So I’m married, now. If you remember way back to March 31^st 2007, you’ll recall my article announcing my engagement to my long-time girlfriend, Christy. Don’t feel so bad if you missed it, because it turns out I was hiding it since I never bothered to list it in Special Ingredients for the last two and a half years until I just now caught that error. Error… yeah, that’s the stuff.

True to prophecy, she is now Christine Claire Zasada, and happy doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling I have. I’ve settled into a certain feeling of completeness that I’ve never felt before, a kind of comfort that comes only from knowing you’ll always have someone waiting for you when you come home.

I’ll put an end to my sickening sentiment for the moment and talk about the beginning of the thrill ride that finally jerked to a stop, so if you haven’t read the article about the engagement, take a look at it if you haven’t to get the whole sappy scoop about how I met my wife

 As you’ll notice from the article, I made a claim that I would report all of the sordid wedding planning details as they happened. Obviously, I’ve failed to report any wedding plans, or anything for that matter, due to other obligations in my life since then, such as laziness. Plus, there hasn’t been too many Earth-shattering occurrences over the course of the planning, either because weddings actually aren’t as hard to plan as you think, or I’m a groom and ultimately uninvolved in the wedding in any capacity outside of being a prop on the Big Day.

Yet the story has enough interesting components to it to make a mangled yet entertaining picture once you jam all of the pieces into place. We’ll start with the epilogue to the engagement article for no other reason than to point out how close to a deal breaker my now father-in-law was in this arrangement. A simple sentence, paragraph, or article can’t do this man justice, but I tried my best in my article about our fun-filled family trip to the Mansfield Haunted Prison last year, so check that article out to get into the right frame of mind.

Bah, you’re probably not going to be content by being assigned more homework, so I’ll just lay down three core concepts about Daddy to get you started. I really recommend reading that article now, but we’ll press on before I ask you to troll through half of this site before the end of the piece. One thing you have to keep in mind is Daddy is pretty obese and is legally blind due to glaucoma, possessing the vision of a rhinoceros and therefore requires people to drive him places, yet this doesn’t humble him in the least. If anything, it makes him more intolerable.

Daddy Core Concept #1: Daddy is a penny pincher. Not quite a cheapskate (just pretend there’s a difference), because he spends money he doesn’t need to quite frequently, but he has to think he’s getting a good deal, even if he isn’t. This detail isn’t important if he doesn’t know any alternatives, and this process is often at the expense of others. Most of the time, a coupon or gift certificate is required before he’ll eat at a restaurant.

Here’s a true Daddy story from our trip to Branson, Missouri. No, you don’t have to read that article, because I left out the Daddy parts so I could save it for a book I wanted to write, and I was nervous someone would find the article and report to him about it. This is before I learned the best place to hide information I don’t want anyone to see is by putting it on this website.

Daddy had determined which restaurants we would be going to based on the Entertainment books (those overpriced coupon books they try to hock on you around the holidays) he had purchased for the area. Each place was worse than the last, and one of the last ones was so bad it had gone out of business (Entertainment books must, by law, feature at least one coupon for a place that has since gone under).

You can imagine the size of the wrench that was thrown into Daddy’s works. Bewildered and unable to comprehend what was going on because of the devastating discovery that the restaurant he HAD COUPONS FOR was closed forever, Daddy stumbled into a place we had already been to and HAD ALREADY USED THE COUPONS FOR.

As we sat down and the waitress brought us our water, I glanced over at Daddy and noticed his face was practically melting off of his skull, his mouth dangling open and his eyes staring off, mulling over this horrendous situation. He had the kind of look on his face a normal human being would have if they were told their entire family was brutally murdered and their heads stuck on the front fence posts. This situation was clearly beyond unacceptable.

Suddenly, the family start muttering in their secret Lapointe Language that I swear involves telepathy, because I never know there is a discussion even happening before the situation suddenly changes. All at once, everyone stood up and began to leave, and I started glancing around, wondering what was going on. It turns out we weren’t going to be eating their because Daddy didn’t have a coupon. As we marched out, the waitress looked confused, and I explained to her in a tone that carried the gist of my annoyance, “We can’t eat here because he doesn’t have a coupon.” And it was off to Bob Evans, because he had a gift certificate in his massive library of pre-paid food funds.

Daddy Core Concept #2: Daddy is petty. This man can hold a grudge so well you’d swear he was living in Israel, having disowned his own brother because he got a divorce from his wife, tainting the Lapointe family’s Catholic Points (and completely ignoring the fact there’s no way Daddy could believe in the religion based on his conduct).

Yet this doesn’t even take a medal in race, the clear winner being the time he disowned his own sister for mowing his lawn for him. I’m not making that one up. He wanted nothing to do with her because she mowed the lawn in preparation for a party Christy’s mother was throwing, something Daddy wouldn’t do because it wasn’t Lawn Mowing Day. Then he disowned his other sister for sticking up for the one of mowed the lawn.

He also craves power at any opportunity he can take it. His thirst for petty power is so great he will start an argument with his wife for the sake of putting her down and will make random, idiotic decrees in an effort to control people around him. He recently banned everyone, including his wife, from using the family cars because no one took him to a meeting he wanted to go to, even though he didn’t tell everyone involved that it existed and therefore a delay caused him to miss it, much to his ire. It’s easy to imagine banning your children from using the car (idiotic reasoning or no), but your wife? That pretty much sums up the respect he has for her.

Daddy Core Concept #3: Daddy has no sense of context. Don’t think being in a public place or in the company of people he’s hardly around will censor him. In fact, it seems to make the aftermath even more awkward, as the innocent outsiders are left with their minds reeling over what they heard coming out of his mouth. I’ve been with Christy over eight years and all I can do to muster a response to his comments is roll my eyes and mutter a small dismissive before going on like nothing happened.

Daddy is known for making stupid jokes or comments that seem funny to him and mostly induce an exasperated eye roll to those unfortunate enough to hear them. He’ll also make crude jokes that aren’t welcome in a particular situation, or he’ll joke about things that require a straight answer. He’s a funny one, that Daddy.

With these core concepts instilled, let’s go back to the Spring of 2007. Christy and her mother insisted that I ask Daddy for permission to marry her. Not that they cared what he had to say, but they were afraid his power well would dry up upon hearing his daughter was getting married without his consent and he would make a desperate attempt to fill it again by cutting Christy off from any future money his majesty would graciously give so he could feel that tinge of power for taking pity on his helpless daughter. It was pretty simple: cross my fingers behind my back and ask him for permission.

But things are never simple with me. I have a big problem with an adult being required to ask for permission from the parents of another adult to marry their adult child. I just seems like the woman in the relationship, someone who has struck out on their own, is suddenly reduced to property that has to be bartered off and signed for. I’d like to think that we as a people have progressed beyond these demeaning customs, but tradition is a resilient beast. Plus, it seems women like to pretend to be helpless little damsels every so often in their careers as women due to a mass psychosis our society still imbues upon them. I personally find it offensive and debasing, and I never planned on going along with it.

Had he been a respectable father, I might have considered playing along tongue-in-cheek out of respect for him, but a respectable father wouldn’t inflict this dehumanizing custom on his daughter or cause others to worry it would be an issue if tradition is not followed, so moot point. Daddy, being the antithetical of a respectable father, would use this as an unexpected font of power and might walk around with a feather in his cap (the tattered, half-beaten robin feather that children our fascinated upon discovering for the first time), Plus, he could conceivable not give his permission, which would make any further pursuit of marriage a direct violation of his will and cause the same situation we were trying to avoid, because let’s face it: we were doing this thing regardless of his input. This was an opportunity I was not willing to give him.

