THE MAGICAL DAY - THE RUNAROUND

My day began with grumblings from the mutant canine that needed to tinkle. I unleashed her from her cage. It was a beautiful morning, pleasant temperature and blue skies. The Lord had heeded my request and asked Mother Nature to spare our special day from the hurricane aftermath.

He had said, “You remember what it was like to be young and in love. Don’t rain on their parade.”

To which Mother Nature replied, “Are you saying I’m old? Maybe I’ll go find myself a creator who appreciates a mature and accomplished woman. It’s not like you’ve been hitting the Ab-Roller lately.”

On all levels, you must respect Womankind.

Both man and beast returned to the house relieved; mine was only mental. I sat down, turned on the TV, and began to organize my first craft project of the day. I had to craft my message of love in blue mini rhinestones on the bottom of Christa’s shoes. This had to be accomplished in time for Danza to deliver them to her, at the two-hour hair appointment all the ladies had scheduled for that morning. There I sat, with a horse that wanted to play and a cone-headed cat that was interested in my rhinestones—but more interested in avoiding playing with the horse. The next twenty minutes of my special day were spent with craft glue and rhinestones just small enough to be unaccommodating for man hands. Ultimately, I completed an “I ♥ U” on one of the shoes and called for a blow dryer. Heat was applied. Then it was time to rouse my best man and begin the day’s errands.

I got a little high-pitch and lispy. “Hello, people, it’s the wedding day. We need to be up, and we need to be organized. The love shuttle leaves in twenty minutes.”

My brother and Christa share some characteristics, mostly in the extended awakening to departure phase of their days. Here is how Christa and I make it on time to any event:

1. I ask, “How long will it take for you to get ready?” (30 minutes)
2. I multiply her response by her personally adjusted version of the space-time continuum. (1.6 X 30 = 48 minutes)
3. I then add an extra fifteen minutes to that total and subtract that from when we need to leave our house. ( 48 + 15 = 63 minutes)

Over time, I have refined my estimate of her personal adjustment to the space-time continuum to 1.6. The most accurate first read of this factor can be obtained by having her cook mac and cheese, then dividing the length of time she instinctively cooks the noodles by the time printed on the directions.

This extra time before departure allows me to postulate hypotheses on how she could possibly individually affect the space-time continuum, without displaying any outward signs of superpowers. I assume that is why she always bumps into stationary objects. She is playing catch-up with the earth’s orbit, since she exists in a slightly altered dimension, especially in the bathroom.

After that tangent, Matt was now functioning, and we began to load the minivan, now christened the “Love Shuttle.” We had several stops to make and activities all along the way. The first stop was the church, where we were delivering the guest book and pen, unity candle, and programs. We were also meeting up with Jenny, our exceptional bow-tying, pretty-making hired gun, to get the key to the reception hall for our next delivery. Jenny was in transit when we arrived, so we got to rest for a few minutes in the pews.

“I’m tired,” Matt said.

“Get your five minutes now, and we’ll try and get done in time to relax a bit before we need to be back here,” I replied.

He’d been on active duty for what, maybe an hour? So there I was, reclining in God’s house, with a brief moment to reflect on getting married that day.

“Why do I have so much crap to do?” I said out loud.

At some point long ago, I was told all I had to do was smile and be agreeable. I wasn’t told about my checklists, my errands, my battle with a possibly incurable disease (aka the crafties), my kidnapping, and the rest. Weren’t my responsibilities supposed to be over with popping the question? If we are going to find a way to compensate stay-at-home moms, surely we can compensate stay-at-home wedding planners or at least confer on them an Associate’s degree. And where was my beautiful bride? Had she gently risen from bed and stretched to the sweet melody of birds chirping? Might she be on her way to the hair salon to sip champagne and be fawned and cooed over by everyone? When we renew our vows, I’m going to be the bride! Who said I didn’t want to be pretty?

At the reception site, we drove around to the side door of the building to unload. We went in to find a cart we had heard about to move the goods in bulk. The cart was not in the reception hall. It was not anywhere visible. We asked the security guy if he knew anything. He told us to check with the facilities office. It was closed. Holy crap. It was two of us with too much to carry.

I had to use the restroom. As I turned the final corner on my way to the restroom, a beam of light shown down from heaven and illuminated the scene. No, wait. I just happened to glance into a darkened, seemingly deserted hallway and thought I saw the shadowed outline of a wheel of small diameter. The cart had been found! I wasn’t sure if the cart was trying not to be found, so I brought it into the bathroom with me so it wouldn’t sneak off, if the opportunity presented itself. Doubly sweet relief that next thirty seconds was.

We brought in the booze and set out the table-name cards, which began falling off their bases. Monkey balls! Repair was needed. If the crafties hadn’t influenced me to buy a fanny pack, stuff it full of craft supplies for the day’s potential emergencies, and wear it like my soon-to-be-outdated chastity belt, I might have panicked.

