1,824 Days Ago

We have a few funny stories from our wedding day that we love to re-tell.

The Night (or Morning) Before
The night before the wedding, I planned to sleep at the home of some friends with a number of my bridesmaids. The friends were out of town, so they had given me the key to their house before they left. After the rehearsal dinner, it took a LONG time to collect all the gals who were staying with me. We finally made it to the house at about 1 a.m., only to realize that I didn't have the key. It was on my key ring with my car keys, which Aaron had because he had washed my car and would be driving it to the church. I called him, waking him up to ask him to meet me with the house key. In his drowsiness, he suggested that we rendezvous at the most recognizable landmark between the homes we were each staying at - a shopping plaza anchored by a skanky, neon-lit lingerie and adult toy store! Honestly, the only other choices were unidentified warehouses. So we tried to ignore the distastefulness, exchanged the key, and slunk off to our separate beds at 2 a.m. Not the ideal, restful wedding-eve I had hoped to have!

Rings? What Rings?
In our wedding album, we have a picture of Aaron at the church, in his tux, talking on a cell phone. He was calling his parents, because he forgot to bring our wedding bands when he left the house that morning! I don't think I found out about that mini-crisis until we got the proofs from the photographer.

Samuel & the Elephants
Our nephew Samuel, age 3 at the time, stood up in our wedding as ring-bearer. Or rather, we intended for him to do so. But while in town for the week preceding the wedding, Samuel got to visit Brookfield Zoo and had collected two plastic elephant toys. Elephant toys that HE WOULD NOT LET GO OF AT ALL. Not even to sleep. Already somewhat bewildered by the discomfort of his rental tuxedo, Samuel lost it when told he had to put the elephants down and hold a lacy white pillow instead. He stood in the back of the church crying, "NO! NO! AUNT AN-DRE-A! UNCLE AA-AARON! MY EL-E-PHANTS!" And that was the end of that.

Wife's Early Attempts to Follow Husband's Leadership End in Laughter
After our pastor announced that we could kiss, we did so. A couple times. Aaron flashed a thumbs-up to the crowd. Then we turned to face the church while our pastor announced "the new Mr. & Mrs. Patterson." But Aaron started down the aisle a little prematurely, stepping off the small platform at the front of the church while Tab was still introducing us. I figured I had better move with Aaron - and stepped down to the aisle just as Aaron realized his error and stepped back up. Everyone laughed. We did, too.

A Spontaneous Menu
We had an early wedding, so our reception finished by 4 p.m. We invited family to meet us at Aaron's sister's house after the reception, where we planned to open our gifts and have a smaller wedding celebration. Our brother-in-laws had made pumpkin pies for the festivities, and then they attempted to make fresh whipped cream. Whipped too long, it turned into butter. Someone - I think Aaron's mom or sister - suggested making bread to go with the butter. So the guys went to buy more whipping cream, and the ladies mixed up some beer bread to throw in the oven. Then Aaron's aunts decided we ought to have soup to go with the bread, so they raided the fridge and pantry for leftovers and ingredients. Thus, a meal was born out of one batch of accidental butter and fed to those already full of reception dinner and wedding cake.

These humorous wedding memories are woven into our marital history. I'm so glad that our wedding day was full of laughter!