by Karen Templeton
Edited on Wednesday, July 25 — Joyce, please send your snail mail addy to templetonwriter@aol.com so I can send out your copy of THE DOCTOR’S DO-OVER!
And yeah, that would be my oldest son Christopher, and his lovely bride, Jennifer, who made me a proud (or prouder) mama when they got married last week in Flagstaff, AZ. However, I had to chuckle over the things that went “wrong,” (some of which we won’t mention here out of respect for assorted guilty parties, heh ), but let’s just say Mother Nature apparently wasn’t on board with the idea of an outdoor wedding. As in, the day before, it poured . And although the sun came out Sunday morning, more clouds/showers quickly followed. So it seemed wise to hold the ceremony indoors. And it was lovely, and the ringbearer duo — my five-year-old grandson and my new DIL’s (gosh, I love saying that!) nephew actually made it down the aisle…although, due to an incident involving a cupcake covered in bilious blue frosting headed straight for a clean little face, not to mention his ringbearer outfit, and Grandma’s subsequent “NOOOOOO!”, we do have Pouty Face Boy on the video.
BUT. There was also laughter. And tears. And dancing. And more laughter, and more tears. But mostly laughter. Then, after the couple took off, some twenty of us — family, for the most part, who live in Alaska and California and New Mexico, including my 95 year old MIL, who are never all in the same place at the same time — hied ourselves late that night to some hole-in-the-wall Chinese restaurant in Flagstaff, where we clearly made their week. And it was perfect.
Although I suppose it was inevitable that I was reminded of my own wedding, more than three decades earlier. It rained that day, too — a cold, nasty, New York in November rain, to boot. Then the flowers — not to mention my sole attendant — didn’t arrive at the church until five minutes before the wedding. And I discovered my dress sleeves were too tight to lift my arms, so I had to ask my mother to help me with my mantilla, except she got so verklempt the minute she put in on my head she let out a gasp, clamped her hands over her mouth, and just…froze.
Sigh.
But somehow, everyone got their flowers, and my maid of honor got dressed on time, and we unfroze my mother enough for her to fix my mantilla so I didn’t look like a drunk going down the aisle, and my husband and I recited the vows we’d written ourselves, and then we were married…and it was perfect.
All of which I shared with my new DIL, who apparently — like me — doesn’t take kindly to monkey wrenches messing with her carefully laid plans. But by the time she looked into my son’s eyes as they recited their vows, I could tell she didn’t care anymore, either. Or at least, not toooo much. Because as far as life goes, “perfect” rarely means “flawless.”
Because, really, how boring would that be? 
So…here’s the place to share all <i>your</i> never-to-be-forgotten wedding oopsies (if not fiascoes!). But to salve those wounds , I’m giving away a copy of the first book in my brand-new Summer Sisters series, THE DOCTOR’S DO-OVER, to one lucky person who leaves a comment between now and Wednesday at noon, EDT. (you can read an excerpt at www.karentempleton.com!)
This didn’t happen during the ceremony – but I found out a couple years later that the pastor who married us got divorced – his wife caught him cheating.
At my reception (I was married on my SIL’s deck) there’s a shot of me brandishing a knife (that was used to cut the cake) and singing the theme song to Psycho as I pretended to stab my brand-new hubby.
Then’s there the shot of my Dad trying to pop the top off the champagne and making some kind of comical remark.
And no, the marriage didn’t last but don’t send condolances. I no longer hid behind the hubby’s shadow and could finally be who I was supposed to be.
Gosh I re-read the knife part – it was all in good fun, trust me! And the cake was really good – my step-mom made it.
Oops, on your pastor. And singing the theme to “Psycho”? Priceless.
One of my husband’s friends made our cake, too, complete with real flowers that matched my MOH’s bouquet. So pretty. And delish, as I recall — I was a little out of it that day, LOL!
I got married in Guatemala on June 30. When I planned the date, noone told me it was Army Day, so I had marches and air shows and parades going on.
And you thought, “For us? How cool is that!” LOL!
the only thing that happened at my wedding was that my tonsils were taken out 2 weeks before and i was not able to do anything. i was freaking out. thank goodness my mom was there to help
Ouch! I bet you were freaking out! My hubby proposed…then mentioned that, since his folks would be in town six weeks hence, wouldn’t it be nice to have the wedding then?!?!
And my then-boss wondered why I was just a wee bit tense, hah!
We have been married 44 years. No major thing happened although I do remember the best man dropping the rings on the silver tray. One ring went around and around. I had visions of it rolling off the tray and running down the aisle. When we left the reception and went to my parents, we discovered that we were locked out. Can’t change clothes if you can’t get into the house.
My son’s little ringbearers weren’t allowed anywhere near the rings. Entrust them to a pair of five year olds? So not happening!
Karen–
Congrats on the beautiful if not totally perfect wedding!
Stacy
Thanks, Stacey! One down, four more to go!
Karen, when I saw your tweet, I just had to pop by and say hi. Years ago, we used to have such a great group on the Harl. boards. Congrats on your DS’s wedding.