Christy and her mother were insistent that I ask permission, so I turned to C for some future best man advice. Sadly, he agreed with them, pretty much saying it was a formality and I should just go into it with my fingers crossed behind my back. It seems like I associate with fools, so it was up to me to come up with a moral middle ground.

I finally decided I would ask for his blessing. It seemed like a safe play on the language, and if we didn’t approve, we were just going against an opinion, not his decree. While it seems like I was just painting the same word a new color, it was tweaked enough from the original concept that I didn’t have to feel Christy being sold off and Daddy’s decision wouldn’t seem like the linchpin in the marriage plans, yet he would still have his ego stroked to a satisfactory culmination. It wasn’t the most dignifying way to go about it, but we could have seen worse.

We arranged for our mothers and Daddy to come to J. Alexander’s using some excuse I can no longer remember to break the news to him. After ordering drinks, I decided to make my move, but my mother was particularly chatty that evening, as if she was trying some new weight loss exercise which solely involved flapping her lips. I’m not sure if she knew what was happening, but her constant conversation was someone throwing a garden hose into the well of apprehension in which I was trapped in with my foot stuck and cranking up the valve.

Finally, Christy’s mother was able to interrupt and set the stage for me to spring the news on Daddy. I sort of stumbled out with the words, but finally explained I asked Christy to marry me and we would like his blessing. What happened next was something no one expected: his face became glazed over like a dear walking into a stockcar race and his eyes seemed to tear up, though this might have just been a consequence of the dim lighting. The rest of us pondered the same thing in that instant, wondering if this defining and personal moment had touched his money-colored heart and forced a little sentiment onto him. We seriously wondered if he was about to cry.

To this day I’m not sure what broke this awkward moment, but eventually Daddy asked when we were planning on getting married. We let him know it was a couple years out, and he let out his breath, and with it all of the illusion of normal emotional response. He stated it was good the wedding was a ways off, because he didn’t have the money to pay for it. I must reiterate there was no true emotional shock involved in this other than greed. Go play with that one.

Oh, and that blessing we thought we needed? After Christy’s mother reminded him that we asked for it, he made the sign of the Cross in mock fashion. A waste of effort doesn’t even begin to describe it.

After that, we sort of reveled in the idea of getting married, but didn’t take any real steps Sure, Christy started looking at bridal books more and absorbed everything single compliment on her ring like a dry sponge fresh out of the oven, but we didn’t really take any steps because we decided we needed a house first, and that was a couple of years away.

That year proved to be full shoves into the direction of adulthood. I was hired full time at the college in the Fall of that year, and the day after Christmas, we were forced to put down my best friend of thirteen years, Sandy, who was stricken with cancer. After her death, I realized there wasn’t really anything for me at my old home, so it was time to find a new one.

In April of 2008, we found ourselves in our new home, with all of the improvements and chores that follow. We played new homeowner for a while, but as the year wound down to a close, it was time to start thinking about getting married.

First, we needed cash to get this thing going. During a Labor Day picnic for postal workers (of which Daddy was one before the glaucoma set it), Christy charged me with the task of asking him how much money he would be providing for the wedding. This was even more awkward than asking for his blessing, because it was regarding us taking away something he actually cared about. After I started in using my typical bumbling techniques, Christy immediately hopped over my falling corpse and began pressing him further. It was then I realized Christy didn’t need me to ask him anything, she just wanted him to take his opening shots at me so she could hop in while he was reloading. This is what the true spirit of marriage is all about.

Surprisingly, he almost gave us a real answer, so it was time to get rolling. The most important part of any wedding plan is setting the date. There are countless factors involved in determining when you want your dream wedding to take place. Ideally, it would be on the same date as an important event, like the first date, the first kiss, or the first time the pregnancy test came back negative. However, a wedding ceremony is generally a religious affair, so one has to consider the availability of the place where the happy couple will take their first steps as a wedded union and will be remembered for the rest of their lives.

I’m talking, of course, about the reception hall. Where you have your reception is very important, because it will be the one thing everyone involved will remember, and the last thing you want remembered is food that was freshly prepared two weeks ago and left on warmer since, the fragrance of alcohol and cigarette smoke from decades past, and bathrooms decorated in a sky-blue peeling paint, rusted, urine-scented motif.

I’m proud to say we started researching reception halls a year in advance. Unfortunately, wedding planning law states we should have one selected before then, so we ran the risk of having our intended Fall wedding sometime in February, where witless guests could find themselves lost in the vast blizzards of Oregon. Fortunately, they had a slot available for October third at Saint Michael’s, which was perfect, because it left plenty of time to plan for some Halloween hijinks after.

To our benefit, Saint Michael’s is catered exclusively by a company called Michael’s Catering (don’t ask me which name inspired which), which in addition to producing some tasty food is also run by a top-quality, passionate staff. Event arrangements are conducted by a pleasant woman named Sue, who seemed to genuinely care for her customers and their best interest. With her, planning out the reception is far simpler than we ever imaged.

At least it would have been if Daddy didn’t decide to tag along. Christy and her mother tried to trick him by claiming they were looking at dresses, but this backfired because he decided he wanted to go out to eat, coupons in hand, at a restaurant located around the dress shop. So we were stuck with him at the catering meeting, and I suspect he might have figured out they were trying to trick him. Not that his behavior reflected it, as it was par for the course for him, which meant it was enough to make a normal caterer quit their job and walk out into traffic blindfolded just to avoid working with him again.

Yet Sue remained pleasant, even though Daddy put her professionalism to the test. Between his asinine suggestions, random outbursts over the pettiest things, accusing Michael’s of trying to rip him off (mostly on chair covers), and demeaning his wife (just for fun), Sue held out like a champ and we somehow survived the process. She refused to say anything bad about him at later meetings even when I assured her it was customary. There simply aren’t that many true professionals like her in the world. I would have probably dunked his face in a vat of simmering cooking oil in hopes his lips would seal up permanently if I were in her shoes.

We looked at another hall that day too, without Daddy this time, because Christy’s anger towards his conduct was radiating enough he sensed his presence was no longer appreciated, so he grudgingly went home.

With the hall set, it was time to look for churches. Christy, a devout Catholic in the sense that she sometimes goes to church and therefore feels justified in rebuking my Jesus jokes, naturally preferred her family’s church, Saint Ignatius, which the family had deep rooted connections to dating back to maybe three years ago because their previous church folded and they needed a new place to get their weekly Jesus Pieces.

I had ties to First Saint John’s church, since my mother had been dragging me there for years to begin my unwitting education in religious contradiction, yet I still had nostalgic ties to the place. In the end, we went with Christy’s choice, because it had a deep, spiritual meaning for her, plus I would probably doze off if we held the service at Saint John’s due to years of practiced behavior.

As the year went on, Christy went along with her wedding preparations while I stressed about my other Big Day: GarasuNoShiCon, the anime convention run by some of the clubs I was advising at the college. I had saddled myself with the bulk of the responsibility and could feel the weight of the event crushing down on me. Especially the week of, there was absolutely no way I was going to think of anything else. So of course it was two days before that tragedy struck.

On that Thursday, I was busy doing some last minute work on the convention details (most of them) and trying to produce as many ulcers simultaneously as possible when I decided to take a break and go to lunch with a co-worker. I had just sat down to eat when Christy called, and the first thing I asked was whether a shipment of Japanese snacks for the convention had arrived yet, as they were a day late. She said she didn’t know, and I, under a lot of pressure at that point, blew out some steam in the form of a half-joke wherein I stated the snacks were either there or they weren’t. It was at this point she went silent, then started to cry.

