The Wedding, Part 2

Last we heard about The Wedding, the girls were on their way into the church to meet the boys for some aisle-walkin'. That part went off without a hitch; even the 3-year old ring bearer and his little flower girlfriend did their parts and walked hand-in-hand down the aisle. And it was just as adorable as you might think.

Aside from one minor trip over a chair at the alter, the reading I gave at the church (from my iPhone) went well. The groom kissed the bride and we all cheered and clapped and took a thousand and one pictures. Including this one:

Told you they were as adorable as you thought they were ;-)

The limo ride to the reception was.... well, I'm not allowed to talk about the limo ride to the reception. Just know that there was a lot of drinking and personal picture-taking involved. And that it was F-U-N!!!

So we get to the reception hall and we're all nice and toasty, ready for some more boozin' and dancin' and actin' a fool. We hover outside of the hall while all the guests file in, and stop every single server on his or her way out that has even the slightest bit of food left on their serving tray. (We were HUN-GOR-AY!!) As we're milling about aimlessly, Cousin Dee (not to be confused with Me Dee) ushers a very frantic looking woman into the hallway. This woman is clearly upset and begins to talk a bit of smack about another family member, something about someone's husband and who has to stay away from him and some how someone told someone else to keep her hands of him, whoever "him" is. Very confusing. Very agitated. I thank God the bride is not around to witness it. This woman eventually calms down, and someone finally tells us to just go inside and eat, that it'll be at least an hour before the DJ introduces us. So we do.

Then we go back out and dance our way inside. Every couple does a funny dance on their way in, except that the best man and I have decided that he's going to carry me in. Which actually turns out to be pretty funny, because the best man is a 300-pound black man that looks sort of like the Notorious B.I.G., and I am a 125-pound (shut up, I'm estimating) white girl dressed in an elaborate bridesmaid gown and holding flowers. Oh, and he carries me out to Don't Stop Believin'. True story!!

So at this point in the festivities, the bride and groom have danced their first dance and my BFF Caila (hi Caila!!) take this opportunity to go use the ladies room. We walk out into the hallway and are confronted by 6 or 7 servers, 2 managers with headsets, and a flurry of wedding guests. We see 2 children crying in a coat closet and someone trying to console them. The entrance to the patio is being blocked by a member of the catering staff, and we have no idea what the frack is going on. We look out onto the patio and see two females, one of which is the agitated lady from earlier, being held back by a dude, while another lady is being held back by someone else. They are clearly involved in some sort of altercation. Just as we begin to understand the situation, I see blue and red flashing lights. In what probably took all of 10 seconds, the following happened: a manager in a headset pushed his way through the crowd gathering in the hallway yelled at everyone to clear out and refuses to let anyone in from or out to the patio; a wedding guest claiming to he a police officer (who actually is) tries unsuccessfully to push his way outside to help, and become increasingly angry when no one lets him through--they eventually let him through; the bride's brother and his girlfriend try to exit the hall and are frantically pushed back inside by Caila and myself, but when the girlfriend insists she has to pee (poor girl, she'd been holding it for hours!), we have to let her through and explain that there is a fight taking place on the patio outside, and please don't tell the bride or groom. At this point, 6 uniformed police officers and 2 undercover cops have congregated on the patio of this restaurant. The uniformed officers try to enter the building and are politely asked not to, with pleadings of, "Come on guys, this is a wedding. We don't need the bride to find out about this. They're inside having a good time, they just danced their first dance. Let's not make this worse. Can we keep it outside?" (I fully admit to being one of the first people to say those words.) At first, the officers get all "who the fuck do you think you are, I'm a cop and there's been an altercation, I can do whatever I want," but then an undercover agent comes over and makes the same argument that this is a wedding, let's keep it down, and the police take care of the situation outside.

Phew. It seems to be over.

But it's not. Before we can say, "Oh good, let's not tell the bride or groom about this," the groom comes flying around the other side of the patio, clearly upset. And I'm using that term very lightly. He was mad. Fuming, in fact. And rightly so. He has a few choice words for the ladies involved in the fight (who, let's just say, should've been acting with the utmost class and respect considering their relation to the bride and groom), throws his jacket on the floor, and storms out of the restaurant. Both his father and I chase him down the street until I realize I'm the one in 4 inch heels. So I stop running and go back inside to do damage control. Caila and I are both very hush-hush about the situation, downplaying it as much as we can, giving as little detail as possible. The groom comes back inside smiling, and it seems as though his father has calmed him down. The party continues. The bride at some point comes over to my table and casually asks, "Soooo.... how many people saw the fight? Who else knows the cops were called? Come on, you can tell me. I can take it. I've been drinking since this morning."

Aaah, what a wedding. The rest of it went off without a hitch. I gave my speech, we all danced and ate, I nearly suffocated in my dress, my cousin got naked in the bathroom because of a Spanks malfunction, and we all agreed that it was a night to remember.