When I got married, the priest said the words for DH to repeat, then it was my turn, but he didn’t prompt me, and I was so nervous I said exactly what DH said, including taking him to be my wife. It got a laugh, broke the tension, and 34 years later I’ve yet to live it down.
Sounds like something I would do. And my DIL put my son’s ring on his right hand instead of his left — which brought a big laugh when he not-so-surreptitiously switched it, LOL!
That is funny, lol.
I thought it would be romantic to reuse the bouquet I caught at my cousin’s wedding for my bouquet toss. I put fresh flowers from the roses growing at the house we were moving into. That part turned out fine. The girl who caught it tossed it at her wedding, too.
The glitch came in using a garter my husband caught at someone else’s wedding. It was too stretched out to stay on my leg. So I used a few safety pins and headed down the aisle. As we greeted our guests on the way out of the church, my cousin handed me the garter that had fallen off about halfway up the aisle. Her four year old daughter retrieved it for me. She is now planning her wedding for next summer.
Too funny about the garter! My sports-fan son decided to put his bride’s garter on a football to toss it, hah! Inventive, that one.
Karen, beautiful stories. Yours and your son and DIL’s. And everyone else’s here, too. Truly sigh-worthy. We had a very small wedding. Like five people total. I remember the nice minister lady said how happy my new husband and I looked. And we were!
Five sounds about right! And with my small family, my hubby and I could probably have gotten away with that…except he then decided to invite everyone he’d ever known, including family members he hadn’t seen in forever. And people came, too — mostly because they swore they wouldn’t believe Mr. Chronic Bachelor was really getting married unless they saw it with their own eyes.
Well, I haven’t been married myself (still looking for my “Mr Perfect”!) – but when my oldest brother got married back in 1979, we had pouring rain all week before the wedding but the sun came out just in time for the wedding itself (too late to stop flooding in our basement though!) – my parents were married on in 1947 on my dad’s 23rd birthday – and it also happened to be Thanksgiving Day that year – they moved into the house we live in now over the July 4th weekend in 1956 so we have a bit of patriotic stuff going on in our family! LOL
Fewer dates to remember, LOL! I like that!
Nothing is ever perfect. Expecting it to be will just leave you frustrated.
So true, Wilma! I actually told my DIL, as we were waiting to line up for the ceremony, to BREATHE.
Because the more you try to plan, the more life loves to mess with ya!
Congratulations on obtaining a DIL. I want one, too. We invited ten people to our wedding. When we came out of the side door of the church to stand at the alter… the church was packed with people standing three deep at the back. Everyone we knew in town came. Too funny.
Awww…what fun, Linda! You and your husband must’ve felt so loved!
My husband of almost 30 years and I got married in the Judges Chambers and our friends/witnesses were the only ones with us. I noticed my husband’s best man watching his wife taking pictures of us in weird poses and the best man got to chuckling about it just when it was my turn to say I Do! Nervous, I fought off the urge to chuckle along with the best man, and said all of my vows biting back that urge. Fortunately, our wedding vows stuck and we’ll be celebrating our 30th anniversary September 24th. Looking forward to reading your book, Karen. I’m a huge fan.
Aw, thanks, Lynne — and congrats on your 30th anniversary!
What a truly gorgeous blog, Karen! And the picture made me tear up. They both look fabulous. Congratulations to them and to you on acquiring a DIL. I’ve loved my relationship with my MIL – it can be a really warm and wonderful thing, despite all the cliches.
And I so agree that “perfect” doesn’t mean “flawless.” Life just isn’t like that, is it? We organised our wedding in about eight days, we had twenty guests including the celebrant and her husband, my dress cost $40, all the food was home-made and yet it was still the loveliest day.
Friends in church organized a wedding for one of their daughters in 3 days! That including finding a dress, LOL! But the kids were going to elope, and that would *never* do.:)
Congrats to your son and new DIL! My hubby and I have been married 15 years this year. Ours was a rushed wedding, I was pregnant…I ended up giving birth to our son the day before the original wedding date that we had picked out. I blubbered so hard during our wedding that I could hardly say my vows, must have been hormones.
My husband cut his hand during our reception and got blood all over my gown…even after multiple cleanings it never came out. Still one of the best days of my life!
But, see, it’s the stuff that goes “wrong” that makes the best memories, right?
Besides us there were only eight people at my wedding, just my siblings, parents and grandmother, my husband’s parents and our best man and matron of honor. So rather than a regular reception we loaded up a rented pontoon boat with beer and wine and went for a cruise on Gibson Reservoir, which extends into the Bob Marshall Wilderness in western Montana. All went exactly as planned until that moment halfway into the cruise when we realized our fatal miscalculation.
Our pontoon boat didn’t have a bathroom.
Oops. LOLOL! Only you, Kari…
I love reading all these stories. They are so heartwarming and funny. Nothing out of the ordinary happened at our wedding. It was perfect. At the end of the ceremony we were married which was the plan all along.
Kathleen
And happy endings — or beginnings — are what we’re all about, after all.
So true!
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