This first piece is a real account of my wedding day. Nobody believes it, saying that nobody has that memorable of a day. The piece is emotional, yet comical. I must apologize for the profanity scattered throughout my writings. No one that has survived military service as well as police service can provide an accurate account of life’s quirks without using a well-placed expletive.
Wedded Bliss
“You have your gun, don’tcha?” Not the kind of words you want to hear. Now I was definitely going to have a panic attack.
It was Thursday, March 12, 1992.
My wedding day.
If it’s true that a disastrous rehearsal means a successful marriage, what does no rehearsal mean? And how many things have to go wrong on your wedding day to justify a blissful life of happiness? Our engagement wasn’t conventional, so why should I think our wedding would be?
Thinking back, I should have expected things to go wrong. Chris’s proposal of marriage came right after me telling him, via telephone, that I was pregnant. As I bawled my eyes out, he said, “Well, we’ll just get married. We were going to someday, anyway.” How romantic. My four-year-old daughter and I had just purchased a small three bedroom, one bath house. Just big enough for the two of us. Crunching the numbers on the calendar, it appears that I got knocked up within the first week of home ownership. Suddenly my quaint house for two was going to become cramped quarters for four.
Chris (the man that I married) and I both worked for the same police department, and one of the forbidden acts was nepotism. Chris and I could not get married while we both worked there. Chief Ziegler first told me that I would have to leave, but I argued that I had seniority, and that if he was going to force anyone to leave, it would have to be Chris. He didn’t like that idea, because he didn’t like women excelling in male-dominated fields. Plus, I knew that Chris was beginning the hiring process for a larger police department and that he wouldn’t be around much longer.
Several months later, after staying on patrol as long as I could, Chief Ziegler banished me to the Dispatch Office – MIDNIGHT SHIFT! At that time government buildings were not regulated by the health-conscious X-generation. I was the only person working in the office (more like a closet) that didn’t smoke. So each night at 11:00 pm, I began eight hours of inhaling secondhand smoke with bathroom breaks few and far between. Pregnancy is not fun while battling sinus infections and urinary tract infections.
Chris’s last day of work was Tuesday, March 10, 1992. Hallelujah! We sent out invitations for a Thursday wedding (March 12th). The only snag was that the minister who was going to officiate backed out at the last minute. So…we knew an Assistant District Attorney that was also an ordained minister. However, he had transferred from Johnson County to Tarrant County. He agreed to see us Tuesday afternoon, so we rushed up to John Peter Smith Hospital (where his office was) and convinced Larry Chandler that we were desperate to get married on Thursday, since that’s what the invitations said. The wedding was in less than forty-eight hours, so there was no time for a rehearsal. We hastily prepared a ceremony in that hospital office, and then made Mr. Chandler promise that he’d be there Thursday evening.
My wedding day started out a little different than most brides’ blissful morning – a trip to the obstetrician’s office. I was over five months pregnant, and Dr. McIntyre was concerned about my weight gain. After a spotless checkup, a trip to the couture rental shop to pick up my maternity wedding dress. It was a gorgeous two-piece ivory lace dress that disguised my bulging belly quite nicely. I was feeling pretty good by now. The sun had burned off the morning clouds and it was proving to be an unusually warm day.
Chris and I had borrowed a friend’s truck to pick up all the rentals for the wedding: lattice screens, unity candle holder, punch bowls, tea lights, and a myriad of other brick-a-brack that would make my lavender and ivory wedding magical. As we were bustling around the Metroplex, steam started rising from under the hood. Every mile or so we had to pull over and add more water to the radiator.
That was fine while we were in populated areas, but the desolate drive from Cresson to Cleburne was going to be a bitch. It was getting past noon, the temperature and humidity outside were rising, and my daughter, Sara, and I were getting hungry. The truck crapped out somewhere between Mobile Home City and I’ve Got a Ranch a Mile off the Highway. Mind you, this was 1992, and neither of us had cell phones.
Just as Chris was getting ready to start walking, we saw a distant waft of dust coming from the ranch. The line of dust was getting bigger, and it was coming towards us! Chris ran to the end of the driveway and flagged down a decrepit brown station wagon with wood panels beautifying the rusted doors. Chris talked with the man behind the wheel, using his hands to point at me, then point towards Cleburne. My Beloved waved for me to come join him, so Sara and I did. He explained that the nice gentleman was going to drive me to Cleburne so that we could contact a wrecker and pick up my car. This is the point where I became anxious.
