Now that it's over, I can't resist writing one more column about our daughter's wedding. The overwhelming impact was the actual ceremony when the realization formally hit me that Kelly and her fiance, Preston, had just become an official twosome. The marriage was performed with humor and gentleness by Kelly's grandfather.
But there were a lot of other interesting things - like the feeling of frustration when we realized we could not attend a wedding of the son of one of our closest friends because it was the same day.It was a very good day once we got beyond the initial crisis discovered the night before when my tuxedo was delivered from Provo. I tried it on and found that neither the pants nor the shirt fit me. We failed to see how in our all-day schedule I could find time to stop at other tux rental stores to correct the problem.
Then Marti got a brilliant idea. Why not alter the pants and shirt?
The shirt was easy because moving the top button allowed it to fit around my throat.
The pants, designed for an incredibly skinny 18-year-old, appeared to have been altered several times already and Marti said it was easy to let them out so I could get into them.
It saved an enormous amount of time and allowed me to get a plethora of undoubtedly sincere compliments about how allegedly smashing I looked in a tux.
The most surprising part of the day turned out to be the wedding pictures. Both after the ceremony and before the reception, the photographer, an easygoing man with a dry wit, quickly orchestrated the most creative series of photographic poses I had ever seen.
He had the groom make a running leap into the air en route to kissing the bride, and he captured the leap on film. Then he asked the groom to carry the bride across Main Street in downtown Salt Lake City, stop in the middle and kiss her while he caught the amazing scene with his camera.
At the reception he had all the ushers pick up the groom and pretend to throw him into a stream behind the reception center. Then he had the ushers all lean several feet in a vain attempt to plant simultaneous kisses on the bride's cheek.
I can't wait to see how all of them turned out.
The reception was enormous fun. I felt a burst of energy as I happily greeted friends and relatives, many of whom I didn't expect to come because of long distance travel.
Kelly burst into tears when one of her closest friends from high school days in Massachusetts appeared in the line without warning. She had flown to Salt Lake City for the sole purpose of attending the wedding reception.
Kelly wanted to end the formal reception line early and have dancing downstairs, and none of us was sure that it would work, but it did. I even got the second dance of the evening with the bride.
There was plenty of frosting on both the bride's and groom's faces after the cutting of the cake, but Kelly forgot to throw her bouquet.
When the bride and groom finally drove away in a noisy car smothered in oreos and shaving cream, our euphoria instantly withered away.
We were all so tired we could hardly drag ourselves home. But we had to haul all sorts of stuff back to the house and then collapse into bed. Predictably, the fatigue continued for four days!
While still dead tired we did a stupid thing. We had a gathering of the two families to open gifts - a remarkably bland gathering consisting of well-meaning and good-spirited people who had been uniformly drained of witticisms and scintillating conversation.
We faithfully made lists of the gifts and the givers and noted those that appeared in multiples, like toasters and can openers. The china registrations at a local department store resulted in a flood of receipts saying the china chosen was "temporarily out of stock."
My advice for those contemplating weddings in the future:
Make plans early in an organized fashion. Give up all other plans, including vacations.
As the day draws near, get lots of sleep with the help of medically prescribed tranquilizers.
When any disagreement rears its ugly head, take it lightly. When things go wrong, laugh about it.
Remember that this too shall pass.
Most important of all, pick up a second job right away!