his is a continuation of a conversation at a backyard convocation over coincidences and comparisons of my wedding and that of my friend Gino’s that I began last week. We were sitting around an awesome new propane-powered fire pit keeping warm at night in the yard talking about how three guys from Pennsylvania came to California and picked up rich chicks.
I sat next to Susan and Gino sat next to his new girlfriend Patricia who has so far proven to be able to tolerate him, and we are tickled pink and hopeful about that.
Many times Gino and I have told our wedding stories because they are so dissimilar in their similarities. And they’re not stories that only one of us can tell. It takes two. Gino was Best Man at my rural ritual, and I was in his tuxedo posse at his center city gala affair. His brother Vincent played Best Man. I witnessed a side of his big day that Gino missed entirely.
Last week ended remarking that during both ceremonies our preachers paused to lean in and whisper something unorthodox to each of us. The nervous Father Dinda quietly asked Gino,”What do I do next?” My back country Methodist minister, seeing me look out the church’s side window at an old black Buick with no tires surrounded by weeds in the yard, leaned in and whispered, “That’s the getaway car.”
The fire pit’s gas flame gave us light and with the toddies a warm glow.
“Gino, I remember your father, Sonny, fell asleep in his wheelchair at the start of the ceremony and slept through the whole thing. You and Deb were kneeled at the altar. You couldn’t see it. His head was lolled back and his mouth was wide open. Most of the congregation thought he was dead. I thought he was dead. You mom was the only one close to him, and her eyes were fixed on you.”
“I remember the sirens going off at the fire hall across the street at your wedding. The preacher kept talking but we couldn’t hear him.”
“He was showing me the getaway car. I remember your mom and dad arriving late in a tow truck because they’d broken down on Highway 76.”
“You hired your friend Mick as your photographer. He had an Instamatic camera and a fused elbow. All your pictures came out crooked with parts of people’s heads cut off.”
“Your mother lost the family jewels in the hotel lobby. She was carrying them because she’d heard that thieves search the newspapers for weddings and then rob the houses of the parents.”
“A hotel clerk found them. Your friends came to the reception in shorts and t-shirts.”
“And they each brought a dish with them. We explained that we were driving through town on a cross-country road trip and had no prepared food. You had to pay for catered food.”
“You served venison and hamburger buns.”
“And lots of potato salad. You were mixing cocktails at your reception at the Academy of Science and someone convinced you to make her a zombie and try one yourself. I think you had a couple of them. Then you disappeared.”
“Your friends kept all the good liquor in the trunks of their cars. We had to wander around the parking lot to drink toasts. For some reason they think that Wild Turkey is the good stuff.”
“No one could find you after those zombies, not even your new wife.”
“My girlfriend Lynn and I gave your giant friend Ward a ride home that night and he started playing with a hunting knife in the back seat. We thought he was going to kill us and bury us in the woods. And he lived down a dark dirt road. Lynn almost fainted.”
“Ward is the gentlest guy in the world. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. He probably removed the knife from his hip holster when he sat down in your back seat.”
“Why did he bring a hunting knife to a wedding reception?”
“He lives in the woods. You weren’t even at your reception after those zombies, and you were not in your room. Everyone was looking for you.”
“Lynn was so terrified we had to check out of our hotel that night and drive across the state back to Philadelphia.”
“Your tuxedo posse roamed the nearby Philadelphia streets looking for you.”
“Yeah, but you kept stopping in bars for beers.”
“We thought you might be in there.”
“I walked off the zombies and went back to my room, but Deb was mad at me, so I went to sleep on the floor on my wedding night.”
“We got promoted indoors on our wedding night. We didn’t have to sleep in the tent in the backyard. One of my four nieces, Katie, gave up her bedroom and left to sleep at a friend’s house. The only problem was that it was a single bed, a thin mattress on squeaky springs in a full house, and only five feet long. My legs hung over from the calves down.”
“I paid off my wedding for eight years,” said Gino.
“We told friends, ‘No gifts. We are traveling around the country in a van. Money is OK.’ We left town with the bills paid and $295 cash. Many were $1 bills that guests traditionally pinned to Susan’s dress during the wedding dance.”

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