Weddings and Funerals

One of the longest-standing family jokes is that at weddings and funerals, my daughter and I are not allowed to sit next to each other. The reason for this is that neither of us has ever been able to take religion and religious ceremony too seriously. As a result, we tend to find humor in the strangest of places and at the strangest of times. Aside from those events, my own wedding and my daughter's wedding have both provided their own bits of amusement as I hope you will see by reading on.

Literally, the exact week before we were to get married, a fraternity brother was getting married and we were invited to their wedding. As it happened, the wedding was in East Jabroo (no, that’s not fair, it was actually Delhi), New York. East Jabroo, however also fits because one of the driving directions we got was “when you go over the mountain, turn left.” We all found that infinitely hilarious but, as it turns out, the direction was precise and unmistakable. That parts of New York State existed that would require a direction like that was a hoot to us. Anyway, the bride and groom were leaving for their honeymoon from the airport in Syracuse, New York (site of the infamous flight through the snow that some of you may remember). They asked if we would mind going with them to the airport and then driving their car back to Connecticut. My fiancée (soon to be wife) and I happily agreed. So there we are in the back seat, happily sated with the wedding meal and wedding alcohol. We both dozed off. We were awakened by the dispute that was taking place in the front. It seems the bride had forgotten her “special pillow” and was beside herself that she would be unable to sleep on their honeymoon. Of course, smartass that I am, I had to chime in with, “It’s your honeymoon. Sleeping in the bed is optional.” That was met with stony silence although I thought it was the height of humor. I was a bit concerned that the car in question would have “issues” on the way back to Connecticut since it was a Ford from the era when Ford stood for either “found on road dead” or “fix or repair daily.” As it happens, we made it back without incident and the “Just Married” sign that adorned their car adorned ours the next weekend when we got married. (And we still have the picture to prove it.)

Our wedding was the culmination of one of those classic big-white wedding planning frenzies. My fiancée had decided to convert to Judaism and that whole process began with meeting with the rabbi with whom I had grown up, a very learned man who could be intimidating as hell. For those of you who do not know, it is traditional for a rabbi to attempt to convince someone NOT to convert to Judaism because if they can shake their conviction to do so, then it wasn’t a conversion for the right reasons. Until you see this actually being done to someone you love, you cannot believe what a terrifying experience it is. By the time he was done with us, she was practically in tears and I was ready to detonate in the mega-tonnage range. But she passed the test and he then was as sweet a man as I had always known him to be and helped arrange for conversion classes.

I may have mentioned somewhere along in these tales of myself that I am extremely susceptible to any sedative-type medication, whether it be pain-killers, muscle relaxants or cold medication. Bear this in mind. My fiancée graduated a semester before I did so I was at school without for my senior spring semester. About once a month I’d visit her for the weekend. I believe it was spring break when I was there that I accompanied her to her conversion class. That week I had a muscle cramp in my neck and the university health services prescribed a muscle relaxant called Soma. I was supposed to take it with aspirin but all I had was Tylenol. When I was younger, I got a mild buzz off Tylenol. The night I was going to class with her, I took the pills before we left...and sat through the class nodding off like a junkie. What the rabbi who taught the class must have thought of me is better left unanswered.

So as not to offend the Roman Catholic part of the family, we opted to have the wedding at the Hartford Hilton, which has since been torn down. (No, our wedding had nothing to do with that. An interesting side not is that we got married in the exact same ballroom in which I would, thirteen years later, take the Bar examination.) It did, however, present a dilemma as to where we were going to find a rabbi. None with their own synagogue wanted to do a wedding where not in their own synagogue. My step-father’s sister-in-law also happened to be a friend of my mother and one of my Hebrew school teachers. She remembered a former student who was a rabbi but was at the time employed as a clinical psychologist at Connecticut Valley Hospital, a state-run mental hospital. That was an interesting experience, walking through the hallways looking for his office.

The rabbi made it clear that he had no interest in being part of the rehearsal. So we did the rehearsal in the back yard of my fiancée s parents’ house. There were five bridesmaids plus the matron of honor and I had to walk down the aisle with every one of them during the rehearsal. I’m thinking they weren’t sure I could figure out the direction to walk or the side on which to stand.

