This is dedicated to my friend Debra Jolin. I wrote it after the wedding to cheer her up, and she said it made her laugh at a time when she really needed it. She passed away about a month after this was written. I always knew she'd make a good Angel, but I hoped it wouldn't be this soon.

--Bryan

Hi, Deb:

Here's another Oh My God! wedding story:

I did a wedding/dinner/reception this weekend that took 14hrs not including drive time.

The minister got called away to a hospital visitation before the ceremony, and the bride got tired of waiting and broke into the church by throwing a brick through the door, so she would make the pre-ceremony formals deadline that I gave her. Then she took 3 hrs to get ready. The guys forgot socks and remembered beer, so they were just as late.

Ceremony/formals go without a hitch. Except that no one attended rehearsal and so one of the mothers took a roll of masking tape and wrote names on the tape and stuck it where the attendants should stand. There was even a "Stop here and get pitcher taken" (sic) label. They thought about this and then asked for my technical recommendation on where they should stick that one. Instead of telling them, I gave them a location in the aisle where they could put the tape.

The minister arrived less than 5 minutes before the ceremony started, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, looks at his smashed front door, says he's glad we found the key he left for us, does a quick change into his suit, printed me a "script" quickly told me to do whatever I wanted, and started the ceremony.

During the processional, everyone including the flower girl and ring bearer dutifully stopped to get their pitcher taken. There were two groomsmen named "Mike stand here", so there was a brief fight over who stood where.

Minister hangs around long enough to get his picture taken, says I'm the only photographer that didn't take advantage of him when he said to do whatever I wanted, complemented me on not disturbing the ceremony and asked for cards for referrals (first time this ever happened), changed back to his informal wear, told me to lock up when I was done, and left for the hospital again.

There was no AC, and it was about 88F and at least 80% humidity. The groomsmen seemed happy, since this gave them a reason to drag the cooler inside the church during the post-ceremony formals. I locked up and crawled through the hole in the door when I left.

Bride insists that the bridesmaids wear their dresses until the first dance is over. They couldn't afford food at the reception, so we all went to a restaurant before the reception. For another 3 hrs. They had about 1/2 enough tables for all of us, so a cute bridesmaid sat in my lap and fed me dinner. I let her.

For the first three hours, no one set foot in the reception hall. Why, you might ask? It's because the Eagles were holding the most sacred of townie social events - a mud bog race. Really. It's a tough choice, reception or mud bog race, and I'd probably have done the same thing. So them being good ol boys, one of the groomsmen decided to "enter" the honeymoon truck. With the entire wedding party and most of the guests watching, he got it stuck at exactly the same place three times in a row, and still decided to go around for a fourth try. By that time the guy that was pulling them out got tired of it and went home. So the truck's stuck for good.

Reception went another 1.5hrs before anyone decided to start the dances, at which point the bridesmaids (still in their dresses) are threatening mutiny by cutting the cake themselves. The lights in this place take 5 minutes to warm up, and she picks as a schedule of events that includes a dance, cut cake, dance, garter toss, dance, bouquet toss. So it takes 5 minutes between each set of events. She gets impatient, so we take cake photos and garter and bouquet toss in the dark. Dollar dances take another hour and net at least $750. By then the bridesmaids are good and drunk and bored. The hottest one grabs me, drags me out on the dance floor, a chair appears from out of nowhere, and I get a lap dance. I hand my cam to the nearest person for safekeeping. The drunk townie fires off 28 frames, and misses both me and the chick on top of me each and every one of those 28 attempts.

I learned a lot that day:

- You don't go to Hell immediately after throwing a brick through the front door of a church.

- You don't go to Hell immediately if you go to a mud bog race instead of your wedding reception.

- You don't go to Hell immediately if you're a groomsmen and you enter the company truck in a mud bog race, but you do get stuck in the same place four times, so I think He probably doesn't care too much for it.

- 98% of guests who don't have money riding on the outcome of the mud race will leave after 1hr and 45mins of not having cake.

- Lap dances are scary.

- You don't go to Hell immediately after a lap dance, but I can't imagine Him caring much for that, either.

- Maybe putting "Budget-Friendly" in my phone book ad wasn't the smartest thing to do.

- The probability of having the photographer's BMW "decorated" with beer and leftover window paint at an event such as this approaches 103%.

- That's the end of my "I stay until the reception ends" policy.

Bryan