Realizing right away I was an insensitive jerk, I began to apologize. Then she told me something had happened, and I thought at that instant someone died. She then explained that Daddy had done something, and I realized at that point it would have been a lot simpler and less painful if someone had died.

Christy had gone over to see Daddy about the mounting costs of the wedding. As surviving wedding veterans know, costs can mount up pretty quickly. As it stood, we were going over the seven-thousand dollars we had had been allotted, and Christy was hoping to tap the sympathetic parental instinct in Daddy’s brain in hopes he could help us out a little more. You know what they say about blood and turnips.

I’m going to step out of character for a moment and play Daddy’s advocate just this once. The fact is Daddy did give us a lot of money for the wedding, and he did honor that. We simply went over budget, and he was under no obligation to give us more money. Granted this was for the wedding of the only daughter he had who was likely to get married (the other having Downs Syndrome and unlikely to demand an extravagant wedding, most likely involving Bob Evans), so the purse strings could have been looser, but I was happy to get anything, given the person we were dealing with.

In fine Daddy tradition, however, even when he’s in the right, he’s wrong. When Christy asked him about the money, he started screaming about how he doesn’t have a money tree in the backyard and told her he didn’t care if he comes to the wedding. She shouted back this arrangement was fine with her, and stormed out crying.

I rushed home as soon as I could and comforted her as much as I could manage considering I had to be back at the college to start setting up for the convention, since I had people waiting for me to get things rolling. I pretty much put my mind off of the matter until after the convention, but once Monday rolled around, it was time to face the Daddy situation.

Planning started at Denny’s that day. The main question was what were we to do now. We began tossing ideas back and forward, including one where I suggested our convention mascot marry us at the next convention. Seriously, he has legal authority to officiate a marriage. There’s really nothing Big Uncle Fuku can’t do. You can imagine Christy’s reaction, after which she told me to be serious, to which I replied I kind of was. Actually, I still wish we ultimately went with BUF, but you know how irrational women can be.

After a couple of weeks of debate, Christy cheerful announced we were going to have the reception at our house and only invite the wedding party, and maybe some other people, keeping it at about twenty to thirty people. It was at this point that social programming overtook my rational mind, and I protested that we had already sent out save-the-dates to well over a hundred people, and it would be a slap to the face to inform them we’re cutting back and they didn’t make the cut. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of excluding friends and family from this wonderful occasion. Plus, I wanted presents, never mind that we could buy more stuff with the money we saved on a proper reception.

Eventually, I proposed the idea of a graduation party-style affair, where people come when they want, thereby reducing the number of people showing up at our house at once. The problem was there was a solid chance everyone would show up at once. While I’m confident we could have fit everyone inside, they wouldn’t be able to breath, and cleaning up the bloated bodies of relatives doesn’t sound like an enjoyable honeymoon, even if we could fleece their wallets on the way to the curb.

Renting tents and having the event outdoors was the solution, but being an October wedding in Ohio, you never know if you’ll be sweating buckets or have snot icicles forming on your nose. As it turned out, it was a pretty nice day, so this would have worked out fine, but if I could have predicted cooperative weather, I could kick Al Roker from his cushy job, take his salary, and have my wedding while Good Morning America was rolling to show off my hot bride, so moot point.

We decided this was the best solution for what we had, so it was my duty to break the news to Sue at Michael’s, something that made me contemplate simply changing my identity and leaving all of this behind, a feeling that was a consequence of how accommodating she was to begin with. It seemed like wasting her efforts would have been a federal crime, yet I still went ahead and robbed that bank.

I should mention at this point that Christy decided we should dedicate over two-thousand dollars of our wedding funds to upgrading the deck in our backyard. The one that was there bore a striking resemblance to a bunch of three-hundred-year-old wood nailed crudely in a shape resembling a deck, complete with grass-green carpet that was quickly removed, adding about five-grand of value to the house right there. I commissioned my boss, who had played handyman at our house the summer previous, to build the deck for a price that illegal Mexican immigrants would scoff at, and some time later, we had a gorgeous new deck, plus two grand less to work with for the wedding.

Even with this in mind, Sue wasn’t going to let us go that easily. She called us into a meeting to discuss alternatives (much to Christy’s ire, since she wanted me to settle the matter myself), where she expressed deep concern over our Plan B, pointing out the same problems we had already mulled over while adding stories of outdoor wedding woes involving bugs attaching themselves to the cake, food, the guests, ect. Again, she might have just been an exceptional salesperson, but Sue seemed genuinely concerned about making our Big Day an enjoyable one, even if we decided not to use their catering service. It was a risky move to make, but it helped guilt us into sticking with Michael’s.

She then helped us cut costs. Since Daddy’s money tree had shriveled up and died, Sue was more than willing to cut out many of the unnecessary frills that guests probably wouldn’t even notice weren’t there, like food. No, really, we cut some the aesthetics and wait staff back, and she convinced the church to charge us the Friday night rate, which was half as much. Considering they would have kept that money either way, it showed tremendous dedication to the customer to make this effort, and Michael’s has earned my future business by far.

I have to mention a bit outside of chronology that Christy and I spent literally weeks arguing, sometimes bitterly, about what we were going to be serving. Hungarian noodles (the kind you get with chicken paprikash, only without the flavor-killing chicken) were not up for discussion; it’s impossible to find a place that serves genuinely good Hungarian noodles in Toledo outside of Michael’s. Based on a taste-testing we did in January, I wasn’t fond of their beef selection, so I thought manicotti was a safe bet. Christy, however, refused to accept two starches in a meal, and she actually debated passionately about this (in her defense, so did I). I eventually got my dual starch, and it was amazing.

With the reception back on track at Saint Michael’s Christy and I felt a boulder roll off of our chests, since someone else would be taking care of setting up most of the party. Now it was time to focus on other tasks, like learned Zen-like control required to not kill Daddy, because he decided to produce a sequel to his highly successful first rage.

This one definitely felt like a Sophomore Slump, but this is Daddy we’re taking about, so even his lackluster tantrums our impressive. I was hanging out with the guys, including my old anime buddy Austin, who was in town after escaping a military convention. We were sitting back and enjoying some anime in the basement when Christy came down and told me she had to talk to me right now. Tommy, the one prone to random acts of thoughtless crudeness, made a whipping sound that resonated with an irony only we understood and almost earned him Christy’s fist in his chest.

The moment we were topside, Christy burst into tears, and I knew who was responsible. She had just come back from her parents’ house, where Daddy decided to kick up some dust, hitting Christy firmly in the eye.

Since we had to trim the guest list down, a lot of friends of Christy’s parents didn’t make the cut. Daddy was not willing to go along with this compromise and demanded he be given some invitations to send to his friends. Christy told him we didn’t have anymore, to which he demanded one so he could make copies. When she refused, he started screaming about how he’s the one paying for the wedding and he’s getting screwed, ignoring the fact that compromises were made in areas not pertaining to him to keep costs down. And as in the first presentation, Christy stormed out crying.

At that point, I was pretty numb to the experience. There really wasn’t anything to say anymore. Daddy was an ass, plain and simple, and there was nothing we could do with that. As bad of a future husband I was for not having any way to fix her problem, Christy calmed down and was extremely grateful for helping her feel better, even though I just sat there and listened to her problems. Women are so weird.

Days later, when Daddy’s fire calmed down a bit, he said he would pay the extra money for his friends and cousins to come. We haven’t seen the money to this day for reasons that will become clear as soon as the next chapter of Daddy’s Derangement premieres, but before that, let’s talk about wedding fashion.

