Father of the Bride Part 2: The Wedding Day
Sunday, September 13th, 2009
By: Chris Satullo
csatullo@whyy.org
I came. I saw. I danced.
As reported in a recent commentary, my daughter got hitched last weekend.
Since, many have asked me how my celebratory rumba with the bride went – the traditional wedding dance that had had me paralyzed with dread.
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I have a report on how that went, but first some other highlights.
We had some very dedicated wedding guests. A groomsman called my new son-in-law Nick the day before the wedding to report that his pregnant wife was dilated and thus unable to come.
So imagine our surprise at the church the next afternoon when Jay and his wife strolled up to the communion rail, then proceeded to the Downtown Club to party away.
They returned home to Maryland later that night; labor began after midnight and we had photos of the new baby on our cell phones at the day-after picnic on Sunday.
A college friend of Sara's was heading up I-95 from Baltimore when a runaway tire slammed through her windshield, totaling her car. She dusted off the glass, rented a car and made it to the church on time.
Nick and his groomsmen, a gang he’s been hanging with since middle school, made quite an impression with their exuberant endurance. One guest, having observed them in action, commented, "They are a Judd Apatow movie come to life."
The best men, Nick's brothers, had one main duty: getting the beer and champagne onto the trolley that took the wedding party from the church to the reception. Somehow – I'm not laying blame here, people – the suds got locked in someone’s car trunk, with no key. On the suddenly dry trolley, fingers began poking at I-Phones. The nearest source of a six-pack was located, a Hoagie Heaven on a scuffling section of Hunting Park Avenue.
Puzzled onlookers watched as a bride in glowing white, bridesmaids in purple and groomsmen looking like penguins piled out of the trolley. Entering the joint, they shoved dollar bills through the bulletproof glass, receiving in return some Budweiser tall boys and cries of "Welcome to the 'hood, honey."
Anyway, the wedding dance.
Sar and I actually fit in one dance lesson before. Call our instructor, Bob Martin, the miracle worker, because the wonders Annie Sullivan achieved with Helen Keller were hardly more difficult than his work teaching a box step to a klutz like me.
But here’s the great thing… once I looked into Sara’s glistening, blissful eyes, and the strains of the James Taylor tune began, for me there were no really other eyes in the room to worry about.
Maybe we didn’t survive the dance as well as kind people told us afterward, but I found I didn’t care. The dance I’d so feared turned into my favorite memory of a most memorable day.
What was the James Taylor song? On second thought, don't tell me. I'll cry.