“You got your gun, don’tcha?” This man, the driver, looked like something out of an old spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood. From his tattered straw cowboy hat to his snakeskin boots with pointed toes, he looked like some outlaw. His plaid snap-front shirt reeked of cow manure and I couldn’t help noticing the leather sheath on his belt protecting a large knife with a pearl handle. As we slid into the backseat, the man turned around and smiled, exposing blackened gaps between silver studs purported to be teeth. During the ten-mile ride to Cleburne, I don’t know what I held closer: my daughter or my purse containing my gun. The man appeared to speak no English, so I attempted no further conversation until we approached my street.
I really didn’t want this ax-murdering farmhand to know where I lived, so I had him drop us off about a block away. Sara and I trudged down the sidewalk, thinking only of the air-conditioned house and what leftovers were in the refrigerator. After devouring hotdogs and cookies and quenching our thirst with Kool-aid, I decided to see if we could locate Dale, the pickup’s owner.
We went to Dale’s apartment, but he wasn’t there.
We went to his girlfriend Marge’s house, but he wasn’t there, either.
I thought of Chris, out there on the side of the highway, and decided that we’d better hightail it back to the land of cattle and white trash. Now, I’m not a fan of going the speed limit, and I was on a mission. As my 1988 Pontiac 6000 burned up Highway 171 at 75 miles per hour, I heard a gunshot, then felt the car jerk to the right. I thought I’d been shot, but it was the left front tire blowing, then ripping the fender to shreds. I managed to maneuver the car to the shoulder while catching a glimpse of Sara in the back seat. Her cotton-white hair was plastered to her face, exposing two of the biggest blue eyes bulging out of their sockets. After reassuring her that everything was okay, I began the wretched task of changing my tire.
I must have looked pretty pathetic on the side of the road trying to pull the spare out of my trunk. My belly kept hindering my progress until a kind gentleman stopped and changed the tire. He did it in record time. I guess he didn’t want to hear me sob any more than he had to. We made it back out to where Chris had been abandoned, and neither he nor the truck were there. I didn’t know what to do, so Sara and I went through the McDonald’s drive-thru, then back home. The telephone was ringing as I unlocked the front door.
“Hello?”
“Where have you been?” Tears streaming down my face, I told of the quest to find Dale and the near-death experience on Highway 171.
“And when we got out there, you and the truck were gone! Where are you?”
“I’m at the museum with the stuff, so I’m going to start decorating.” Our wedding venue was Carnegie Theater at the Layland Museum.
I had already missed my nail appointment, so Sara and I rushed to get our hair done. While my hair was being updo’ed, a nail tech tried to salvage my manicure. An hour and a half later, Sara and I were off to Kroger for the wedding cake. The cake was boxed and ready to go. The Precious Moments topper was even in place. We raced home to gather the mints, nuts, chocolate cappuccino cheesecakes, punch ingredients, guest register, shoes, stockings, garter, flowers, and Sara’s daisy dress. While loading all of this into the car, being careful of my professionally coiffed hairdo, I realized that the topper had taken a tumble, gouging icing from the top layer of cake. After carefully removing the bride and groom, I wrapped them in paper towels until they could be scrubbed clean. The repairs on the cake would have to wait.
Slam! went the front door just seconds before I realized that the car keys were still inside. Just then the dog catcher who lived behind me came home from work. I begged and pleaded with him to help me get inside, so that we could be on our way.
“I’m not gonna do it. Someone will think I’m breakin’ in to steal something,” Freddie Rojas said. “Anybody see a Mexican climbing through your window, they’re sure to call the cops.”
Freddie let me borrow a shovel and I broke the smallest window I could think of – the kitchen window at the back of the house. It was conveniently located directly above the air conditioner unit, so I wouldn’t have to borrow a ladder. Since Freddie wouldn’t commit an act of pseudo-burglary, I was forced to climb up onto the A/C unit and through the small window, coiffed hair and fresh nail job be damned. The sink, centered under the window, made it even more difficult to squeeze my stomach through. I quickly propped a cookie sheet against the broken window, located my keys, and ran out the front door.
It was only a mile to the theatre, but once there we had to lug coolers and boxes up to the second floor. The photographer and his wife helped light candles and affix bows to the rows of crimson-upholstered chairs, while I set up the reception table in an adjacent room. Chris said that he was going to go to his apartment to change.
“Okay, where’s my wedding dress?”
“Behind the door.”
“What door?”
“The BEDROOM door.”
“I don’t have time to run home and change. And anyways I brought all my stuff here.” Now I was getting impatient. Thirty minutes before the ceremony and I don’t have my dress. I quickly dressed Sara while Chris retrieved my dress.
