Always a Bridesmaid

Some weeks ago, perhaps three, I was approached by the wife of a good friend of mine who wanted to know if I would be willing to play a small role in her sister's impending wedding which would be held in their back yard. I have had the chance to meet her sister a few times in the past and apparently she voiced her desire to have me announce the wedding party at the reception. My seething distaste for weddings notwithstanding, I deigned to participate, feeling somewhat flattered at having been thought of at all.

The weeks quietly washed away and I thought little of the arrangement to which I had agreed until this Thursday past when I was reminded (and shocked to learn) that the wedding would take place on August 10th at 4:30 in the afternoon. Thankfully, the party that I had been planning to attend during that very time-slot had been post-poned and so I found myself in the singular position of being able to pretend that I had been aware of the time and date all along.

At about 4:05 on the afternoon of the 10th, I waddled my way to the site of the wedding and plopped myself on a couch. The first attack on my tranquility came from the sister of the bride who asked, "Would you like to go familiarize yourself with the sound system?" My thought was, "How hard is it to read a wedding program into a microphone?" and so I simply replied, "No." Not impressed with my laissez faire approach to detail, the sister added, "Well, I just thought maybe you'd want to make sure that you knew how the equipment worked so that everything is perfect for the wedding."

Ordinarily, "so that everything is perfect for the wedding" is not a huge motivator for me, but somehow I found myself being extracted from my brief but comfortable perch on the sofa and grumbling my way to the back yard. The back yard in question is something of a 50 ft by 60 ft rectangle with a 10 ft by 10 ft raised patio in the southeast corner. The patio features an 'L' shaped stone barbecue upon which sat the amplifiers, soundboard, and console. I noticed the groom squinting over a laptop that was sitting next to the microphone stand so I walked over and asked him if he had any special instructions. "Have you ever worked with WinAmp?" I regarded him blankly and told him that I had not. "Oh. Well, that's what we're going to be using to play the music.  It's pretty straightforward, there's a play-list for when guests are arriving, when the we're walking down the aisle, and the processional and recessional are specially marked."  I can't be sure, but I imagine that my blank stare was more vacant than ever at this point. The groom went on, "When the bride gets to end of the aisle, just fade the music down and then you can pause it. When the pastor introduces us as man and wife, then you can play the recessional; it's got a pretty cold intro so you don't need to fade back into it."

My completely expressionless face belied my rising blood pressure; was this guy expecting me to be the sound man for his wedding? "What song goes with what part of the service is all included in the text document that should be open. Will you be needing a seat?" Still not fully at peace with my newly expanded role,  I managed to stammer, "You... you want me up here during the wedding?" He shrugged his shoulders as if to acknowledge the sub-optimality of the arrangement."Well, yes. There's really nowhere else to put the laptop and keep it plugged into the soundboard, so you'll have to be up here with us."

Just to be clear, by "with us," the groom was referencing the fact that he, the bride, officiant, and everyone else in the bridal party would be stationed at the foreground of the patio for the ceremony. In other words, any photographs taken of the "stage" during the ceremony would feature the bride, groom, officiant, and, off in the background, me, leering awkwardly between the soundboard and laptop.

One more note of interest: the back yard features three luxurious sugar maple trees staggered against the western reaches of the property that provided a lovely canopy of shade for all the tables and chairs that had been festooned about the lot. In fact, the shade extended all the way to the patio such that the entire bridal party was not subjected to the direct rays of the roiling August sun. The stone barbecue (and pursuantly the speakers, soundboard, laptop, and my seat) however, was just out of reach of the shade tree's merciful influence. So perhaps you're thinking to yourself, "My gravy, I expect that was quite warm and perhaps more than a little uncomfortable!" and you would not be wrong to think that. One other fun aspect of trying to work with a laptop in full sunlight is that you can't see anything! Seriously, You can scarcely discern the outline of the various programs that are open and heaven help you if you should lose track of your cursor location because that sucker is a sneaky rascal once it gives you the slip.

Finding myself in the familiar position of earnestly wanting to complain to someone, I went off in search of my pal, the bride's brother-in-law. I located him straightaway, and after I apprised him of the unfathomable challenges that I faced, including the hard-to-see monitor situation, he brought his not insignificant mental faculties to bear on the problem. He raised his hands up as though he was about to clutch a steering wheel and cocked his head about thirty degrees, "Have you tried moving the screen away from the sun?" I'm not sure which hurt more, the encroaching dehydration and heat stroke, or my friend passively suggesting that my problem solving skills were so primitive that it wouldn't have already occurred to me to turn the laptop screen away from the sun. In any event, I assured him that even at the most optimal angle, the glow of the computer screen was still all but washed out by the radiant sunlight to which he replied, "Darn."

Feeling adequately consoled and patronized, I took note that the ceremony was scheduled to begin in the coming few minutes. I took my station in the blazing sunlight, selected the "guest arrival" playlist, and hoped for the best. As it would turn out, "the best" involved a friend of the bride's volunteering at the last second to step up into the role of  wedding coordinator, positioning herself at the gate on the opposite end of the yard (through which the bridal party would pass as they made their way to the patio/stage), and wildly flailing her arms at me when it was time to change the song. This system proved rather effective but I suspect that it probably made for a strange spectacle to see the "sound technician" glaring intently down the aisle with a stupid expression engendering both panic and confusion on his face.

The ceremony began and ended with musical transitions that proved only mildly painful in their clunkiness, and I was thanked warmly by both the bride and groom for my willingness to participate in their wedding. I clasped both of their hands in mine and did my best to assure them (and myself) that it was truly a pleasure and not at all a sneaky bit of incommoding subterfuge on their part. I ate a piece of cake and skipped down the road without a care in the world.

I'm looking forward to autumn.

-Ryan