THE WEDDING

4 February 2002

So. The Wedding.

Well, when you start out with an invitation like this, you know that it's not going to be your typical wedding!

Andy and Sandi have been together 10 years, so this was more a formalization of their union than anything else. If they are anything, it's not traditional.

The invitation, among other things, was very specific as to garb for the wedding

Walt wore an aloha shirt with a Wallace & Gromit tie. I wore a t-shirt that says "Dorothy—hate you, hate Oz. I've taken the shoes. -Toto" We were not, perhaps, exactly ribald in our attire, but we did our best.   (Walt later added a hat to his outfit)

The wedding was held at a place called Arrington Apples, an apple farm way out in the woods, which also hosts weddings and other private parties. From the main road, you turn onto a teeny trail that takes you to a dirt road and there you find Arrington Apples. In another couple of weeks, the setting would be absolutely glorious because the orchard right outside the room where the wedding took place will all be in bloom (perhaps just as well, since Walt was already suffering hay fever).

There was a huge smiley face which greeted us, letting us know we'd come to the right spot.

Worried that people would not take them seriously about wedding attire, Sandi and Andi had provided a variety of costume pieces for those without them--tall cat-in-the-hat style hats, a rainbow colored clown wig, smiley-face suspenders, etc. And everyone who arrived got a smiley face button to wear.  (Pictured at left are the bride & groom with his parents)

On the tables inside were party favors--noise makers, bubbles to blow, and each person got his or her own Bendo figure (like the ones pictured on the invitation. Anybody who doesn't know about Bendos should check  Darn Tootin' Rob collects them too.)

The "minister" for the ceremony was the groom's aunt's ex-husband, a Universal Life minister, dressed as the Cat in the Hat, complete with whiskers and tail.

The groom and his 2 groomsmen wore bowling shirts (they don't bowl). The bride and her bridesmaids entered down stairs on roller skates (the bridesmaids wore pink skirts with poodles on them). The entrance music was the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars.

At the start of the ceremony, the bride's father and the groom's mother each read a full disclosure statement, listing all the scars, accidents, and idiosyncracies of the child they were giving into marriage. (From the list of scars and accidents, one wonders about the safety of any child born into this union!)

And then came the vows. Each guest at the wedding had been given a vow to read "Do you, Andrew, promise to...." and "Do you Sandi promise to...." I think mine read "Do you, Andrew, promise never to criticize Sandi's favorite movie, no matter how dumb you think it is?"

To determine which of the four attendants were the real best man and maid of honor, the rings were hidden in a pinata, which one of the groom's brothers held up on a stick while the attendants tried to break it. Whichever found the ring was either the best man or the maid of honor.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, while the wedding party exited to the Benny Hill theme music, the guests all blew bubbles or noise makers.

There was a lovely vegetarian buffet and the cake was actually three tiers of cinnamon rolls covered with frosting and topped by the Bendo couple on the invitation. (Because it didn't have the texture of cake, cutting the cake proved to be a little problematic!)

In lieu of the traditional guest book, guests were asked to write a message onto one of two wooden tables with some special sort of marking pen designed for decorating wood. Also, the groom took pictures of each table of guests and then the people in that specific picture were asked to sign the page on which the picture of their group had been pasted.

In lieu of traditional gifts, the couple had asked that people give them seeds to plant in the garden of their new home. From the look of the stack of packages, I hope they bought a lot of acreage! I myself had a good time picking seeds based on name rather than looking at where they would grow best. I bought: bachelor buttons, wedding lace, passion flower, forget-me-nots, huckleberries, and then, in memory of the groom's brother, Bill, who died the year before David did, "Sweet Willliam."

It was a wedding we won't soon forget! Best part of it was that everyone had fun and it appeared that the panic factor (though of course still present) was kept to a minimum... and they didn't mortgage any houses in order to pay for the party.