So, go on and catch up. I'll wait...
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo..... (think Jeopardy! theme)
OK. All caught up? Let's be off, then, shall we? This is Version Four of Seven in the "No Marriage License" flub, as seen through the eyes of the Best Man.
I was a young lad, having never really taken on such an awesome responsibility as being someone's "Best Man." Having been an altar boy for three years, standing in front of large attentive groups didn't scare me. My deep brewing fear, that I kept whispering in my head, was: "Don't screw up! Don't screw up!"
Having arrived at the church the day of the wedding, I had four major goals:
A. Make sure the groom gets to the wedding in one piece and cognitive.
B. Make sure the bride and groom escape to the honeymoon on time and unscathed.
C. Don't do anything to embarrass myself.
D. Keep the groom calm, cool and collected.
Now, the following events are a little cloudy, but the way I remember it, the bride's father stops me in the hallway and asks, "Do you have or do you know where the Wedding License is?" Do I know where it is? Heck, I have never heard of one before. Thus I was d__n sure I didn't have it. All I knew was that I had the wedding bands secured in my pants pocket and I was checking the contents of that pocket every 4.3 seconds. (Remember Major Goals C and D!) Having the rings was vital. But now, I was being thrust into the responsibility of knowing what a Marriage License was, and most of all, where it was. I knew if I didn't help resolve this, Major Goal B was in jeopardy.
In knowing both the bride and groom, I made my way back to the bride coz I knew she would know what it was and where I could find it conveniently. Well, much to my relief she did know what it was and where it was located. (Please remember I have never been in this small town before, much less in the house the bride grew up in.) Like Peyton Manning shouting out audibles, she started to rattle off the exact coordinates of where in her house the vital document was located. The bride's COMMANDING instructions on where to find the license went something like this:
Tell my dad it is upstairs in my room under the window that is adjacent to my closet. Tell him to move the tin container and it should be under my class plans for when I was student teaching. If not there, have him look where I put my luggage for the honeymoon.Dear Lord! In about a two minute span of time, I felt the weight of this marriage getting off to a solid start squarely on my shoulders. (To use a football metaphor - I have been waiting to do this - it was fourth down with one second on the clock, and the coach was yelling in my ear what play he wanted run so we can win the game. Unfortunately, it was a play nestled deep inside the playbook that we hadn't reviewed since preseason camp.)
So, with a calm face, I looked at the bride and said, "Got it. I will let your dad know." Off I went, and through some grace of God I remembered - word for word - where she said she thought it would be found. With those instructions in hand, her dad sprang to action, jumped in his car, traveled back to the house, and fetched that license.
BAM! Next crisis! I saw in the back of the church that the crowd was gathering to be escorted inside, and the groomsmen were doing their jobs to perfection - a little too perfect. They were being way to efficient, and within minutes probably would have had everyone seated and ready. This had to stop. I think I pulled the bride's brother aside (a groomsman) and told him of the ordeal. I explained that we needed to seat everyone in a slower, more methodical fashion, to stall the proceedings until the license arrived and was signed off on. Without missing a beat, the groomsmen began to escort one to two people down the aisle at a time, thus stalling the proceedings and giving the air of escorting in an orderly fashion.
Seeing that the time was passing, the organist began playing music to soothe everyone's tensions and add more enrichment to the ceremony. In the meantime, I had retreated back to the pastor's office, where the groom and pastor were shooting the breeze. I very calmly told them of what was transpiring and that everything was in control and that we would begin in a few short moments. (Remember Major Goal D.)
After what seemed like hours - but was actually less than ten minutes - the bride's father stuck his head in the door and proclaimed that the marriage license was in hand and that we all could proceed.
THANK GOD!
Frenzied much? Poor guy! Maybe we should have filled the engraved flask we gave him as a token of our appreciation for serving as Best Man...
And, there you have it. Four down, three to go. Tomorrow, you'll hear the whole fiasco from the perspective of the Mother of the Bride. And she has definite opinions on how all of his went down. (Egads!)
So, then. Until tomorrow...