So the night before the wedding, me and the boys (my best man and groomsmen) decided to find a topless bar to go to. Only problem was, none of us, me included, knew where one was in the area. No one we asked knew where we could find such an establishment. (We knew where plenty of them were in Syracuse but this was Connecticut.) Failing to find said genre of establishment, we settled for a garden variety bar, had a few beers and then went to the motel where we boys got to stay the night before. (Interesting fact about that motel: Not too long after we got married, the motel became an X-rated motel with in-room movies, gel beds and really tacky lighting. Our wedding had nothing to do with that.)

The next morning, the bunch of us went to the Olympia Diner for breakfast where we happened to run into some more fraternity people. So we had a nice hearty group breakfast. There were still several hours, so we headed to back to my fiancée’s parents’ house. So as to avoid the evil of the groom seeing the bride before the wedding, we stayed downstairs and played bridge. Eventually we were evicted and headed for the Hilton. I remember what I was wearing (ratty blue jeans, a football jersey and sandals) because when my mother greeted me at the hotel it was with the following comment: “Nice to see the groom is the one dressed like a slob.” Thank you Mom.

The ceremony itself was very nice (so I’m told). I don’t particularly remember it. After that came the first reception. Yes, that’s right, there were two. The one at the Hilton was Kosher (read: very, vey expensive). From there we adjourned to a neighboring town where we had the second reception at a VFW hall. The amusement value here came when the bandleader did the pre-meal blessing…in the name of the Father and the son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Somehow he had missed the memo about the wedding couple being, uh…not Catholic. My mother-in-law was mortified but my parents took it in stride. One of the last events was a dollar dance. (I had never heard of this tradition until several years earlier. We were just girlfriend/boyfriend at the time and went to a wedding along with her parents. There was a dollar dance wherein all the gentlemen had the bride a dollar for the privilege of dancing with her. The idea is to give the couple some ready cash for the honeymoon. My mother-in-law (to be) turned to us and said, “At your wedding it’s going to be a five dollar dance.” I looked at my girlfriend, she looked at me and we both said “Our wedding?” Apparently my m-i-l (to be) knew what we had not quite yet figured out.) There’s a picture of me handing my new wife a dollar with a smirk on my face since she told me no dollar, no dance. I had to borrow the money.

After the reception ended, we went back to her parents’ house to change. I was helping my new bride out of her wedding gown when I heard her mother (who by this time was well drunk) yell, “Mark Gutis! Get out of my daughter’s room while she’s changing her clothes!” I was about to do a big “oops, we’ve been caught” when it suddenly dawned on me: We’re married now and that was just what I said.

As part of the deal with the Hilton, we received a suite for the wedding night. We went upstairs and walked in. There was a nice bottle of champagne (Kosher, of course) in an ice bucket and there in the bedroom, were twin beds. We looked at each other and I said to wait. Down to the desk I went and said, “Um, my…wife (it was the first time I had ever said that and it took a split-second to process) and I got married this afternoon. Right here in fact. The suite you gave us has twin beds.” The desk clerk looked at me and said, “They gave you twin beds? On your wedding night?” I confirmed this. He said to go back and he would send someone to bring us to a new room. A few minutes later a bellman escorted to a suite on another floor where we found a king-size bed. Much better! (OK. TMI alert. Read the remainder of this paragraph at your own peril! The next month, we went to the wedding of my in-law’s best friends’ son. For whatever reason, my father-in-law and the father of the groom took it upon themselves to buy me enough drinks so that I would finally loosen up around my in-laws. We were sitting and talking and a few humorous comments about wedding nights were made. At that point, happily inebriated, I said, “Know what the best thing about a king size bed is?” and they just looked at me. Happily, I continued, “You can mess around on one-third and sleep on the other two-thirds and not have to worry about the wet spot.” My mother-in-law looked at me then at my father-in-law who, recognizing the look, knew he was in some sort of trouble.

So we went to one of the honeymoon factories in the Poconos. Our only criterion in choosing the place was that it did NOT have heart-shaped bathtubs. (They were octagon-shaped.) We did all the things they had to offer including horseback riding. Fortunately, we waited until the day before our departure to do that. By the next morning, we were both so damn sore from riding that we could barely walk normally. Of course that provoked gales of laughter and lots of nudge, nudge, wink, wink as to how we had “really” gotten into that condition.

There you have it. This June 2 will mark thirty-six years of marriage. There have been many other weddings since ours and a few funerals, too. Stay tuned for more of the story.

To be continued….