The florist came in, needed clarification; I gave it. Favors were out, and Mr. Puddy was displayed. I was on fire. Somebody find me a six-foot block of ice—I’ll use my knitting needles, some Ziploc bags, and this remote-control car engine to create a specialty cocktail spewing lobster. Suck it, Corey!
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival

LAST MINUTE IMPROVEMENTS

It is always good to make personal improvements. It is not always good to make them in half the time needed. Obviously, you may only make half the improvement you need to make. If any improvement requires things to get worse before they get better, then you are really in trouble.

We wanted to look our best for the wedding. This included all facets of personal appearance: fitness, smile, and skin tone. First we approached the physical fitness. Christa is a beautiful woman. But like every bride-to-be, she thinks that taking “just a couple pounds from this area” is necessary to have that elite bridal physique. I did not have a goal weight but felt that a little redistribution wouldn’t hurt.

Phase 1: Six months of self-motivated, no-equipment-necessary exercise. This entailed trial runs at playing tennis with each other, doing the Winsor Pilates video workout, and an occasional bike ride. Most sessions began with, “Do you want to exercise?” and ended with “Not really,” two seconds later.

Net results of Phase 1: No noticeable change for either of us.

Phase 2: Six weeks of a free thirty-day trial membership at a local gym. We sat for the obligatory meeting with the gym rep.

“We are getting married in six weeks and want to visibly tone up,” I said. She looked at us like we couldn’t be seriously considering improving ourselves in that amount of time.

“You might be able to see some improvement, if you come in at least five times a week and really watch your diet,” she half-admitted.

“Watching our diet as best we are able has produced what you see in front of you, so tell us again: how many days a week?” I said.

Net results of Phase 2: Slight headway into burning the excess fat, due primarily to the cardio cinema, a darkened cardio-machine-filled room with movies playing on a projection screen. This was our preferred form of exercise, one that most closely resembled sitting on our couch watching TV (some gym members did treat the stationary bikes as recliners). Mix in the reduced appetite caused by wedding-planning stress, and we netted out OK.

Next was smile enhancement. For this we turned to Crest Premium Whitestrips. I picked up the package.

“They claim to take off up to fourteen years, in just seven days, when used for thirty minutes, morning and night. How many days until the wedding?” I asked Christa.

“You better know it’s ten,” she replied. I actually did.

However, Christa never remembered to use the strips in the morning and refused to use them at work. Whose job is so important that you would sacrifice youthful wedding teeth for it, Christa?

She only ended up removing ten years’ worth of stains to my thirteen. That meant my teeth would have been seventeen and hers nineteen, when we got married. She didn’t like the implication of being an older woman wedding a minor, so I drank some coffee and red wine to reverse the anti-aging process and made our tooth union legal without needing my parents’ teeth consent.

The final component was skin tone. Christa began her regime a couple months out. She never wore her makeup to bed, strove to get monthly facials, and invested in top-of-the-line skin care products. She informed me of the work and financial sacrifice it took to maintain her beautiful skin and advised me (firmly instructed) that stress (anything I did) caused blemishes, and those would be frowned upon (punishable by groin trauma).

“You need to cleanse daily and exfoliate once a week,” Christa said.

“When you say exfoliate, you mean rub sand on my face?” I asked.

“Just do it.”

I observed her rituals to try and comprehend the art of exfoliate and cleanse. Then I tried it myself, as she did, right before bed, over the sink. I was unhappy. The sand I rubbed on my face attached to my eyebrows and was very resistant to flushing with water. I got into bed, and my eyebrow made a crunching sound as I laid it on the pillow. It was like I had just swum in the ocean and had salt brow.

“I don’t think this is going to work out,” I said.

“It’s too late now; we’re getting married,” Christa replied.

“What? No. My eyebrows are still being exfoliated, and I want it to stop,” I whined.

”Why don’t you do it in the morning so you can rinse in the shower?” Christa calmly stated. “It’s not like you’re removing makeup.”

“You don’t know that.”

That was probably not my best comeback. But power-rinsing in the shower returned a hint of my manhood the next morning.

The final aspect of skin tone was coloration. We got a ten-session tanning package about two weeks before the wedding, five apiece over ten days. With her work and our new gym schedule, we didn’t quite complete our tanning sessions either. I was hoping to prevent burning on the honeymoon, more than make a statement at the wedding. My head would really be the only thing showing throughout the event, and it would be exfoliated to a high luster. I wasn’t eager to get to the tanning salon, because each time I exited the bed, my flesh obviously smelled roasted. I could have sworn there was a hint of potato, as well, like someone was preparing a side dish.
- Drew Lloyd
From "Will You?" to "I Do.": A Groom's Tale of Survival