How do you make your wedding reception one people will remember? Hold it on April Fools' Day, for one thing.
Invite Elvis, for another.And put up cardboard cutouts of President Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton as stand-ins for your parents.
That would about do it.
But Teri Taylor and Scott Griffin wanted even more for their unusual reception.
So they invited an accordion player, a juggler and a waiter with a funny twirling hat.
They put goldfish in the water by the punch bowl and plastic spiders on the cold cuts.
They taped the outline of a dead man on the carpet floor.
They put a huge stuffed frog in one of the chairs.
They hung signs at the entrance, "Anyone cutting in line will be flogged," "You must be this tall to go on this ride," "Warning: You may get wet."
On the Barney paper plates, some of the fat, juicy strawberries were fake.
Some of the decor was wild; one table was decorated with paint buckets and old tarps. Another one was filled with Elvis' favorite junk food, Twinkies and Mellow Yellow.
The basketball standard was hung in white filmy fabric.
The groom's tuxedo was hot-glued with dozens of green silk leaves. The bride's bouquet had bugs in it.
His best friend, "Twospot," who just happens to be a purebred English bulldog, came in a rented tux.
The wedding photos for the invitations all had Waldo hiding somewhere. Enroute to congratulate the bride and groom, guests could look for Waldo.
Or they can read the Far Side cartoons taped all along the hallway or the movie posters.
Or guess the number of Gummi Worms hidden in a glass jar just before they come to the stewardess for "Griffin Air." She's serving peanuts.
"We really wanted something different," said Griffin, who married Teri in the Salt Lake LDS Temple March 29. "And we think you can have a sense of humor about these things."
Griffin said the reception puts a finishing touch on a fairly wacky courtship that began with his meeting LDS missionaries in Bloomington, Nebraska.
He told them he wanted a wife and they sent him to Provo.
Griffin's Nebraskan parents are Robert and LaDean Griffin. Teri's are James and Deanna Taylor of Orem.
Following the reception, the newlyweds will go back to Bloomington to live and run the Griffin Arts studio.
They'll take along with them gifts that have been carefully weighed by the pseudo UPS man at the reception, a guest book signed by those "who chose wisely" and signed in with a chicken-foot pen, and memories of a great time.
Memories of guests who were more than a little surprised, maybe a might amused. But not a one of them bored.