If you every have trouble telling the bride and groom apart (hey, it happens), the best way outside of observing which one of the two routinely threatens to kill the everyone around them, including clergy, as the Big Day draws closer (this is the bride) is to see how each one handles the process of choosing and fitting their outfit for the nuptials.

The bride typically insists on this being a team effort, even if she’s ultimately the coach and will bench anyone who doesn’t play her way. Dress fittings are a social affair, with the bride, the bridesmaids and the mother of the bride coming together to arrange the wardrobe as if it were a party. They turn it into the ultimate girl-fest decorated in giggling and overly-enthusiastic praise about each other that they’re probably just making up, but delivered in such a way that the praiser themselves starts to believe it. Sometimes they bring food and drinks It’s like the bachelorette party, minus the stripper and the racially-mixed baby nine months later.

Men, on the other hand, take the suit fitting as a personal affront to them. After the suit is ultimately approved by the bride, the men are tasked with getting fitted, something they are not accustomed to doing. What kind of clothing do most men wear that requires a tailor? The letting out a man’s clothes occurs when the seams come apart because they’ve had that piece of clothing since high school or because they’ve expanded in unflattering regions.

Most of the time, men simply send the groomsmen out to take care of the measurements themselves, which of course they don’t do until the last minute. If they do travel in packs, it’s only to save on gas, and it’s a deeply solemn affair wherein the only silver lining is if one of them happens to get an attractive tailor of the opposite sex who pokes and prods them in an effort to get their measurements.

I’ve made it clear in a previous article, but I firmly believe paying to borrow someone’s clothes sounds like either a scam, something perverted, or the musings of a very narcissistic relative. I refused to force my groomsmen to shell out a hundred dollars for something they would have to give back after the night was done. I was going to force them to shell out more than a hundred dollars for something they would never wear again.

Figuring all of the local stores would charge about three times than that for just the tie, I decided to take my business online. After digging around, I found a site called Red Tag Suits that had a decent selection of suits for close to one hundred dollars. Wanting to go with pinstripes to get that mafia-esque feel, I searched the site and found a nice number. According to the site, it was worth ten times as much, but they gracefully mark their suits down drastically because they’re the kind of people who put Mother Theresa to shame.

I ordered one just to make sure the suit wasn’t made of paper-mâché, or actually existed and wasn’t a ruse to get my credit card number. Two weeks later, I received a very nice suit that allayed my fears. With the suits decided, I got right on ordering the rest of them so we’d have plenty of time to make adjustments if need be.

Ha, ha! What an idiot! These are MEN we’re talking about! I started passively asking for measurements from everyone and sat on it for a while, because I figured maybe I was the only one with the very manly trait of procrastinating in matters not dealing with boobs or explosions. Of course, the measurements slowly came in up the month before the wedding, after which I scrambled to get the order out.

The suits arrived on my birthday, a scant two weeks from the big day. As I went through them, I noticed two of the suit pants were a 43 waste instead of a 44. I wasn’t even aware they made a 43 waist, but this is just the kind of quality you can expect from a company selling a suit for ninety-percent off. To top it all off, the waist size for Christy’s oldest brother should have been 46 according to the measurements I was given, so unless he hit the salads and treadmill, it wasn’t going to work. I’m still not sure if it was my error or the companies that produced a 44 (er, 43) waist, but it was wrong regardless.

I contacted the company as soon as possible, and thus began my brief relationship with Robbie, Red Tag’s customer service rep. While I wouldn’t exactly call Robbie unfriendly, he definitely wasn’t willing to take accountability for the incorrect sizes. Considering the time frame, I was willing to accept just the pants, since that was the real problem, but Robbie insisted that they couldn’t send pants separately, and told me not to get angry with him, because it was all the manufacture’s fault. He also insisted we wouldn’t be able to get as fine of suit for the price. Nothing like trying to sell the customer something he can’t use. After some negation, Robbie agreed to send us another suit on good faith that we would return the one we had.

A few days later, Robbie called informing us that they didn’t have the suit in the size we needed. He offered to send another suit that was similar, but claimed it would be obviously different. He suggested Christy’s brother just wear black pants and no one would know the difference. This might have worked if her brother was missing his legs from the upper thigh up, but having two full legs in stock, this tactic probably wasn’t going to cut it.

I decided I wasn’t willing to mess around with this gamble, so Christy and I cast our dice on a night-long search on the West End looking for a place that sold pants that matched the suit coat. It was here that I learned some interesting suit facts. One, it’s impossible to find pants that match the exact color and stripe pattern of another suit coat, because there are so many ways to draw a strip. Two, people apparently don’t like  to wear striped pants with matching stripped suit coats, as many places didn’t carry striped pants at all.

Finally defeated, we popped over to Steak n Shake to coat our hopes that the pants could be let out two (er, three) sizes with a Bits and Pieces shake. I decided to call Christy’s brother up to make arrangement, and then it hit me to ask the question that everyone else in the world would have asked right way: “What size pants do you usually wear?”

As when God parted to clouds and let a little sunlight down on Noah seconds before he was about to throw overboard a rock with a rope attached to it and his ankle, Christy’s brother told me he wore a 42. The fires of a thousand degrees of bridal rage were calmed, and suddenly the world seemed brighter and the shakes tasted sweeter.

Another fashion task was to get me the noose for my finger. If you’ll kindly refer to my engagement article, you’ll notice I spent about a month a painstaking research on diamond quality, weighing Christy’s preferences in fashion, hunting, and price comparison because I sunk over two grand into her engagement ring. Christy dragged me along to Allen Miller while she was ordering some lockets for her bridesmaids and told me to pick out my own ring.

Having never worn jewelry for more than ten minutes before getting annoyed with it, I wasn’t really all that picky about my wedding ring. I went with a ring that was essentially a large chunk of tungsten capable of perforating someone’s skull if I were to chuck it at them, and it wouldn’t get a scratch on it. Since my cousin married one of the jewelers, the ring ended up setting Christy back two-hundred and fifty bucks. Not that I’m noting it cost her a little more than ten percent of the ring I gave her. Not at all.

Truthfully, I think at even at two-hundred and fifty dollars, this ring is a rip-off. The entire jewelry industry has everyone convinced their merchandise is extraordinarily valuable, when it reality you can make much better use out of coffee filters that four-thousand times less. Jewelry is the very symbol of excess, and people enjoy it because it lets the world know they can afford nice things, even though they could have afforded more useful nice things if they hadn’t spent all their money on the advertising.

But for Christy, I was willing to spend whatever I could to give her a ring she would love. She would have done the same, but having no need for shiny jewelry, I was thrilled to accept the most practical ring in the store (that was a backhanded compliment) that wouldn’t require any maintenance and would symbolize my commitment without excess. The excessive symbolism is reserved for my anime collection.

Everything was pretty much set at that point, aside from a few uninteresting side-stories. I arranged a photographer who works at the college for a steal, I talked on of my co-workers into filming the event, and there was some other stuff involving flowers and pumpkins for arrangements, but the only interesting part involved a trip to Fleitz Pumpkin Farm, which I’ll have a separate article for later.

The days wore on until the Tuesday before the Big Day. I scored some passes for a free screening of Zombieland (which, if you haven’t seen yet, get off your ass) and rallied as many friends as I could, turning the event into a triple date. After the movie, we went out with my friend TJ and his wife, Kususha, to Frickers for drinks (or pretend drinks in the case of Christy and I; alcohol ruins the flavor of a dacari). It was at this point that C called me to let me know he was leaving for Toledo the next day, since he was the best man and everything (if you forgot, read this).

