Herb Benham RSS Feed
Print Story
E-mail StoryHerb Benham: Key to summer weddings is keeping cold air on and hot air to a minimum
| Thursday, Jul 10 2008 1:46 PM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jul 10 2008 3:33 PM
The pastor forgot the ring exchange. He knows who he is so I won’t embarrass him, although his initials are W.V. and his church has “Canyon” in the title.
Our readers recommend:
Loading Stories
For a second, I thought the omission might have had something to do with the dog. The ring bearer was a dog. A small white dog with a fresh shampoo.
Dogs eat homework. Why not rings? You can hide a ring in a dog biscuit.
Recently we went to a wedding for a friend’s son. This is the next generation. They’ve seen how much fun their parents have had and can’t wait to share some of that joy themselves.
Summer weddings require two things: brevity and air conditioning. Keep the cool air flowing and the hot air to a minimum.
Some good pre-wedding chatter doesn’t hurt either. This can include rumors on how much the wedding cost — the more the better — and in this case, family traditions that are expected to be honored.
“Did you hear that it’s a tradition in the bride’s family for the bride to be wheeled to the reception by the groom in a wheelbarrow,” a friend said.
How far? The church was 10 blocks from the reception hall. Ten blocks is a pretty good haul in December, but when the temperature is 104, which it was that day, this becomes a Herculean feat.
If the groom, dressed in a black tuxedo, and bride, in a full wedding gown, could survive 10 blocks in a wheelbarrow, they may be able to handle the rigors of marriage.
Turns out the wheelbarrow ride was from the reception parking lot to the reception.
Memorable, but perhaps lacking the vetting power of a 10-block wheelbarrow ride down 17th Street.
The reception was at the Bell Tower Club. That place dresses up nicely, this time with pink necklaces hanging from the chandeliers and most importantly, a table in the foyer loaded with glasses of white and red wine as well as crackers and cheese that included chunks of cheddar, wedges of brie and your requisite hunk of blue cheese which no one ever really knows what to do with.
A nod to the air conditioning. No matter how much love there is in the room, if that love is hot love then guests have a tendency to peek at their watches and plan exit strategies.
There is a place for hot love. Just not at the reception when people are generally wearing their hot clothes. Guests are thisclose to catching on fire anyway.
The bride and groom arrived. This was the signal for the toasts to begin.
First, the heartfelt toasts from the two best men and two bridesmaids. Then the dam broke loose and the entire wedding party trooped to the mike. Soon there were homeless people coming off Truxtun in order to add their good wishes.
The bride and groom — wonderful people to begin with — were even more wonderful than their family and friends knew them to be. There were two common themes in the toasts, the first being that “he or she was always there for me.”
That and “we did a lot of things together that I can’t tell you about, but when I woke up with my head on the curb, he was there for me too.”
My neighbor leaned over and said, “I never had anybody who was there for me. In my day, we didn’t have that kind of thing.”
Finally, the toasts ended, the music started and people took to the dance floor. The DJ played “Celebration” by Kool & The Gang. The room got hot but it was a good hot.
Opinions expressed are those of Herb Benham, not The Californian.