Wasting A Valuable Saturday Night

I'm starring down another big week. I got a profile piece about some old alum due on Saturday. Then there's homecoming weekend and midterms. It doesn't help that I completely pissed away my weekend.

Saturday evening I made the hour drive North to come home and go to a wedding. I didn't even have to go, but now that I am in college I appreciate any time that I can get together with my family.

The bride, Sonja, was a friend of the family. She's a little bit older than my mom and has always been fairly obese. She met her husband, Stuart, in a hospital as she was undergoing gastric bypass surgery. Sonja, who is native to Alabama, had been adopted, along with her mother Shirley, by my Mother's side of the family. They have been a part of all of our Christmas Eve celebrations. I don't think any of us thought this day would ever come, and it showed at the wedding.

The lamest ceremonial event I have ever been a part of. A real half-ass attempt at a wedding. I guess this is what happens if you wait till you are forty to get engaged.

For starters it took place in an awkwardly designed church, which you could tell was trying to optimize space by keeping the price tag under budget. As a result we sat in folding chairs in a large, plain room. Not to mention the guests of the bride and groom were not even separated.

Instead of a pianist or organ player, tickling the ivories of "Here Comes the Bride" everything was done on audio. There was a D.J. however, but during the after ceremony-celebrations they played hideous country covers of the Eagles. How do country artists get off doing so many covers? I guess other than drinking and the Red, White and Blue, they have no other creative inspirations.

Grace was no where in sight when Sonja presented herself to the congregation. She looked around, from side to side in confusion as if there were other paths than the white mat that had been rolled out in front of her. After seconds of hesitation she began her journey down the aisle.

To add to the cheesiness, my mom and her two sisters were the bride's maids. Women in their 40's should not be maids, especially if they've been married for 20 years. OK, I think I'm ripping on this wedding a little too much. If nothing else it was a simple wedding and as I said before it was a special family event. I just wish I hadn't of spent my Saturday night on it.

I was planning on leaving around 9:00 and drive back to school, but I rode with my Dad and didn't have a ride back home where my car was. So, I stayed the whole time. I guess if I willed it strong enough, I could have escaped. To be honest with myself, I didn't hate all that much. This sounds really pathetic. I did the hokey pokey with my little cousins and accompanied my Grandma to a slow dance. I even helped clean up afterwards.

There was a party back in Franklin that I could have gone to, knowing that I was missing that really ate me up Saturday night, so I'm going to make it up by doing something on Tuesday night.