A couple of things happened here that brought the gravity of the experience down on me. Of less importance, I joked to him that I was hanging out with a married couple, and after I get married, I’ll only be able to hang out with married couples. The reason for C’s call really strung me out a bit, though. He was coming up to Ohio from Georgia for MY WEDDING. This thing was REALLY HAPPENING.

C arrived the next day and we hung out for my final days. On Thursday, I had my bachelor party, which consisted of naughty and raunchy stuff that I do every Thursday with the guys: watch anime and eat pizza. I wasn’t anything out of the ordinary (for us anyway). After everyone else left, leaving C, TJ and I, we threw our inhibitions to the wind and got into to a sweaty three-way

dart gun battle. I think my Enter key malfunctioned there, but no matter.

Finally, Friday came, Wedding Eve. I took off of work early to get some last-minute wedding prep done. In other words, purchase plane tickets for another country.

No, I was busy ordering rose petals. No, really. I came up with the idea a day or so before of turning out bedroom into a Wedding Night Bliss Oasis, unbeknownst to Christy. I figure she’s had a to put up with me for over eight years and was declaring her intent to spend the rest of her years doing the same, so the least I could do was offer her a clumsy gesture. This effort was supported a little too passionately by my coworker Nick, who I suspect hoped I would test the rose petals on him first.

And then it was time for the rehearsal, and my nerves tied themselves into quite a knot. C and I ended up showing up late, because Christy forgot the marriage license, something I wonder to this day if this was intentional. We arrived and things were disorganized as most weddings are, and Christy started asserting some signs of Bridezilla-esque behavior that made me wonder if those plane tickets were still available.

No seriously, she was stressed out, and rightfully so, because I noted that Daddy wasn’t there. In another stirring yet predictable turn, Daddy found something else to be enraged about. From the beginning, Christy had no intention of walking down the aisle with him. Why should she, after the way he’s treated her and her family over the years? He’s lucky we didn’t give him the honor of serving as one of the tin cans that gets tied on the bumper of the car. That idea is ridiculous now that I think about it, since the bumper would rip clean off once the car accelerated, leaving a confused and annoyed Daddy in his previous resting place.

Yet using the same innovative thinking from the proposal incident, Christy and her mother decided Daddy might take offense if they didn’t ask him if he wanted to walk her, figuring he would say he didn’t care. The plan backfired when he said he wanted to, because it was tradition.

Christy quickly backtracked and said that that tradition really only works if the bride is living with the parents (not true at all, but she had to come up with something that sounded good). Daddy was taken aback, and nonchalantly dismissed her, saying he didn’t really care if he walked her down the isle, and felt he was un-invited to the wedding.

Undaunted by this loss of his presence, we went through rehearsal. I’m always amazed weddings ceremonies seem to go as smoothly as they do, because I’ve been in three, and the rehearsals rarely seem finely tuned enough for anyone to learn anything from them. Typically we do one run-through that consists entirely of stop-and-go, step-by-step instructions without the benefit of a straight run to make sure everyone understands what’s going on. I spent three years in marching band and it took us three days of hour and a half practice to get our routines down. Maybe marching band students are just learning disabled, a solid theory when you consider they remain in the marching band despite the fact there is no benefit to it.

I have to admit I felt disconnected from Christy at the rehearsal, since she was biting the heels of her wedding sheep, trying to get them in their pen. It was at this time I was even more grateful my friends and groomsmen were there to help me laugh even though I really wanted to be somewhere else. I have to thank C, Kevin, and Joe for helping me get through the Happiest Day of my Life.

We stumbled through the ceremony, and then it was off to Spaghetti Warehouse for the rehearsal dinner. This was about the only time I felt comfortable the entire night, with friends and soon-to-be family sharing the Last Supper before we would be hauled off and married.

C and I went home alone, because Christy insisted on staying at her mother’s house in some psychological trick that made her feel like a chaste Catholic girl. I excused myself from C and spent over an hour pacing the neighborhoods of Oregon, memorizing my vows. I even cooked up a speech for the reception while I was at it, because as you can imagine, there are times I can’t keep my mouth shut.

The next day, I wasn’t anywhere near as nervous as the night before. I ran out to pick up the rose petals, came home, ate lunch, and got ready. It would have been a flawlessly executed plan with time left over had it not been for the fact that I had to dress my dad.

No, he’s not physically disabled, or all that mentally disable. Suffering from maniac depression that I’ll no doubt have to thank him for passing on as I get older, my dad grew up perfecting the philosophy of learned helplessness. As he got older, he refused to learn anything new, even really basic stuff like hooking up a VCR (he watches movies everyday, go figure) or buying a suit. My mother didn’t trust him enough to get everything in place, so it was up to me to get us both ready.

This was the one and only time I pressed C to act out his Best Man responsibilities. While I was getting ready, he stepped up and helped my dad out when I couldn’t. He later explained he just considered him like a solider under his command that he was responsible for making sure was ready, a mentality that helped him deal with my dad’s amazing display of his philosophy. This didn’t stop C from shooting me a smile of disbelief as we shared a laugh at my dad’s expense.

We arrived at the church and set up shop in one of the side rooms designated as the Groom Room. While the bridesmaids has the Bride Basement to get dressed, eat snacks, and do whatever it is girls do in there, tradition state the menfolk are to be cooped up in a small room with nothing in their stomachs but what was already in there, but still wondering if we should go to the bathroom one more time to avoid making a long ceremony even longer, and must spend the remainder of the time either joking about how there’s still time to get out of this or staring awkwardly at each other after making sexual comments about the bride, as is the case if the bride’s brother is a groomsman.

Daddy did show up, by the way, wearing the cream suit he said he would get for the occasion, because a legally blind guy makes a great fashion guru. I spent a good portion of the time reflecting how I wished he didn’t show and complaining about him, not even knowing there was more to the installment of Daddy’s final tantrum.

I also called Austin, who couldn’t join us in his rightful place as groomsman because he hurt himself jumping out of a plane and landing on a strip of tarmac during a military maneuver. You’ll get more enjoyment out of that if I just leave it at that.

Thankfully, we weren’t the only clueless branch of the wedding staff. Christy’s mother came rushing into the room ten minutes before the ceremony, plopped down a case of flowers, and rushed off, leaving only a vague notion that we were supposed to pin them on ourselves. Being men, we hadn’t a clue how to accomplish this. Keep in mind each of us carry out daily acts of great precision, mental or physical, over the course of our lives, yet pinning flowers on ourselves was a skill that eluded us.

After I ended up breaking one of the flowers and a couple didn’t’ make it out to the readers, the ceremony was about to begin. We lined up and marched out, my training fresh in my mind. While it was a difficult trek, I managed to position myself in the proper spot, which was not somewhere outside the church. Things were looking up.

With friends and family staring at us, the music began, and the bridesmaids started down the aisle. At this point, the nervousness started spiking as adrenaline started to surge. I realized this was it, I was taking the biggest step in my life, right in front of family I hardly knew and friends who hardly knew I could exist in this context. The emotions started to stir, making me wonder if I would drop my guard for just a moment and start to cry. Suddenly the music stopped, and there was a long pause. The music began again, and after a delay that lasted long enough to make me wonder if Christy had wised up and split, the most beautiful sight lit up the room.

My bride came down that aisle.

I felt relief more than anything. Not that she hadn’t escaped, but that she would be next to me again. When I started realizing the ceremony would entail us being the center of attention, especially for such an intimate moment, I pleaded with Christy to change the ceremony so we walked down the aisle together. To me, it seemed far more intimate, that we were doing this thing together, that she wasn’t being presented as some prize for me to take off her parents’ hands. Being a woman, Christy insisted on following the tradition to that end, but I think she just wanted to be the center of attention.

