Romance at Center Court

Jan. 25, 2009

People had fun at my wedding. They tell me that.
They thought it was funny. I thought it was memorable. For years, I remembered it vividly every time I went to someone else’s wedding extravaganza, no expense spared, and it’s taken me years to think it’s funny. Time heals, yes it does.
I met my husband, Doug, while he was still teaching English at a state university in Louisiana. He had stopped in on the day before Christmas Eve at the Traverse City Record-Eagle newsroom, where I worked in 1988 with his sister Debbie. She had told him about me, and me, him, so we went to the Woolworth’s coffee shop across the street, and decided to drive up to the Bluebird in Leland for a drink (he had boldly offered to buy dinner at the Grand Traverse Resort with less than $5 in his pocket). As we rumbled up M-22 in his blue Ford truck, he recited a Yeats poem about wine and love, and I was immediately intrigued. He later joked that the poem worked every time.
We saw each other during vacations—one week here, another week there, so we didn’t know each other all that well when we decided to get married. As in, we didn’t know each other well enough to really say what we thought when we were making the wedding plans.
He wanted it “simple”—he kept saying that. I thought, simple. I agree. We were paying for most of it, so it had to be simple. But simple is in the mind of the thinker, and pretty soon we had a guest list of nearly 200. And I was feeling panicked about feeding all those people.

IN CASE IT RAINS...
We decided to get married in Peterson Park up near Northport because it’s one of the most beautiful places on Earth. What we lacked in money, we’d make up in scenery. The bluffs, the rocks, the blue of Lake Michigan. All my out-of-town city friends would know why I raved so much about living here. But Doug and I knew about the tempestuous weather of Leelanau County. We weren’t stupid. We’d rent a tent in case it rained.
This is when his mom, Bonnie, weighed in. “I think you kids need a back-up in case it rains.”
Back-up, shmack-up. That’s why we had a big tent. I mean, it was the end of June. How bad could it get? Ha!
The day before our wedding on June 23, 1990, the weather was terrible. Rain and hail spat down, while the temperature dropped into the high 40s. Gale force winds had the trees doing back bends. Not good. Between me and Doug, we had six grandparents, a few of them in wheelchairs. I imagined them rolling through frosty mud, huddling under afghans.
I had a pretty wedding dress, which I bought for the bargain price of $200 from a shop going out of business. It had short, capped sleeves, hardly warm enough for a winter day. I didn’t own a fancy coat, and, besides, whoever heard of wearing a heavy coat while saying your vows?
Maybe the weather would improve. Ha! The next morning, shortly after the crack of dawn, Doug and his Dad drove up to Northport to supervise the rising of the tent. There were men at the park with sledgehammers, trying to pound in the tent stakes of the white tent, which was blowing around like sheets on a clothesline. It was hopeless. He called me and said it wouldn’t work. He asked me to call the churches in the area. So that’s what I did, but it was already too late. Everyone else had already reserved the churches for a “back-up,” just like their mothers-in-law had suggested.

WHAT TO DO?
I sat there at 9 in the morning, my wedding just hours away and wracked my brain. I know! We could get married at the Northport School. I was an education reporter at the time, and knew Shari Hogue, the school superintendent. I called her at home. She agreed we could get married in the gym, but under no condition could we serve alcohol. That was okay with me. My dad was an AA man, and he’d appreciate it.
But I was heartbroken. It was my big day, and I was getting married in a gym. So I cried pretty much all the way on the drive up, yet thinking that I’d better stop crying or I’ll have puffy, red eyes.
I got there, towing my wedding dress out of the car, getting pelted by cold rain as I raced to the door. Dripping, I had a look around the cavernous gym. My college girlfriends had arrived early, and they did a really nice job gussying up the bleachers with pink and purple streamers. And they’d set up this little wedding arch underneath the basketball net and decorated it with the Spanish moss that Doug shipped up in a box from Louisiana because I thought it was pretty. The cafeteria tables were adorned with little vases of wild flowers, which another friend had collected. Everyone pitched in. People had set up 200 folding chairs in the gym. One guy drove out to Peterson Park and stood in the hail to direct guests over to the school.
So the bridesmaids and groomsmen arrive and wonder where to change. The obvious decision is the locker room. There we are, putting on our make-up at the locker room mirror, breathing in the sweat and shower smell of school kids, and making jokes.
I put on my dress and then sit on the locker room bench to pull on my nylons and shoes. I’m ready! I slam my locker door shut and emerge from the “Girls” door, mustering all the dignity I can. I walk to my appointed spot in the gym to the white linen carpet rolled across the shiny gym floor up to the basketball net. I was clueless at the time that Doug’s poor Aunt Marilyn had slipped on the gym floor while walking to her folded chair. She broke her arm and was trotted off to the Leelanau Memorial Hospital, conveniently located across the street.

BUG ATTACK
The chamber group strikes up the tune—Pachelbel’s canon (so original, I later learn)—and the bridesmaids gather at the end of the gym ready to walk down the white path of linen to the arch. So we basically get to the net, and the minister is going through all the classic vows, and I notice some movement. The bridesmaids are trying to flick black bugs off their shoulders. Turns out the critters were living in the Spanish moss, waiting for just the right moment to drop down on their shoulders.
But Doug looks as handsome as I’ve ever seen him, and people are making good-natured jokes about the gym. “Hey Doug, I guess you’ll score tonight, hee, hee.” “Guess the weather threw you a foul, har, har.”
The sun decides to come out in the afternoon, and it’s warm enough for outdoor pictures. My pretty little niece, one of the flower girls, throws a fit during the picture taking and is removed from the scene. That aside, the photos are perfect. Jim Harrison, the writer, offers to treat us to some champagne at Hattie’s after the wedding, so we say yes. While we are there, he hands us a card with a generous check, knowing how tough life would be as writers. He was right. Tough, but interesting. Thank you Jim.

PRINCESS FOR A DAY
Now I’ve pretty much recovered and can actually relax and enjoy weddings now. My niece, the one who threw a fit at my wedding 18 years ago, got married in August, and she looked absolutely stunning. As I watched her float among the guests, she reminded me of a princess. Come to think of it, you are a princess on your wedding day. You wear a long, expensive gown and people fuss over your hair, your nails, your make-up. At the reception, your wedding party sits like royalty at a long table, elevated over legions of admirers. Then the night spins out into a series of formal dances and wonderful toasts, a ride to the honeymoon chambers in a fancy chariot, and it’s all memorialized by photos and videos.
Well, that’s one sort of wedding, anyway. It’s the kind of wedding that’s stamped into your subconscious, and it makes you feel grumpy about having to say wedding vows under a basketball net. Older and wiser now, I understand it’s not about the dress, the church, or the flowers. It’s about the vows and holding onto your love during that pesky “sickness and poor” part of married life. Or as Doug says, “Quit yer bellyachin’. We could have got married in a pit of rats, and we’d still be happy.” Yeah, right.
All that aside, Doug and I have promised each other we’ll do another wedding—and this time, we promise Bonnie—there will be a back-up.