Hell Freezes Over!

My good college buddy, Jerrod Brown, got married over the weekend. The wedding was a simple affair at Tannehill State Park's old country church. The celebration was marked by the release of one dozen flying pigs and guests were invited to ice skate in Hell following the reception.

Jerrod's new bride, Shalon, is a very special woman. Now, I've only met her once prior to the wedding, but if she married Jerrod, she has to be pretty special. They basically catered the reception themselves, serving their guests a feast of turkey, dressing and assorted veggies. The groom's cake was instead an assortment of cheesecakes -- an idea that should sound awfully familiar to anyone who attended our wedding.

Another similarity to our wedding was in the vows -- they wrote their own. That is, they re-wrote ours to create their own. (Jerrod was the minister in our wedding. Old friend Bill Morrison was also there and he performed my first wedding. I used the opportunity to scout a minister for wife #3.) I haven't called Jerrod on it, yet, but I'm not even sure he realizes they were the ones we used. It'd be pretty cool if our vows caught on and became an alternate standard.

The best man, old pal Edwin, and I stole away with Kelli to do some dec'ratin' on the car they were using to leave town. It was pretty standard stuff--writing on the windows, shrink-wrapping the car to make opening the doors especially tough, condoms blown up as balloons on the antenna, Vick's vapo-rub in the grille to clear out their sinuses as they drove. We also put together a little "love kit" for them. It was mostly standard stuff, except for a few touches like a pack of Red Bull energy drink (Edwin's idea,) a 20-pack of Energizer batteries for the "personal massager" and a Barry White CD.

Jerrod's planning for the wedding, it turns out, was a weird hybrid of meticulous and haphazard. He asked Ronnie Brewer, our old campus minister from college to perform the ceremony, but Jerrod completely scripted every word and moment himself. On the flipside, he never even spoke directly to Ronnie. He just sent him two e-mails with his ceremony plan, and that didn't even happen until a month prior to the wedding. He asked Edwin to be in the wedding party, but didn't tell him he was best man until the rehearsal. Edwin didn't even get an invitation!

It all came off beautifully, though. It was simple and thoughtful and reflected the personalities of the couple.

The best part of the weekend for me was catching up with old friends. The worst part was not getting to spend more time with them than we did. To paraphrase a toast I gave at Paige and Chris' wedding, "here's to Jerrod and Shalon: may they trust in God and lean on friends through all of life's comings and goings, and as they grow older, may the comings be frequent and the goings regular!"

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On a more somber note, our dear friend Missy Leonard lost her grandmother to leukemia this weekend. They were very close. Our prayers are with Luke, Missy and her family.

Category:

• Family