Once my arm locked with hers, the entire room faded away. All of the nervousness vanished, and I knew Christy and I were going to go through this together. I prefer to do things alone for the most part, but when it comes right down to it, having someone to support and in turn support me surely helped me limp through this uncomfortable circumstance.

The ceremony from that point on was a blur. We were seated facing our guests and in front of the pulpit, an awkward position that guaranteed all eyes would be on us, but we had no idea where to look ourselves, so we just looked at the ground most of the time., occasionally peering at the guests. I noted Daddy spent his time either looking uninterested or outright falling asleep, making me regret even more the fact I was about to be related to him.

The only time I snapped out of my daze was when it was time for the readings. Christy and I were supposed to select readings from the Bible. If you read anything on this site, you know that would be a fun adventure for me, but Christy made it clear I had better play it straight, or else. I refused to select anything from 1 Corinthians, because nothing speaks of the lack of Biblical or creative empathy quite like 1 Corinthians being read at a wedding. I went with Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, which is religion-free and speaks of the power of two people being together. Plus, there’s a line about sleeping together (non-sexual… at least I think it is), something that takes up ninety-three percent of our time together (that’s definitely the non-sexual context, I’m bemoaned to say).

Amusingly, the priest used my reading as the topic of his sermon since it was an unusual pick. I took a small amount of pride that someone was acknowledging my creative effort before returning to the reality of the traditional wedding ceremony.

We teleported suddenly to the altar, where it was time for me to give my vows. Suddenly, the voice that was starting to feed me my lines was being interrupted by a voice that told me “Okay, you have one shot at this. Don’t mess up and embarrass yourself.” Trying to keep my mind focused in the chaos of thoughts banging around in it, I sputtered something that sounded like this:

Christine LaPointe, I promise to always give you the respect you deserve. When you are lost or unsure which path to take, I’ll be there to help you find the right way. If you are sick, I will take care for you. I will support you in the pursuit of your dreams, and if you stumble, I will be there help you back on your feet. I will be lying next to you as you fall asleep. I will be there to share your laughter and comfort you when you cry. Most of all, I will always love you. You mean more to me than life itself, and I will keep these promises to you for the rest of my life.

Even though I haven’t tackled poetry in a while, this clumsily written piece inspired some compliments from our guests and almost made Christy lose it. Kevin pointed out later with some amusement that I sounded nervous, which was the understatement of the year, but as I was making my vows, I felt like I could have done them perfectly without a mistake. Yet I almost consciously felt I should sound nervous at some point to break the tension that was mounting up. If I was going to sound like I was about to have a breakdown, I would do it on my terms.

The hurdle cleared, we went on to exchange rings, wherein Christy tried to put mine on the wrong finger, and we turned to the priest to get things moving. He announced it was time to offer peace, meaning we were to go out and shake hands with our parents. I knew this was coming and my stomach dropped, because I was still irritated with Daddy, and I genuinely didn’t want to shake his hand. For the sake of appearance, though, I was going to go through with it.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Daddy made the decision for me and refused to shake my hand when I offered it to him. He should have seen me, and I shook Christy’s mother’s hand right next to him. I was snubbed out of a peace handshake from my father-in-law at my own wedding. All I could think was “You jerk! I didn’t even want to shake your hand, but I was going to do it!”

This was quickly ignored in favor of going back to the altar, but not before hugging the groomsmen in appreciation for being part of our special day and for shelling out the cash for the suits. We went up to the altar and, after over eight years of build up, were finally pronounced husband and wife. The resulting kiss probably lasted a little longer than most, but not nearly the half hour I’d been threatening Christy with for years.

We walked down the aisle as husband and wife, and as we filed out of the church into a very poorly formed reception line to receive the customary well-wishes from our guests, I realized that I had somehow survived. I also finally got to see how we were going to be carried away into our new lives together. I asked Christy if we had a car to drive off in, and she briefly mentioned the car was going to be a surprise. After days of fruitless question, the answer sat on the curb: a restored classic car that Al Capone would have been comfortable committing drive-bys in, a perfect fit for the pinstriped suit motif, The car was provided by one of her uncles, proving her ridiculously big family of over a dozen siblings on her mother’s side alone was proving handy, as the odds are one of them would be good for a particular task if needed. It was also proof I had just married the perfect woman.

While there was still the matter of taking pictures, we decided to take off around the block in the car for the benefit of the guests and to get some use out of it. It was during this time we reflected on what we had just done, exchanging truncated tales because we hadn’t seen each other for over twelve hours and a lot had happened in that time. Of course, the car ride inevitably became focused on Daddy and his third and final performance that blew away the others with a finely-tuned combination to substance and timing.

Earlier that morning, Christy had just returned to her parents’ house from her hair appointment when Daddy called her into the bedroom. I should note that Daddy lives most of his life in the bedroom, unless he’s troubled to have to go out to the kitchen to get food or forces someone to cart him around town on random errands. The air in the bedroom has a very heavy feel to it, not just because it’s a very personal space, but because it’s Daddy’s personal space, serving as his lair where he plans his nefarious deeds. It feels like someone is stacking cinder blocks on your chest the deeper you go in.

Daddy decided to inform Christy that, as a consequence of her decision not to let him walk her down the aisle, she was no longer his daughter, she was no longer welcome in his house, and as far as he was concerned, we owed him all of the money he gave us, plus the money he spent on his wonderful cream suit, because he would never have thought of buying it if it wasn’t for the wedding, as hard as it is to believe.

He also let her know he was only going to grace us with his presence at the wedding and reception for the benefit of the cousins and friends he invited. Plus, he would look like a total ass if he didn’t show up to his own daughter’s wedding. Imagine that.

While the sheer shock of what was spewing out of Daddy’s mouth would alone be unsettling, the stress of the wedding was too much, and Christy cried it off for a while. Then inspiration broke through the clouds of Daddy’s oppression and reminded her she didn’t want him around anyway, so better him seem the horrid one who would finally ax their turbulent relationship.

I was more annoyed than angry. Had we actually cared about him, his opinions might have meant something, but the only lingering feeling we had was an irritation likely similar to that of a parent who has to deal with a child throwing a temper tantrum just to get attention. When you peel all of the inessentials, that’s really what you find in the center: Daddy couldn’t stand a dissenting ideology that didn’t involve him being in control and decided to make a spectacle on our special day in a desperate grab for power.

All this did was give me a reason to really resent the guy and validated all of opinions of him. While he believed his tantrum would be Earth shaking, in truth verbal attacks against his wife and children were more damaging than what he pulled for the wedding. Considering how unaffected we were by it, the damage wasn’t there and we simply ignored the meaning and consequences behind it.

Still, when you look at the context, he really could have kept his mouth shut. Most people with something similar to say would wait until after the wedding, but lacking a sense of context, Daddy had no qualms with unleashing his rage on a day many would find deplorable for attempting to ruin.

In this sense, he failed his mission to grab the day from his daughter. While we were annoyed, we ultimately dismissed it with a “well, screw him then” and got on with things. After the car circled the block and returned to the church, ending our debriefing, it was time to call friends and family together for wedding pictures.

Even when I’m not involved in this process, I hate wedding pictures. This procedure is usually highly disorganized and takes far longer than it needs to, because the newlyweds (the wife) insist on taking pictures of everyone involved, including the janitor and mailman dropping off mail at the time, in varied and highly complex configurations that make no sense to anyone. Top off the fact that most people don’t like posing for pictures, and you have a real melancholy crowd that is being ordered to smile at all times for the duration.

