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Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Wedding Story, pt 1

At first I didn't pay much attention to the background music that was playing as I drove around. I had more pressing issues at hand. Markhl and I had a long laundry list of errands to complete before the wedding and time was running out. I was concentrating more on finishing those errands in time, but as we spent more time in the car, I slowly became more and more aware of the music.

It had a strange sing-song character to it, and it made me feel oddly happy, yet slightly agitated by its sacchrine falseness. After a while I couldn't take it anymore and had Markhl try to change the music. And it all made sense when we discovered what it was: Markhl and I were driving around town in my future sister-in-law's minivan, and we were listening to my 2-year-old niece's baby music.

Markhl eventually figured out how to change the radio and put on some loud rock-and-roll, more in tune with what we were looking for. The loud music did seem to increase our already heightened anxiety levels a bit, but it made for a more spirited driving environment.

We had about 3 hours before the start of the wedding, and here we were, madly driving around town in a minivan blasting baby music and picking up last minute items and looking for the caterering company. We were getting hit with one snag after another, and we started to run late. I was already a bit stressed out about the wedding to begin with, and every red light and traffic delay was starting to add up. I had hoped to be relaxing and getting ready for the wedding by this point. So much for that plan...

Markhl and I finally finished our pickups and made it back to Beth's house. As we started to unload the minivan of the supplies, I looked up at the skies. They have been cloudy all morning, and now a light drizzle had started to fall.

Great. It's been sunny for the past 2 weeks, and the day of the wedding it decides to rain. As I was staring up at the sky, Beth emerged, pointing at the sky. "We haven't told Nathalie that it's sprinkling."

I sighed and shrugged helplessly, "Don't". Nathalie probably had enough on her mind. I'm sure she was stressed out enough. The last thing she needed was to know that it might start to rain during her wedding.

Markhl and I emptied out the minivan, helped set up the finishing touches, and took off in my car (without baby music) and headed back to my house to get dressed. I had about 2 hours left to clean up and get suited up.

"Relax, it'll be fine." Markhl tried to reassure me, "all you have left is to get dressed."

Yes, that's true. But Markhl had no idea that the last time I tried to tie my bowtie, it took about a million tries over an agonizing and frustrating hour. Unfortunately, nobody coming to my wedding knew how to tie a bowtie either. I kicked myself for not practicing earlier. Idiot!

Recalling this tidbit of info produced a sinking feeling in my stomach. I glanced at my watch, tried to calm myself, and stepped on the gas.