“Why is there a pan in the kitchen window?”
“Don’t ask.” Chris looked so handsome in his suit and his parents brought Chris’s three-year-old son, Keleyn, to play best man.
Music streamed from the portable CD player as guests found their seats. I quickly donned my dress, and with a sinking feeling I noticed a blue blotch on the right hip area of the skirt. My tattoo was showing through the fine lace, so I quickly grabbed a piece of the rough paper toweling and covered the eyesore. I walked myself down the aisle, as none of my family was present. They were all sixteen hundred miles away in New York, leading their own complicated lives.
The ceremony was short and quaint. As Chris and I kissed, Sara and Keleyn tried to pull us apart while everyone applauded. Whispering into Chris’s ear, I said, “I thought Keleyn was supposed to wear a purple or navy tie.” Chris just beamed at Keleyn’s bright red necktie. Maybe family photos would look better in black and white.
I didn’t even think about servers, so my two new sisters-in-law served cake and punch to our guests, which numbered about thirty. The minister acquired our signatures on the marriage certificate, then my friend, Judy, hugged me and patted my belly. The minister gave Chris and me the most condescending look, as if he didn’t realize that I was pregnant.
As partygoers began to disperse, I found an occasion to collapse in a wingback chair. Sara, dragging her basket of flowers and rubbing her eyes, climbed up on what little lap I had.
“Mommy, you look so beautiful. I want to wear that dress when I get married.” I prayed that she would not be needing a maternity dress for such an occasion.
Chris’s family helped clean up the food and load it and the gifts into my car. As Chris and I walked down the front steps of the museum, we were pelted with birdseed. At the foot of the steps, we realized that we had driven separate cars to the ceremony. Wanting to have all their bases covered, the guests had decorated BOTH cars! Chris and I kissed once again, then drove off in separate directions – me to the house with Sara and he to his apartment to pack an overnight bag.
I unloaded the car while Sara munched on Fritos, then changed into pajamas. Exhausted, I kicked off my shoes and sat on the front porch awaiting my new husband.
And I waited.
And waited.
Then tucked Sara into bed.
Then waited some more.
Finally at about eleven o’clock, Chris pulled up in his silver Thunderbird, decorated with shoe polish and streamers. Exasperated, he informed me that his landlord had kept him, and he was glad to be moving into our new home.
Eighteen years later, the children have grown and we’ve moved into consecutively bigger houses. But the memories of our unusual wedding day will remain lucid for years to come.
“You have your gun, don’tcha?” Not the kind of words you want to hear. Now I was definitely going to have a panic attack.
It was Thursday, March 12, 1992.
My wedding day.
If it’s true that a disastrous rehearsal means a successful marriage, what does no rehearsal mean? And how many things have to go wrong on your wedding day to justify a blissful life of happiness? Our engagement wasn’t conventional, so why should I think our wedding would be?
Thinking back, I should have expected things to go wrong. Chris’s proposal of marriage came right after me telling him, via telephone, that I was pregnant. As I bawled my eyes out, he said, “Well, we’ll just get married. We were going to someday, anyway.” How romantic. My four-year-old daughter and I had just purchased a small three bedroom, one bath house. Just big enough for the two of us. Crunching the numbers on the calendar, it appears that I got knocked up within the first week of home ownership. Suddenly my quaint house for two was going to become cramped quarters for four.
Chris (the man that I married) and I both worked for the same police department, and one of the forbidden acts was nepotism. Chris and I could not get married while we both worked there. Chief Ziegler first told me that I would have to leave, but I argued that I had seniority, and that if he was going to force anyone to leave, it would have to be Chris. He didn’t like that idea, because he didn’t like women excelling in male-dominated fields. Plus, I knew that Chris was beginning the hiring process for a larger police department and that he wouldn’t be around much longer.
Several months later, after staying on patrol as long as I could, Chief Ziegler banished me to the Dispatch Office – MIDNIGHT SHIFT! At that time government buildings were not regulated by the health-conscious X-generation. I was the only person working in the office (more like a closet) that didn’t smoke. So each night at 11:00 pm, I began eight hours of inhaling secondhand smoke with bathroom breaks few and far between. Pregnancy is not fun while battling sinus infections and urinary tract infections.
Chris’s last day of work was Tuesday, March 10, 1992. Hallelujah! We sent out invitations for a Thursday wedding (March 12th). The only snag was that the minister who was going to officiate backed out at the last minute. So…we knew an Assistant District Attorney that was also an ordained minister. However, he had transferred from Johnson County to Tarrant County. He agreed to see us Tuesday afternoon, so we rushed up to John Peter Smith Hospital (where his office was) and convinced Larry Chandler that we were desperate to get married on Thursday, since that’s what the invitations said. The wedding was in less than forty-eight hours, so there was no time for a rehearsal. We hastily prepared a ceremony in that hospital office, and then made Mr. Chandler promise that he’d be there Thursday evening.