Matters are made worse when the newlyweds (the wife) decides to have their picture taken at an external location not related to the wedding. It doesn’t even have to be a place the couple has any deep, or even passing associations with. This is irrelevant. Parks, museums, fast food restaurants, waste processing plants, it doesn’t really matter. What the newlyweds (the wife) wants, the newlyweds (the wife) gets.

At Joe’s wedding, the wedding party was dragged to the local park in Oregon, even though I don’t think he’s been there for years (though we did cause some good-mannered havoc there in our high school years, I doubt that was the reason we were there). One time C was photographing a wedding for a friend of ours who said she wanted pictures in front of the Toledo Museum of Art, but they never showed and never bothered telling us they changed their minds.

Thankfully for all involved, our pictures were entirely based at the places the wedding actually took place. They went smoothly for the most part, partially because I told Christy we weren’t going to get married until we had a shot list made up. I’ve worked weddings in the past as a videographer, and however collected and intelligent the people involved in them are coming in, they turn into lost three-year-olds when they aren’t required by a priest or DJ to do something. It’s always best to have what you want laid out for the hired help ahead of time and have someone assigned to convey your wishes if you’re unavailable.

The pictures were pretty amusing. At that point, I was so loosened up from getting through the wedding and so happy that I was in the mood to goof around a bit, so I had some fun shots with family and friends. The only snag was (shock!) Daddy, who refused to smile for any picture he was aware was being taken. I can’t explain why he was in any of the pictures, since he denounced Christy as his daughter, except citing that whole thing about grabbing people off the street.

Since the reception was about two hours off, Christy and I decided to head back home for a little… relaxation. It was there that we went straight for the bed C was staying in (I had decorated our room for the Big Night and Christy wasn’t allowed to see it) and started doing what couples do after they get married: we talked about how we couldn’t believe we were married.

After a bit of that, we made our way to the reception hall. With the ceremony out of the way, I could now concentrate on being nervous about the reception, because it was once again time to be the center of attention, and I got to do that while stuffing my face.

The entrance of the bridal party might have seemed somewhat unusual. Not the kind of overt unusual that people laugh at because the entrance caters to the couple’s (or maybe, in a rare case, the husband’s) acceptable obsessions, like playing a theme to their preferred sports team. I refused to do something so callously cheesy, instead opting to present ourselves to instrumental versions of the song “Congratulations!” from the Oh! My Goddess anime soundtrack.

One would think that being as dedicated to anime as I am, I would have had anime prominently featured in the wedding, or demanded we go with the convention marriage. I’m not one to shove anime in everybody’s face, and I generally keep my fandom to myself. However, I picked a few choice songs for the reception, the most important being the entrance music.

“Congratulations!” was an appropriate pick because its theme is about marriage, plus it’s from one of my favorite anime. Most of all, I picked it because Austin said he would cry if we pumped that out for the event, and awkward occurrence, but one worth testing for the sake of science. Sadly, since he wasn’t there, we couldn’t observe the effects, but I still have to show him the tape (provided by my gracious co-worker, Holly), so there may be hope for this experiment yet.

Interestingly, there’s an instrumental background music version of the song, and two vocal versions (TV and full length). For the moment Christy and I entered, I wanted something different, yet I felt it should be self contained and I should pay lip-service to the crowd’s mainstream mentality this time, so I sat down and made remix using the beginning and end of the song, removing the Japanese vocals. Considering I was using Christy’s slow computer with older software and about a half hour deadline, it turned out pretty good and served its purpose.

That is, for those who actually heard it, because the DJ must have had ultra-sensitive hearing and felt that the music should be at a low hum at all times. We were sitting maybe ten feet from the speakers, and I had a hard time making out what was playing most of the time. When I told him to turn it up, he complied, but it always went back down to hum level by the next sound. I guess he was of the mentality that the best way to please everyone was to keep the music so low they won’t know what’s playing and just fill in the blanks with the music they like.

Our original plan was to just have a laptop, some presentation speakers, and someone announce things, but my mother insisted we use the services of the guy who ran the bowling alley that hosted her bowling league. We would have taken him based on these qualifications alone, but he was offering his services for next to nothing because he wanted to get back into the business after a sabbatical, and felt this would be a good springboard. Sadly, I have to wonder if the pool was filled more than a couple of inches.

Besides the volume, it was clear he didn’t understand how to use Windows Media Player properly, even though this was the way he was playing the music. I’ll admit I just learned most of what I knew that week, because I don’t listen to music on my computer and never have the need to make playlists, and the only videos I watch are short downloaded clips of naked… cats running into sliding glass doors. Yep, that’s the ticket.

Despite this lack of training, I was clearly more qualified to run the DJ booth than the DJ. Yet I can’t fault how nice they were about everything, and they were a pleasure to have, and it was great not having to worry about the music, which allowed us to chow down on the food we so bitterly fought for.

But before that, it was time for C to deliver the speech that was seventeen years in the making. He confessed he pretty much didn’t start writing it down until the night before, but he had been thinking about what to say for untold years. He probably put a similar effort to it as I did with my vows, so no one is going to fault him.

Before I comment on his speech, I find conducting it before dinner is both the best and the worst time to do it. On one hand, you have everyone’s attention before the evening goes on and people start to get tired, are socializing, or skipping out early. I’ve seen speeches delivered well into the reception after the crowd has reached a point of disorganization so profound no one even notices when it happens (in this case, it was a very good thing). I’ve also seen speeches delivered after the best man has had plenty of time to liquor up, an opportunity the crowd would have been wise to take as well instead of facing the drunken speech sober. The downside is the crowd is really only paying attention to the point where the best man shuts up so they can finally eat.

C was obviously nervous, as he stumbled around a lot, but the sentiment was perfectly conveyed. The importance of the moment was not lost on him, and it was clear by his words that he loved Christy and I like a sister and a brother. All I can say is thank you, man. And I’ve just made you out to be the gayest man in Georgia.

After C sat down, our guests prepared to be dismissed for dinner. I quickly fumbled for the microphone and dashed their hopes as I muttered out my opening remarks about how I had a speech and it was off the top of my head (sort of true. I hadn’t given it any more thought after I turned in the night before). I’m sure more than a few people grudgingly settled back into their seats, prepared to be assaulted by yet another pre-meal speech, only this time it was off the top of the speaker’s head, so it would likely be nothing by a meaningless ramble highly punctuated with random ums and at least one risqué joke or comment that would backfire horribly and make everyone awkward. Hey, at least I took the ire off of C.

Instead, they got a competent speech filled with heartfelt appreciation. The reason I decided to do this speech is all too often, the bride and groom are mute to their guests at large, and the responsibility of fawning praise is thrown upon the wedding party, and always towards the happy couple. I hate the idea of not giving credit where credit is due. The wedding and reception didn’t just sprout up around us, and I sure as hell didn’t do a whole lot, so I felt it was only right to thank the people who did all the work.

And what a list that was. Family, friends, the guests, the caterer, the photographer, the DJ, all received my thanks. Even Christy got some praise, because she did make the ultimate sacrifice and married me. Most of all, I thanked our mothers, because they don’t get thanked enough. No thanks to Daddy, even though he paid for the wedding. The fact we didn’t curb stomp him for his behavior was thanks enough.

Speaking of Daddy, early on in the night he approached the DJ booth and made some sort of request. I immediately panicked and ran over to see what he had done, and was informed by the DJ that he requested them to announce a birthday party for his cousin, a request the DJ thankfully refused, and I encouraged this by advising him not to listen to anything Daddy says all night. So once again Daddy tried to grab the spotlight and desperately turn it on him, only to discover it was bolted in place.

