my dad was not feeling well. Todd didn’t make a big deal, but when I went up to see my dad before we left,  he  was so hot, yet he had chills and could barely open his eyes. He said he “ate something bad”, which was always what my dad said, so we left with the promise that we would bring food back for him.

The next day, we get to the church and are getting ready to take pictures before the ceremony ( I didn’t want to waste time taking pictures to get to the party!) It didn’t take long to figure out how sick my Dad was. He could barely stay awake. His fingernails were blue. We took all the pictures we could without him and only pulled him in for those few he needed to be in. Then the decision had to be made……who’s going to walk me down the aisle? Clearly, Dad couldn’t do it. So….my oldest brother Todd, walked me down wearing dark slacks and a tweed jacket with patches on the elbows. It was perfect. When the pastor says “who gives this woman?” Todd turns to the pews, Neal helps my dad stand and Todd says “Her Father and I”. Michael said my dad was passed out the rest of the ceremony.

The Pastor gets his own part of this story–

Michael was worried about one of our friends who was habitually late not showing up on time. So much so that he told him to be at the church an hour earlier than the rest of the guys. He showed up on time, dressed and ready, it was the Pastor who came running in 5 minutes before we were supposed to start, sweaty from a basketball game with his suit slung over his shoulder. Michael was ready to throttle him, but since he made it on time, he was spared.

Move on to the ceremony to the part where the Pastor likes to tell some little anecdote that makes the participants think he knows you so well. He looks at me and says, “Vickie, I know your always cooking when you wear that Marquette sweatshirt”. Todd was still standing there at this point and all I could think was if he called me Vickie again, Todd was going to lose his temper. He didn’t call me Vickie again, but as we were leaving the ceremony, 3 of Michael’s girl friends started to sing “oh Vickie you’re so fine” to me.  It was a hoot!

After the ceremony we took a few more pictures and then Todd took my dad straight to the emergency room. We had a nice reception at this art studio down in Shockoe Bottom. We were on a tight budget so friends had helped out all over. Cameron and Amy did the decorations; Bruno ran and got the food and champagne. They all met up at the reception place after the wedding and set it up before people started to arrive.

We had a small wedding therefore not a large crowd. People milled around, had some snacks and cider or champagne. We cut the cake. It was hours before Todd arrived to fill us in on Dad. As it turns out, he had a severe infection which so he was admitted to the hospital.

The next morning we went up to the hospital to check on him ourselves. Michael and I were willing to cancel our Honeymoon, but Todd and Dad insisted we go. Todd stayed at Michael’s apartment, which worked out as it saved our friend Scott from having to come over twice a day to give Elwood his insulin shots. Todd already knew how to do it as he took care of Elwood when I was traveling before I had moved to Virginia.

We went on our Honeymoon, Dad remained in the hospital and we called every day. He was released the day we returned. We immediately moved into our rental house, Todd and Dad went home and the rest, as they say, is history.