The Donut Shop Wedding, Part 2: The Appointment

Saturday morning the soon to be bride and groom showed up at my office right on time. He looked pretty rough, about 55, an over the road trucker who looked like he had lost more fights than he had won. She was around 40, tall and thin, her hair mostly blond with brown roots, and she had no teeth. No kidding. When they came in, apparently they had been arguing about her false teeth. He really wanted her to wear her dentures for the wedding. That seemed like a reasonable request to me. She said her dentures hurt her mouth and she didn't want to be in pain during her own wedding. A good point for her. This was no small matter. I encouraged them to work out the teeth issue for themselves.

Then we talked for awhile. They said they had both been married before, but they were real serious about their new life together. It was going to be a brand new start. They nodded and smiled all the way through my wise counsel. The groom told me the ceremony was going to be casual, which I kind of expected since we would be standing in the donut shop. He said to just wear what I had on, jeans and a golf shirt.

As we wrapped up I had to ask, "Why don't you guys just wait until six when your friends get off work and we can have the wedding in our sanctuary?" She shook her head. "After the wedding we're going to the tractor pull over in Windsor, and the tractor pull starts at 6:30. So, it's gotta be 5:00." "Oh," I nodded. That was all I could think to say.

I went home and mowed the yard and then watched a little football, all the while thinking how did I get myself into this? I just wanted to get in there, get it done, and get out, again with the fond wish that maybe this whole event would go largely unnoticed. Like I said before, I was young at the time, and didn't yet understand God's warped sense of humor.