This weekend I went to a wedding. Well, that's not quite accurate. My wife was in the wedding party as maid of honor, and I was asked to film the wedding because I was the only person they knew who had any type of video camera. It's old, but it will get the job done.

And it was a black wedding. I put that out there because, well, they're just a little bit different most of time, which I figure most folks say about different types of exotic weddings. It was also different because the bride was 54, and it's her first marriage ever, though she has an adult child; it was to be the groom's second wedding.

I got to the church about 45 minutes early so I could set the camera up. Now, going into this, I was expecting the wedding to start late. This would have followed a long standing pattern. One wedding many years ago, when I was playing the early music, the wedding started 2 1/2 hours late. Another one about 3 years ago also started 2 1/2 hours late. I haven't had the best of luck with these things, but I also knew the bride, so I figured it would go off sooner than those.

The early part, before the wedding, was relatively uneventful, but even then, things happen. For one, I almost fell down a ramp I didn't know was a ramp; ugh. Then I had trouble trying to figure out where to put the tripod because of the decorations; everything was in the way, no matter where I went, even after I removed one of the plants. Then they had trouble getting the sound system working; can you imagine that the reverend asked me if I knew how it worked; sheesh. At one point, I had to go to the bride's mother and encourage her to sit in the front pew; she hadn't even thought about it. And, of course, you have the normal thing of folks wearing clothes that someone else might think are inappropriate, shorts with high heels, suits with Timberland boots, short skirts (I wasn't mad at anyone),... then the colors!

Anyway, the wedding started 10 minutes late; can't be mad at that either. The first song was sung by the bride's niece, who actually made it to American Idol for a few days, then decided it wasn't for her and she left, one of only two people to ever leave on their own. She had a wonderful voice. Then it was time for the wedding party, small, to come in. The two little girls were precious, as my wife made their dresses. Then my wife came in, gorgeous as ever, followed by the bride with her big smile. Now it was the reverend's turn, and as he said his first little prayer, there was an echo, of sorts, with some chanting going on, and we learned later that was the preacher's wife. Someone answer this one for me; how does an older preacher who's probably done tons of weddings not know the lines "to love and to hold"? He started off, then he stopped and has to turn the page and find his place; I almost yelled out the words myself. Oh yeah, people kept streaming in to the wedding as it was going on; they're also used to these things not starting on time. Now, one nice touch, which only the reverent, organist, and my wife knew was coming, was the bride decided to sing a tribute song to the groom to be. She also had a nice voice, and my wife told me that the groom almost collapsed when she started singing to him.

Finally, the wedding was over, and, because this church didn't have an actual "back of the room", the reverend had the wedding party walk back down the middle, then come back up around the side and form the reception line right then and there. I hadn't expected that either, so I filmed for a short while from where I was, then turned the camera off and moved to the front so I could get a little bit of that. There was no rice throwing or bubbles or any such thing; it was about 35 degrees outside after all.

Then it was over to the reception hall, where, unfortunately, my camera decided it had enough. Actually, the tape jammed, but I also had problems with the power supply. No matter; the reception, though it had its moments, was fairly standard. Okay, the fight wasn't standard. One guy had been invited, and instead of bringing his wife, he brought his girlfriend. Some other woman had been invited and decided to bring one of her lady friends with her, and it turned out that was his SECOND girlfriend. So, of course, the women started fighting, the man got in the middle, punched the woman he didn't come with, and she maced him. That was lovely.

Then there was the bride's adult son, who couldn't deign to show up at the wedding, but did show up at the reception, only to stay at the bar, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and never coming in to wish the new couple congratulations; the new groom threw him out (oh yeah, they had security, though it couldn't stop the fight). And then there was Uncle Hobby, or whatever it was they were calling him, who had to have been drunk before he got there because I can't believe he could have gotten drunk that fast at the reception. He hit the floor a few times, but mostly was either up on women or very far away from them trying to regain his balance.

And, finally, the cake. As I was trying to set the cake up, the fumes of the cake hit me. It was a 5-tier chocolate frosting/yellow cake, and it enticed me to much that I declared to my friend that it was going to be a 3-piece of cake day, even before I'd tasted the first slice. And, of course, I got my three, even with my wife's kind of approval. The food wasn't great, which was shocking because this same guy did the food for my wedding almost 10 years ago, but we had different foods and paid more for it, from what I heard.

I think that's enough of that. I had a nice time, I even danced a couple of times with my wife, and people kept telling me how beautiful my wife was and how nice I was; yup, I fooled 'em!