Get Me to the Church On Time—J. Conrad Guest

J. Conrad and new wife, Colleen

“I got to get there in the morning;
ding, ding, dong, they’re gonna chime.
Kick up a rumpus, don’t lose your compass.
Get me to the church, get me to the church …
Pete’s sake, get me to the church on time.”

—Frederick Loewe, Alan Jay Lerner

 

Like marriage, no wedding is perfect. In fact, like imperfections that often draw us to someone—a lopsided smile for example, dimples, a tiny mole perhaps—a wedding in which all does not go according to plan results in lasting impressions that will in time create memories of grand warmth. Our wedding—mine and Colleen’s—left us with several such lasting impressions.

The photographer stopped by the house at eleven o’clock to take pictures of my shoes, cufflinks, my jacket on a hanger and, eventually, me in my tux; Colleen had left for her makeup and hair appointment. I wouldn’t see her again until she came down the aisle. After he left, I took the box bearing our unity cross, a two-piece cross that Colleen and I would assemble during our wedding ceremony to represent the two of us becoming one, along with the marriage license and Colleen’s ring (in a black box) out to the car. I placed them all in the backseat—the license (an original and two copies in a manila folder) on top of the box that bore our unity cross, and the ring box on top of that. Then I went back into the house for a final bio stop and to check myself out in a mirror.

A few minutes later, Rory, at age thirty-one Colleen’s youngest son, and I got into the car and proceeded to start for Mark’s place. Mark is my best man. He and I go back to the days when our ages were single digits. Rory had flown in from L.A. to, in the absence of Colleen’s father, give away the bride.

Halfway down the street, I looked on the dashboard for the ring: it wasn’t there. I patted myself down; no ring. After a moment of panic, I recalled where I’d put it. I called to Rory, who was in the backseat with our jackets, the unity cross, and the marriage license, to confirm the ring’s presence.

“Nope,” he told me after a moment. “Not here.”

Hard braking, I wheeled the car around and went back to the house to get the ring. After spending twenty minutes looking everywhere I could think to look—several times—with no luck finding it, I called the photographer thinking that maybe he’d grabbed the box inadvertently when he picked up his gear. He hadn’t. I checked everywhere a third time, under my bed, under the dresser, in the closet, the bathroom, the trashcan, even the bushes outside the front door. Then I asked Rory to check the car again while I called Mark.

“Houston, we have a problem,” I told him.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I can’t find the ring.”

We spent the next few minutes retracing my steps of the morning—that is after I’d, as my dad used to say, shit, showered, shaved and shined my shoes—to see if we could jog my memory. We failed.

“What size ring does Colleen wear?” he asked.

“Four and a half.”

“Not a problem,” Mark said. “Kim wears a four.” Kim is Mark’s wife of thirty-six years. She was arriving later for the ceremony, driving separately from Mark. “That should work for the ceremony. Worry about your ring later. It’s someplace in the house, right?”

“Right,” I said. But I wasn’t certain. The only thing of which I was certain was that Colleen would not be pleased with me for losing her ring. Rings, with an “s.” She’d placed her engagement ring in the box. When the time came for me to place the ring on her finger, I’d place the wedding band on first and then the engagement ring.

So Rory and I piled back into the car and started for the second time to pick up Mark. A minute later, Rory handed me the black ring box from the backseat.

“Black box,” he said, “on black upholstery. It must’ve slipped onto the seat when we hung up our jackets.”

We got to Mark’s place and I told him we were good on the ring. “It was in the backseat all along. Black box, black upholstery. We missed seeing it three times.”

“Good news indeed.”

“My colon agrees, and I’m sure Kim will be so pleased to keep her ring.”

Mark chuckled.

“Do you have Nick’s phone number on your cell?” I asked.

I don’t own a cell phone. But Colleen thinks I should have one even though I don’t like them, so that will change after we’re married. The things we do for love. Nick is the pastor we selected for our ceremony. Mark and I were supposed to meet him at the church at noon. We’re already late and, with I-96 closed until October for road repair, easily thirty minutes away by surface streets.

“Yeah,” Mark told me.

“Dial him up and tell him we’re running behind.”

A minute later I hear Mark leave Nick a voicemail: “I’m with Joe and Rory. We’re a little late and will be there …” he glanced at his watch, “about twelve-thirty-ish.” After he broke the connection, he told me, “Twelve-thirty-ish I figure buys us up to twelve-forty.”

“Good thinking.” It seems I chose my best man wisely.

I picked up our speed, hoping to make the next light, thinking (in a poor Scottish accent), I’m giving her all she’s got, Captain. We made the light but missed the next two before we made the next one. I tried to time the lights, a practice Mark loathed whenever he rode with me when we were kids. It was a story he shared with Colleen upon meeting her for the first time. “He’d drive twenty-eight miles an hour in a thirty-five mile an hour zone so he wouldn’t have to stop at the red lights. I used to hate that.” Timing the lights here didn’t work, so I threw all caution to the wind and just picked up my speed whenever I could, risking five to ten miles an hour over the speed limit, which seemed to work better.

We arrived about 12:35; guests had been arriving for a few minutes. I greeted Colleen’s family—those I’ve met—most of whom have come from Chicago, and my own family, and a few minutes later, the ceremony started.

A couple weeks earlier, Nick had asked Colleen and me to each send him a few words describing our first meeting, our courtship, and how I proposed. He planned to use each of our perspectives in the ceremony. So we, along with our guests, listened as he described how I was taken, the first time I met Colleen, by her auburn hair, emerald eyes, and beautiful smile.

A few minutes later, Colleen and I exchanged the vows we’d written for each other. These went off without a hitch and we later learned that there wasn’t a dry eye in the chapel. Afterward, I heard Nick say something about Colleen’s “emerald hair.” Sheesh, I thought. If I heard it, then surely our guests heard it, and it’s captured on video now, too. So I turned to Nick and in a stage whisper said, “Auburn.” Nick laughed, as did family and friends (it’s a small chapel), and he corrected himself and went on.

After Nick pronounced us husband and wife, he told me that I was free to kiss my wife. Afterward, he presented us to the congregation as, “Mr. and Mrs. Guest,” and I asked him, “Does that mean we can change our Facebook statuses?”

Another woman might’ve been angry with my levity; but Colleen isn’t another woman. I’d dated women who turned out to be Miss Wrong, and others who maybe weren’t Miss Wrong but certainly weren’t Miss Right. I learned a few weeks after meeting her that Colleen was a keeper. Colleen laughed, as did everyone who witnessed our marriage, and today, as I sit typing these words a week later, I’m happy to call Colleen, “My wife.”

—

J. Conrad Guest, author of: 500 Miles To Go, A Retrospect In Death, A World Without Music (forthcoming), Backstop: A Baseball Love Story In Nine Innings, January’s Paradigm, January’s Thaw, and One Hot January

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