My wedding day started out a little different than most brides’ blissful morning – a trip to the obstetrician’s office. I was over five months pregnant, and Dr. McIntyre was concerned about my weight gain. After a spotless checkup, a trip to the couture rental shop to pick up my maternity wedding dress. It was a gorgeous two-piece ivory lace dress that disguised my bulging belly quite nicely. I was feeling pretty good by now. The sun had burned off the morning clouds and it was proving to be an unusually warm day.
Chris and I had borrowed a friend’s truck to pick up all the rentals for the wedding: lattice screens, unity candle holder, punch bowls, tea lights, and a myriad of other brick-a-brack that would make my lavender and ivory wedding magical. As we were bustling around the Metroplex, steam started rising from under the hood. Every mile or so we had to pull over and add more water to the radiator.
That was fine while we were in populated areas, but the desolate drive from Cresson to Cleburne was going to be a bitch. It was getting past noon, the temperature and humidity outside were rising, and my daughter, Sara, and I were getting hungry. The truck crapped out somewhere between Mobile Home City and I’ve Got a Ranch a Mile off the Highway. Mind you, this was 1992, and neither of us had cell phones.
Just as Chris was getting ready to start walking, we saw a distant waft of dust coming from the ranch. The line of dust was getting bigger, and it was coming towards us! Chris ran to the end of the driveway and flagged down a decrepit brown station wagon with wood panels beautifying the rusted doors. Chris talked with the man behind the wheel, using his hands to point at me, then point towards Cleburne. My Beloved waved for me to come join him, so Sara and I did. He explained that the nice gentleman was going to drive me to Cleburne so that we could contact a wrecker and pick up my car. This is the point where I became anxious.
“You got your gun, don’tcha?” This man, the driver, looked like something out of an old spaghetti western starring Clint Eastwood. From his tattered straw cowboy hat to his snakeskin boots with pointed toes, he looked like some outlaw. His plaid snap-front shirt reeked of cow manure and I couldn’t help noticing the leather sheath on his belt protecting a large knife with a pearl handle. As we slid into the backseat, the man turned around and smiled, exposing blackened gaps between silver studs purported to be teeth. During the ten-mile ride to Cleburne, I don’t know what I held closer: my daughter or my purse containing my gun. The man appeared to speak no English, so I attempted no further conversation until we approached my street.
I really didn’t want this ax-murdering farmhand to know where I lived, so I had him drop us off about a block away. Sara and I trudged down the sidewalk, thinking only of the air-conditioned house and what leftovers were in the refrigerator. After devouring hotdogs and cookies and quenching our thirst with Kool-aid, I decided to see if we could locate Dale, the pickup’s owner.
We went to Dale’s apartment, but he wasn’t there.
We went to his girlfriend Marge’s house, but he wasn’t there, either.
I thought of Chris, out there on the side of the highway, and decided that we’d better hightail it back to the land of cattle and white trash. Now, I’m not a fan of going the speed limit, and I was on a mission. As my 1988 Pontiac 6000 burned up Highway 171 at 75 miles per hour, I heard a gunshot, then felt the car jerk to the right. I thought I’d been shot, but it was the left front tire blowing, then ripping the fender to shreds. I managed to maneuver the car to the shoulder while catching a glimpse of Sara in the back seat. Her cotton-white hair was plastered to her face, exposing two of the biggest blue eyes bulging out of their sockets. After reassuring her that everything was okay, I began the wretched task of changing my tire.
I must have looked pretty pathetic on the side of the road trying to pull the spare out of my trunk. My belly kept hindering my progress until a kind gentleman stopped and changed the tire. He did it in record time. I guess he didn’t want to hear me sob any more than he had to. We made it back out to where Chris had been abandoned, and neither he nor the truck were there. I didn’t know what to do, so Sara and I went through the McDonald’s drive-thru, then back home. The telephone was ringing as I unlocked the front door.
“Hello?”
“Where have you been?” Tears streaming down my face, I told of the quest to find Dale and the near-death experience on Highway 171.
“And when we got out there, you and the truck were gone! Where are you?”
“I’m at the museum with the stuff, so I’m going to start decorating.” Our wedding venue was Carnegie Theater at the Layland Museum.
