When you reach a certain age, your life becomes a non-stop barrage of weddings, especially in the summers. A lot of the ideas we actually did use in our wedding were gleaned from our friends' weddings, a mishmash of the elements that would suit us best. There was one part of every wedding that always left us wondering, "How would we do this?" and it's the moment with all the zazz:
"It could use more... zazz."
How does the wedding party make their grand entrance at the reception? Sure, everyone's just seen you officially become husband and wife, but this is the first time you will arrive someplace as a married team. Plus, it's a great way to acknowledge your wedding party as MVPs of the day, if you're lucky and your reality series helped you pick the right people. And when looking for inspiration for a flashy introduction, no one does over-the-top and in-your-face like the NBA.
Well, Shaq, specifically, but the NBA doesn't do too bad for itself.
Somewhere around 2010, Dave announced that he had found the perfect entrance music for our as-yet-unplanned wedding. "Just the first minute or so," he said, "but I think this would be amazing."
It really does make for triumphant entrance music, doesn't it? Imagine the wedding party in basketball jerseys, being introduced with their numbers, positions, and heights. The room is completely dark except for the spotlights on the star players, and the electric excitement of the crowd is palpable. After the bride and groom enter, they take the dance floor and shoot a few lay-ups in lieu of their first dance. At this point, perhaps the music has transitioned to the Harlem Globetrotters' theme music? We didn't really get that far in thinking it through...
Why we didn't do this: If anything would terrify Amanda more than the thought of being looked at while walking down the aisle, it would be having people watch her attempt to shoot a basketball. The lighting might have been a tad impractical, as well.
What we did instead: Fortunately, we had a competing idea that we've held close to our hearts for many years. You see, there's a movie we both love that ends with a great song, to which the characters stride purposefully into their future. It's this one, and we stopped just short of putting everyone in red beanies.
Amanda is sometimes weird about people looking at her. You might think this doesn't make much sense, and you'd be right. She appeared onstage throughout high school and college and currently stands in front of classrooms full of college students teaching them how to use library databases. However, Amanda was not getting married during any of these other attention-oriented situations, which renders any logic completely void.
In January, eight months before our wedding, the full weight of being the bride was starting to sink in. By custom, my name was automatically listed first on everything from registries to our website. The local classified ads ran their annual special wedding edition, including a panic-inducing checklist with four times as many to-dos for the bride as for the groom (seriously, the groom's checklist includes getting a haircut and clipping his nails). The more research I did to look for things like flowers, decorations, and music, the more I was told, "Don't worry about it-- all eyes will be on the bride!" Don't worry about it? The idea of all eyes being on me was way more worrisome than any concerns I might have had about whether to play the YMCA before or after dessert.
In particular, nothing was more terrifying than imagining what people might be thinking as I walked down the aisle. I could be walking too fast, or making a stupid face, or holding my flowers wrong... the admittedly neurotic possibilities were endless. And then I had a moment of clarity: I could ask the best man to consider showing up in a gorilla costume. I had originally planned on giving the wedding party a great deal of personal choice in terms of their attire, and anything that would take the focus off me seemed like the way to go. Better yet, I could be escorted down the aisle by someone in an astronaut suit!
Special appearance by Astronaut Mike Dexter
What we ended up doing: I did still encourage the wedding party to wear whatever was to their liking, but nobody took me up on the costume idea. Perhaps a gorilla suit in August wasn't the most charitable option to offer.
As for my anxieties about walking down the aisle, I got some very comforting words from a friend of mine in our church choir. We were sitting at rehearsal chatting about wedding plans, and I confessed my fear and frustration at how often I was being assured that I would be the center of attention. She said to me, "Oh, it'll be fine. You're among friends here." Of course, she was right. I am exceedingly grateful that I was able to get married in the church that had become my home for the four years that I lived in the Delhi area. And if anyone had anything judgmental to say about my walk down the aisle, at least they were smart enough not to say it to me.
