The Wedding, Part II: In which we actually get married.

When we left off, it was raining, I no longer had fake tits in my dress, and -- yay! -- it was time to get married.

Me on the porch, ready to go.

The tent was at the end of the yard. As you can see, it was quite wet.

Mardie and I were making a tag-team effort to hold the skirt/train of my dress up and out of harm's way during the walk down. We were approximately halfway there when I felt a draft: in all the commotion to get my skirt off the ground, we had pulled it up so far that my ass was now hanging out the back.

There was, of course, no time for problems of such piddling insignificance as exposed buttcheeks.

Brad and his brother, waiting up front for the ceremony to start.

I was adamant that BRAD COULD NOT SEE ME until I was walking down the aisle, so we hovered outside in the rain while everyone took their turn.

Cutest. Flower girl. Ever.

Beemaids with lilies.

My turn! Me and my dad, walking down the aisle to Moon River. His pager started going off when we were about halfway there. There is nothing quite like walking arm-in-arm with a man whose jacket is vibrating.

Heeey, Brad.

Aww, my dad. I made it down the aisle without falling over, and everything was going pretty well until he stepped on my train.

Me: (shouting, decidedly un-bridelike) Yo, get off my train!
Dad: I'm sorry! It wasn't there when we rehearsed!
Me: (muttering) There had better not be a big wet footprint back there, I swear to God...

Standing at the trellis (altar? what?).

I strongly considered bribing our officiant to start off the ceremony like this:


Alas, I forgot.

We could hear the rain on the roof throughout. Very romantic.

It took forever for us to pick a reading for the wedding -- I wanted something funny but truthful, not too heavy, not too religious. This passage from Everything Is Illuminated turned out to be just right.

The young couple first married on August 5, 1744, when Joseph was eight and Sarah six, and first ended their marriage six days later when Joseph refused to believe, to Sarah's frustration, that the stars were silver nails in the sky, pinning up the black nightscape. They remarried four days later, when Joseph left a note under the door of Sarah's parents' house: I have considered everything you told me, and I do believe that the stars are silver nails.

They ended their marriage again a year later, when Joseph was nine and Sarah seven, over a quarrel about the nature of the bottom of the river bed. A week later, they were remarried, including this time in their vows that they should love each other until death, regardless of the existence of the riverbed, the temperature of the river bed's bottom (should it exist), and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed.

They ended their marriage one hundred and twenty times throughout their lives and each time remarried with a longer list of vows. They were sixty and fifty-eight at their last marriage, only three weeks before Sarah died of heart failure and Joseph drowned himself in the bath. Their marriage contract still hangs over the door of the house they on-and-off shared-nailed to the top post and brushing against the welcome mat:

"It is with everlasting devotion that we, Joseph and Sarah L, reunite in the indestructible union of matrimony, promising love until death, with the understanding that the stars are silver nails in the sky, regardless of the existence of the bottom of the river, the temperature of this bottom (should it exist) and the possible existence of starfish on the possibly existing riverbed, overlooking what may or may not have been accidental grape juice spills, agreeing to forget that Joseph played sticks and balls with his friends when he promised he would help Sarah thread the needle for the quilt she was sewing, and that Sarah was supposed to give the quilt to Joseph, not his buddy, ignoring the simple fact that Joseph snores like a pig, and that Sarah is no great treat to sleep with either, letting slide certain tendencies of both parties to look too long at members of the opposite sex, not making a fuss over why Joseph is such a slob, leaving his clothes wherever he feels like taking them off, expecting Sarah to pick them up, clean them, and put them in their proper place as he should have, or why Sarah has to be such a pain about the smallest things, such as which way the toilet paper unrolls, or when dinner is five minutes later than she was planning, because, let's face it, it's Joseph who's putting that paper on the roll and dinner on the table, disregarding whether the beet is a better vegetable than the cabbage, putting aside the problems of being fat-headed and chronically unreasonable, trying to erase the memory of a long since expired rose bush that a certain someone was supposed to remember to water when his wife was visiting family, accepting the compromise of the way we have been, the way we are, and the way we will likely be. May we live together in unwavering love and good health. Amen."

My mom read it. She did a really good job. My father-in-law also read a blessing he wrote himself, which was so good that I nearly cried. Then it was time to exchange rings...

...and vows. (Nothing fancy -- the officiant said, "Will you love him, comfort him, honor and keep him in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, so long as you both shall live?" I said, "I will!") Also, apparently I wanted to celebrate by doing the "Thriller" dance.


And then, finally, he told us to kiss...


... so we did. HUSBAND AND WIFE, MOTHERFUCKER. Whee!


I'll be back soon with Part III: Formal photos, first dances, and Reason #422 Why You Cannot Take My Little Brother Anywhere.