I had already missed my nail appointment, so Sara and I rushed to get our hair done. While my hair was being updo’ed, a nail tech tried to salvage my manicure. An hour and a half later, Sara and I were off to Kroger for the wedding cake. The cake was boxed and ready to go. The Precious Moments topper was even in place. We raced home to gather the mints, nuts, chocolate cappuccino cheesecakes, punch ingredients, guest register, shoes, stockings, garter, flowers, and Sara’s daisy dress. While loading all of this into the car, being careful of my professionally coiffed hairdo, I realized that the topper had taken a tumble, gouging icing from the top layer of cake. After carefully removing the bride and groom, I wrapped them in paper towels until they could be scrubbed clean. The repairs on the cake would have to wait.
Slam! went the front door just seconds before I realized that the car keys were still inside. Just then the dog catcher who lived behind me came home from work. I begged and pleaded with him to help me get inside, so that we could be on our way.
“I’m not gonna do it. Someone will think I’m breakin’ in to steal something,” Freddie Rojas said. “Anybody see a Mexican climbing through your window, they’re sure to call the cops.”
Freddie let me borrow a shovel and I broke the smallest window I could think of – the kitchen window at the back of the house. It was conveniently located directly above the air conditioner unit, so I wouldn’t have to borrow a ladder. Since Freddie wouldn’t commit an act of pseudo-burglary, I was forced to climb up onto the A/C unit and through the small window, coiffed hair and fresh nail job be damned. The sink, centered under the window, made it even more difficult to squeeze my stomach through. I quickly propped a cookie sheet against the broken window, located my keys, and ran out the front door.
It was only a mile to the theatre, but once there we had to lug coolers and boxes up to the second floor. The photographer and his wife helped light candles and affix bows to the rows of crimson-upholstered chairs, while I set up the reception table in an adjacent room. Chris said that he was going to go to his apartment to change.
“Okay, where’s my wedding dress?”
“Behind the door.”
“What door?”
“The BEDROOM door.”
“I don’t have time to run home and change. And anyways I brought all my stuff here.” Now I was getting impatient. Thirty minutes before the ceremony and I don’t have my dress. I quickly dressed Sara while Chris retrieved my dress.
“Why is there a pan in the kitchen window?”
“Don’t ask.” Chris looked so handsome in his suit and his parents brought Chris’s three-year-old son, Keleyn, to play best man.
Music streamed from the portable CD player as guests found their seats. I quickly donned my dress, and with a sinking feeling I noticed a blue blotch on the right hip area of the skirt. My tattoo was showing through the fine lace, so I quickly grabbed a piece of the rough paper toweling and covered the eyesore. I walked myself down the aisle, as none of my family was present. They were all sixteen hundred miles away in New York, leading their own complicated lives.
The ceremony was short and quaint. As Chris and I kissed, Sara and Keleyn tried to pull us apart while everyone applauded. Whispering into Chris’s ear, I said, “I thought Keleyn was supposed to wear a purple or navy tie.” Chris just beamed at Keleyn’s bright red necktie. Maybe family photos would look better in black and white.
I didn’t even think about servers, so my two new sisters-in-law served cake and punch to our guests, which numbered about thirty. The minister acquired our signatures on the marriage certificate, then my friend, Judy, hugged me and patted my belly. The minister gave Chris and me the most condescending look, as if he didn’t realize that I was pregnant.
As partygoers began to disperse, I found an occasion to collapse in a wingback chair. Sara, dragging her basket of flowers and rubbing her eyes, climbed up on what little lap I had.
“Mommy, you look so beautiful. I want to wear that dress when I get married.” I prayed that she would not be needing a maternity dress for such an occasion.
Chris’s family helped clean up the food and load it and the gifts into my car. As Chris and I walked down the front steps of the museum, we were pelted with birdseed. At the foot of the steps, we realized that we had driven separate cars to the ceremony. Wanting to have all their bases covered, the guests had decorated BOTH cars! Chris and I kissed once again, then drove off in separate directions – me to the house with Sara and he to his apartment to pack an overnight bag.
I unloaded the car while Sara munched on Fritos, then changed into pajamas. Exhausted, I kicked off my shoes and sat on the front porch awaiting my new husband.
And I waited.
And waited.
Then tucked Sara into bed.
Then waited some more.
Finally at about eleven o’clock, Chris pulled up in his silver Thunderbird, decorated with shoe polish and streamers. Exasperated, he informed me that his landlord had kept him, and he was glad to be moving into our new home.
Eighteen years later, the children have grown and we’ve moved into consecutively bigger houses. But the memories of our unusual wedding day will remain lucid for years to come.