[FSUZeta]

my husband and i attended a family wedding a few weekends ago. they were not able to hold the ceremony in their home church because their minister told them that it was church policy to not have weddings on saturdays, because they could not get the church ready for services the next day. they booked another church which was way too small for the guest list. people actually had to stand in the back.

when the usher asked if we were to be seated on the brides or grooms side, i told him "bride" and that we were family, so he walked us to the third row from the front, which was marked as a family pew. i saw my cousin and her family in that pew, but it appeared that someone was trying to save the other half of the pew, because there was a tissue box, a hymnal, a Bible and a camera bag strewn across the cushion. my cousin wasn't holding the seats for anyone and invited us to sit down. a little later a woman, man and darling twin girls came and sat down in the "reserved seats". i didn't know them-neither did my cousin(who, by the way is the brides aunt). shortly another woman came up, glared at us and said loudly to the man(her husband) "i had saved 5 seats for us." i started to say that we were family and were supposed to sit there, but the womans husband pulled her down in the seat. they were not family!

we sit for a while, anticipating that the wedding will begin shortly when we see this woman dressed in a black pantsuit sort of skulking down the aisle. when she reaches the end of the aisle, she whips around and we all see she is holding a sheet of notebook paper, on which she has scribbled the message,"turn off cell phones", she them proceeds back up the aisle pausing at each pew and brandishing her message at us all. she does this not once, but twice!

the wedding is lovely. bride is beautiful, dress is beautiful. skirt is very wide. after the part where the minister asks who gives this woman in marriage, the bride and the groom start to walk up these narrow, narrow steps to the altar-i envisioned one or both of them falling off those steps, but somehow they managed it and the ceremony went off without a hitch.

the reception is held outside at the home of the groom's sister, which is on the banks of a river. there is a dock leading out to a boat shelter and my husband wants to walk out the the end of the dock. i feel like i owe him, so off we go. we get about half way out and begin to hear yelling from the shore-we figure that it is just someone hallooing someone else across the yard and proceed to the end of the dock, stand there a few minutes admiring the view and then turn around to start back. we see the cell phone sign lady waving her arms at us and she begins to run out on the dock toward us. she meets us about half way, and informs us that no one is supposed to be one the dock, for at least 30 minutes. we apologize and say that there was no sign or barrier telling us not to walk on the dock, so then she says, "you know, you're right. how about you 2 stand here(we had reached dry land again) and keep everyone off the dock?" it turns out the bride and groom are going to arrive via boat and they do not want anyone on the dock so they can make a grand entrance. so we got to be the gate keepers, shooing anyone who dared try to stroll down the dock. next, the cell phone sign lady shows up with a bag of sand, votive candles and paper bags. you got it, she is going to make luminerias to line the dock. right now. at the reception, which is in full swing. she enlists some of the servers and us and we get an assembly line going. it turns out that this woman is the reception coordinator. has a heart of gold, but is brash in her manner. tacky, tacky!

now realize that all this time we have had nothing to eat because we have been shanghaied to do this womans bidding. we have had 2 watered down diet pepsis, which were so watered down we ended up dumping them out. can't get near the alcohol, once we are released from dock duty. can't get near the food, either. got to speak briefly with my cousin and my aunt(the brides mother and grandmother) but of course did not tell them of the adventures we'd been having. we ended up leaving shortly after the bride and groom arrived, and ate dinner at the cracker barrel next to our hotel, in our wedding finery!