As preparations continued, our bride’s sister constantly slipped off to her car, only to return with large tubs and bags, their purpose unknown. In our experience, a small group like this didn’t need to bring in so many things. Naturally, it had piqued our curiosity. There was, however, much still to do, and curiosity would have to wait. I went to check on our bride to see if she was ready to begin. They had booked for only one hour, and we had additional events scheduled that day, the participants of which would be arriving soon. We needed to get the “show on the road,” as it were. The bride’s sister would not let me in and talked through the door, letting me know that they were coming down shortly. As we waited, we filled out the marriage license and certificate, and I noted the names of our day’s first couple (you can get all the information you need to know about your couples directly from the marriage license). Because we had not previously met with this couple, we didn’t know their names. Our bride and groom, as we found out, were named Mary & Johnny.
The bride had opted to walk down the aisle to Wagner’s Bridal Chorus, the traditional wedding march music, which we cued up and had ready to go. The sister had her camcorder ready, and sat in the parlor with her kids and husband. The groom and I took our positions under the wedding arch, and the bridal march began. Here came the bride in a lovely white wedding gown. I began the ceremony, and both bride and groom were simultaneously nervous and excited. The sister filmed it all, walking around us, behind us, and in front of us, not missing a thing.
As I addressed the groom by his name, Johnny, the sister suddenly and quite unexpectedly leapt up from her chair (still filming the ceremony, by the way). She shouted out, “Johnny? His name isn’t Johnny—it’s Robert!” I was, of course, quite surprised by this interruption, as was Gary, the bride, the groom, and the groom’s brother-in-law. I took a second good look at the marriage license, and confirmed that it stated that the groom’s legal name was, in fact, Johnny. Johnny turned to face his new sister-in-law as he held his bride’s hand, poised to slip the ring on her finger. He then informed her that while his real name was Johnny, he went by “Robert.” Apparently, no one but Mary had been aware of this.
After an awkward moment, her sister cracked a few nervous jokes, continued filming, and said that she should send her tape into the Bloopers and Bleeper’s show. With that first, but by no means last, stumble out of the way, I finished marrying the couple, and they headed back down the aisle, all smiles.
