Sunday, March 15, 2009

Weddings




No matter how close knit your social circle is it seems it’s always doomed when everyone trails off into their own private family. Every one of my friends has had a unique and interesting wedding.

By contrast all of my ex’s friends had a traditional church wedding.

Our wedding was a compromise. In fact we had two. We had a skydiving wedding for me and a church wedding for Kim and her family.

I remember Matt and Kay’s wedding at Oak Knoll Park. It was a beautiful spring afternoon. There were lots of flowers and a flutist playing Strawberry Fields. Kay’s sister said she wished she was involved with an artist. It was obvious everyone there was one.

Ben’s first wedding was an incredibly expensive affair at The Top of the Sevens in Clayton. Our friend Bill and I compiled the music. Matt photographed the event but lost it all because of equipment malfunctions. He said it was the worst thing that ever happened in his career.

Fojammi’s was at Graham Chapel at Washington University. Dominic had composed a piece of music for the occasion. I had seen King Crimson on the same stage.

Tracy’s was at Carondelet Park. It had rained and, being best man, I had the honor of carrying his, soon to be, wife Marion across a flooded bridge to the ceremony.

Even the church part of my wedding was interesting. Stephen Martin was my best man. Margaret Bianchetta performed at the ceremony as a wedding gift and her band The Hot Club Canary played the reception. We were supposed to have the reception around a bonfire on the shore of the Missouri River. The weather became uncooperative and we had to Plan B it at the church’s gym. Margaret, Mary Dee and Monica Casey had to play under a basketball hoop. I sent them framed pictures performing under it as Christmas presents. Proof that they’d really hit the big time!

I’d really appreciate any memories anyone has of weddings in the comments section. I’m sure a lot more will occur to me. Divorces might be interesting as well.

The photo is Fojammi’s groomsmen. Left to right – Tracey, Dominic, James Voss, Fojammi, Mark, wife Laura’s brother, and me. Joanie came up with the tux rental place. It didn’t occur to us until later that the tux pants were flare bottomed. They were years out of date.

3 comments:

dominic schaeffer said...

Dude- you forgot MY wedding(s)!

Anonymous said...

i was going to ask if dom had ever been married. when i got married we did it in the back yard; i had a friend who played guitar for that big Elvis impersonater in st. louis(cant remember his name) who was also a d.j. do the music. being an avowed pagan, i had done a ceremony with Mary years earlier on a cliff overlooking the Big River, but we had to make it legal so we did the whole liscense and preacher bit. we had 2 people perform the ceremony, one was a pagan priest, but Mary's best friend at the time insisted on having some lady preacher there too, it was kind of strange, but it all worked out.my cousin did the photos and did something goofy with the film(backrolled it?),so it all came out with yellow lines all over the pictures. we had the reception at the house too, i was living in St. John's then on the corner of Midland and Brown road. we heard a big bang out on the road and it turned out someone had hit a friend of mine's car that was there and took off.we went to Santa Fe for a week for our honeymoon. the wedding and reception cost about $800 and the honeymoon cost about $3000.that was when i still used credit cards.we had it paid off just about the time we got divorced 5 years later;figures. Geo

dominic schaeffer said...

Geo- i had 2 near misses with marriage (or should i say two near Mrs.?).