The Wedding Mill

Thirty years ago, there was a different mentality about weddings. It seemed that “most” couples preferred to be married in a church. Nowadays, I really can’t remember the last time we had a wedding in our church.

The popular thinking these days is: live together outside of marriage; get a license and get married at the courthouse; or rent a venue out in the country in the setting of the fields, forests, and mountains.

Thirty years ago we were pumping out weddings. By pumping them out, I mean like the Elvis Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. These were not couples who attended our church but couples who somehow got wind that our church would marry them off the street.

Now I strongly believe that the church was doing weddings for the money that came in which would support our other projects, but that’s only my opinion.

My job on the wedding team was that of the sound guy. We had a sliding scale of costs for a couple to use our sanctuary. If they didn’t mind most of the platform chairs and sound equipment being left on the platform, it was one cost. If they wanted the platform stripped, it was a great deal more. I personally hated to strip the stage because for some reason, the sound system never worked correctly when it was all plugged back in, and the stage was reset again.

The wedding got even more expensive if they wanted to use the fellowship hall and the kitchen for the reception afterward and add to that our food and service fee for our ladies involved.

My wife, Cheryl, was the wedding singer, because most couples had no music of their own planned. What she would normally do is show the couple her catalog of background music cassette tapes and the bride would normally be the one to choose a song or two for the ceremony. This for the most part, always went smoothly and the couples were pleased.

The Wedding Mill soon became a bone of contention with the church staff. The question was asked continually, “Why are we accepting all these weddings? These couples don’t even attend the church. We don’t know anything about their background.” And yet they continued. . . until . . .

As was the procedure and part of the fee, the couple were required to attend a certain number of marriage counseling sessions with the Pastor if they chose to be married in our building. This was acceptable to every couple, even our last couple who we will call, “Couple X.”

Couple X arrived for their first counseling session. The groom-to-be did not want to be there or answer any of the Pastor’s questions and within 30 minutes,  he stomped out of the session refusing to return again.

The bride-to-be had a meltdown and began crying out of control. The Pastor, trying to calm the situation, assured her that the wedding would continue despite the unfinished counseling sessions.

The wedding was held on a summer Saturday. The outside air temperature was in the 80s and inside, even with the windows open, the temperature was also in the 80s. Everyone was hot, sticky and irritable.

The rehearsal was at 10:00 am for the 2:00 pm wedding. Though the wedding party listened to the instructions that our wedding planner gave them, they wanted to get the practice over with so they could go to lunch. When the planner was confident that everyone was on the same page, she excused the party to go eat and get dressed.

At some point, the bride chose a song for Cheryl to sing, and I was handed the cassette. Cheryl left to make a copy of the lyrics.

Our daughter, Kalene was five years old at the time. Since we planned on keeping her with us for the wedding, she went to the children’s room to play with the toys while I set up the correct microphones. It was at that time that the flower girl also went into the children’s room to play with toys. Soon Kalene and the flower girl were best friends.

Lunchtime was uneventful for the church staff. That was not to be said for the bridesmaids and groomsmen. As soon as they left for lunch, they went to their cars and opened cases of liquor which they began downing, not considering, or caring about the consequences. At 1:00 pm, when they should have been dressing in tuxes and gowns, they were passed out in the parking lot. This caught the wedding planner somewhat by surprise and realizing that she had also not seen the bride and groom lately she ran frantically through the church looking in all the unlocked rooms. The bride and groom were found on the floor of the boiler room consummating their relationship before the license was issued.

At 1:30, the wedding planner was now in full-tilt panic mode. The wedding staff was hustled to the parking lot to retrieve the wedding party and help them dress. Guests were beginning to arrive.

I had set the stage, went down to find Kalene, and brought her up to the balcony with me where the sound booth was located. Holding the cassette up, I could see that the tape was half played through, so I rewound it.

Now here is the thing about background music tapes; one side will have a demo version of the song with a vocal artist singing the song. The other side of the cassette will have two background music versions of the song, one in a low range for bass or tenors, and one for Altos or low sopranos. Quite possibly I erred by not checking which side was queued up in the player.

2:00 pm arrived. The sanctuary was full of guests. As the organist started playing the wedding march, two by two, the very drunk bridesmaids and groomsmen staggered down the center aisle, leaning on each other for support. When they reached the platform and split up, they each sat on the floor (the wedding planner commented later that this bit of choreography wasn’t her idea.) The Pastor and the groom did their best to prop them up, but it was like trying to spin 10 plates on top of poles. One would sit back down as soon as they got another up

Cheryl sat in the front row, lyrics in hand, ready to sing for the bride as she was escorted down the aisle. She kept staring back at me with one of those (are you kidding me?) looks on her face.

Unbeknownst to me, during the chaos of the floor show I was watching from my booth, Kalene left and went back downstairs. I had forgotten about her and didn’t see her again until the flower girl started her walk down the center aisle with Kalene walking next to her helping her toss rose petals from the wicker basket.

The organist, who was watching through the rear-view mirror at her organ, mumbled a word not usually spoken in church which even I heard from the balcony.

Cheryl jumped up and grabbed Kalene, plopping her on the bench beside her. She then walked to the platform to sing the bride’s entrance music. She looked at me and nodded, indicating that she was ready. I pushed the play button on the tape player. The song intro played but before Cheryl could sing her first lyric, a tenor male voice came through the sound system.

I didn’t know what the song was. Maybe it was a vocal duet. From the platform, Cheryl was making an indication with her fingers to flip the tape over. Apparently, we were on the demo side of the cassette. Pulling the cassette from the player and flipping it over, I placed it back in the machine, which now required me to rewind the tape on that side. Really, it only took a trained sound person like me a mere 30 seconds to accomplish. Again, pushing the play button, the music began, and my soprano wife sang through the whole song with a song track written for a bass singer.

I thought the bride held her composure well as her father escorted her down the aisle. Her groom stood at the front awaiting her arrival while trying to hold up his groomsmen. Two of the bridesmaids were sitting on the platform steps holding their heads in their hands. The father handed his daughter to the groom, the groomsmen leaned into each other forming a human tripod as the bride and groom climbed the steps to the platform and kneeled on a small bench.

The Pastor began to speak just as the tripod collapsed. Two of the groomsmen fell to the floor. The third toppled over backwards sitting on them like they were a park bench. That is where they stayed for the whole ceremony. The groom had to leave the platform and search the pockets of his best man for the ring. The maid of honor lost the ring she was responsible for somewhere in the bouquet she was holding. Though she tore it completely apart and all three bridesmaids looked on hands and knees through the foliage on the floor, it wasn’t until later that she found the ring in her pocket.

Most brides start planning their perfect wedding when they are little girls. I don’t believe that this was this bride’s perfect wedding, and from the platform, in front of all her guests, she had her meltdown. As soon as they both said, “I do” she grabbed her groom’s hand and ran from the building, never to be seen again.

The Pastor didn’t get paid, the wedding planner didn’t get paid, the organist didn’t get paid, the soundman and the wedding singer didn’t get paid, the kitchen help didn’t get paid, and the church got nothing for the rental.

So, what are you going to do, track her down and tear up her marriage license for failure to pay?

That ended the wedding mill. Like I said, that was 30 years ago, and I can only remember a small handful of weddings since. But you know what we are doing a lot of now? Funerals.

The old team is back together again, each doing their respective jobs in a different scenario.

Should it be a disturbing trend that there are more funerals than weddings? That Vegas is turning its wedding chapels into funeral parlors?

Face the facts: everybody isn’t getting married, but everybody’s going to die.

*Photo credit for the title: Steph Newton

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