He also cut in front of some of my friends in the buffet line because he wasn’t paying attention when he was called, but since it was his God (and money) -given right to be rude to the guests, we can’t really fault him. I just ignored him for the rest of the night.

After the speech, it was time for dinner, and we were the first in line, since we had preferred status, being the married couple and everything. While for all intents and purposes I should have gorged myself on my hard-fought delights, I was constantly being pulled away to attend to one matter or another. I eventually managed to pick away at my plate, but felt it was too much of a hassle attempt another helping. It’s not like we didn’t have tubs of leftover waiting afterwards anyway.

After dinner, things became jumbled together. I won’t even try to pretend there’s any more chronology to the evening, so I’ll highlight the things that were interesting.

The cake cutting was fairly uneventful. Sure, Christy and I were threatening to smash cake in each other’s faces for years, but when it came down to the moment, we wussed out and calmly fed each other the cake, a perfect illustration of how boring of a couple we are. The only exciting part of the cake cutting was it represented the only time I actually got to eat my own wedding cake at the reception, save for a tiny sample a friend provided. Fortunately, like the dinner, there was a wheel of cake leftover for us to shorten our lives with at home, but it would have been nice to try the red velvet cake I requested. At least the guests enjoyed it. Damn guests.

I missed out on cake mostly because I was socializing. Not because I wanted to outside of a small group, but because when you invite someone to join you on the Happiest Day of Your Life, it’s customary to acknowledge they actually exist. Things were fairly awkward with the guests on Christy’s side, because I didn’t know them and I knew some of them were secretly allied with Daddy. Talking to my own guests wasn’t much better, especially my family, which I talked to more on that night than for the last several years, and I only blurted out a couple of frivolous sentences before moving on. The guests on my side that I didn’t know weren’t much of a problem, because what you don’ know can’t hurt you. Yet.

Another social obligation I have no business performing was dancing. While it was the most magical time ever to dance with Christy, she’s just short enough that I have to hunch over, making me look like a perverted old man years before my time. This wasn’t nearly as awkward as dancing with my mother, however, since that was the longest time we’ve spent in physical contact with each other since I was in my single digits.

As unsettling as it was dancing with my mother, nothing could equal the unimaginable levels of pain generated by my misguided attempt to cut a rug in any manner more complex than swaying awkwardly back and forward. I do not dance in any capacity that doesn’t evolve four directional arrows and obscure techno music. I’m far too socially awkward to let myself go into a bout of unscripted jiving, a truth that was broadcasted in agonizing clarity to everyone in the room. It was not pretty.

Christy, on the other hand, was apparently being possessed by the spirit of a club skank who had about five too many. Her dancing ability (at least measured by end-of-song scoring) is below my pathetic waltzing, and yet that night her moves were perfect, as if she had done this kind of thing all the time (she “works” nights, so who’s to say?). It was also extremely sexy, prompting me to point out how surprised and.... intrigued I was at her new-found talent seven dozen times. It was so out of character that I thought to try my luck consummating our marriage in the bathroom, but there were other wedding tasks at hand first.

Like avoiding the Electric Shuffle. Or at least I think they played that, but I’m not really sure since I was busy being the groom and not enjoying the reception. We banished the Electric Shuffle, the Chicken Dance, the Macarena, and any other lame song that entrancing people into an even lamer corresponding dance. I’m pretty sure the DJ snuck one of these in there, but I was occupied with other things.

As the crowds whittled down and the music faded, we knew it was time for cleanup. It was pretty late, maybe not late by my normal weekend standards (four AM is getting close to late), but we had a big day behind us, so it felt like twelve by the time we started breaking down. Noon the next day, I mean.

We crammed our gifts, extra food, passed out guests, and whatever else needed to be removed from the hall with precise efficiency, because at that point, I was about done with the Happiest Day of my Life. I refused to let everyone do the loading for me, so I made it a point to go out with most of the loads, because just being there was enough of an effort for my friends and family. Plus, Daddy was inside the hall talking with the core wedding party who was left over, and I was definitely not in the mood to hear his take on the day.

As exhausted and as relieved as we were that the event we had suffered through planning and dreading over the last year plus was finally over, I was sad to see it end. Even though I tend to hate parties, especially parties where I’m the center of attention, our wedding and reception were an amazing time, even though I can’t point to a single thing that made it this way. I was almost a pleasant dream that was over to quickly. I would not be embarrassed to call it magical.

We wound down the night on a slightly somber note, as C had to head back to Georgia right after the reception... Despite our fatigue and jumble of thoughts and emotions rattling around in us, Christy, C and I all went to Fricker’s in downtown Toledo for some chicken chunks and drinks (again, semi-drinks for Christy and I). We told stories of the day and made the usual marriage jokes through tired bodies and parted company outside with hugs all around. As C pulled off down the street back to Georgia, I knew that the party was finally over.

Until we got home, when Christy and I did what newly-weds do to consummate the occasion of their joining as one in marriage by joining as one in the most intimate way possible: we passed out the moment we hit the sheets.

The wind-down was gradual. The next day, we had a very subdued gift opening where we received a lot of household items and cash which would go towards our honeymoon that we have no intentions of taking because parting with that much money on travel isn’t a plunge we were brave enough to take. We also crashed pretty early that day, too, since we were still exhausted from the wedding, and the chunk of tungsten that was shackled to my finger didn’t help matters.

It’s been almost four months since we’ve been married. While the initial shock of what we just did has long cooled off, sometimes Christy can’t believe we’re married. Truthfully, I don’t feel there was all that much too it. I’ve been with her for almost a third of my life, so the idea of spending my remaining fraction with her seems natural. The idea of marriage has given a subtle comfort that remains mostly unnoticed unless I reflect on it, an instinctive knowledge that I now officially have a partner to spend the rest of my life with. It’s the kind of joy that doesn’t need to be worn on my sleeve, but a subtle joy I convey every time I look at my ring finger or refer to Christy as my wife. It’s the kind of satisfying happiness that will linger for years and years.

If you would indulge me for a moment (as if slugging it though an article about my wedding weren’t indulging me enough, but you made it this far, so you must have like something), I’d like to wind this up by thanking everyone involved. Thanks most of all to my mom and Christy’s mom for working so hard and sacrificing so much to make our special day possible. I’d like to thank C for being my best man and close friend since third grade. Thanks to Kevin and Joe for being a part of the occasion as my groomsmen, as well as my new brother (as an only child, this will be a tough taste to acquire) David, Gordon, and Joel. Thanks to Maiden of Honor and new sister Katy for providing some much-needed light in the gloom of Daddy, who gets a backhanded thanks now for the cash. Thanks to bridesmaid Erin (also new sister), Samantha (possible future sister), and Jennifer (new cousin) for sticking it out as brides maids. Thanks to Austin, even though you were a jerk and didn’t come because you nearly left your brains on that tarmac, but I knew you’d be there if you could. Again, it’s more fun if I leave it at that.

Thanks to my cousin Chuck and Pastor Blohm for getting up and reading. Thanks to Father Mark for carrying out the ceremony involving a confirmed Agnostic. Thanks to Sarah for providing the photography, Bobby and whoever for the DJ service, and Michael’s Catering for the… catering, especially Sue, who came through the storm of Daddy and the fog of our indecision like a champ.

And finally, the biggest thank you to Christine Claire Zasada for making me the happiest guy in the world, and thanks in advance for the many happy years ahead. I love you.