I wanted to write this amazing post dedicated to our day, divulging every detail, but words really can’t articulate what I want to say. When I think back to that weekend and our wedding day, my heart just fills – with what? I can’t really explain. It just fills…

I thank God for my now brother-in-law who documented the whole weekend because it was such a whirlwind that when it was all over, I couldn’t remember much at all. Thanks to him, I have proof that it wasn’t a dream. And pictures do say what words can’t convey.

So with that said, I’m going to give you the Cliffs Notes version of events. It’s the version that my Cliff would prefer anyway.

There was a rehearsal.

The rehearsal was short and to the point.

There was a rehearsal dinner. With a lamb roast. It was an all day affair.

Preparing the lamb.

The lamb roasting.

The lamb still roasting.

The lamb finally done.

And then this happened. The best wedding gift ever!!! My Stylist Extraordinaire gracing us with an acaplla version of Sweet Transvestite. Love this man!

The Big Day.

My amazing mother-in-law the morning of.

Chelle mentally preparing for her speech that night.

Two beautiful sisters preparing to decorate.

Getting Ready.

Getting ready to get ready.

Still have a phone glued to my ear.

Makeup check with my sister-in-law.

I’m a sucker for suspenders and he knows it.

My mom and grandmother and one of my nephews ready for the big event.

Best brother ever being my bitch for the day.

Stranded and forgotten on the mountain top. Saved by my father-in-law. Late to my own wedding.

Saved the day. Hauled ass up the mountain to grab my girls and me to take us to the church wearing his tux and some tennis shoes. Couldn’t ask for a better father-in-law.

He can wear a suit. The man can definitely wear a suit.

Walking down the aisle with my dad. One of my favorite photos.

The shortest ceremony in all Creation. (it was seriously like 10 minutes in all – there were witnesses and I’m sure my dad was looking at his watch, so he can probably verify it. It’s fine, the preacher had to get to a Tennessee game anyway. He had season tickets.)

Done. This is where the flute blasted This Will Be (An Everlasting Love). Yeah … the flute.

So it happened. The wedding party was thrilled …

10 minutes that have lasted 10 years.

I think we were in the middle of the road here … fake laughing or something?

Dudes being dudes.

My gorgeous sister-in-law.

Then we had the reception back at the lodge. The top floor for dancing, the main floor for food and the bottom floor for football. No matter your interest, there was something for you. So we ate, and we laughed, and mingled. Then it was time to cut the cake.

Now I’m going to pause for a second in my visual narrative because the cake cutting really shouldn’t be a Cliff Note.

It was time to cut the cake and feed each other. It’s tradition. Clifford was totally adorable. He was smiling so much and just so full of joy (which is not a thing ANYONE would EVER accuse my husband of being). He knew nothing about feeding the cake to each other. Every little thing about getting married was totally new to him. Bless his heart …

We cut the cake together and he carved out a small piece to feed me first. It was one of the sweetest moments I have ever shared with Cliff. Anyone that knows him, knows he’s not one for sentimentality, or feelings, or caring about anything in general really, but this moment he was so engaged and so happy. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I ate the cake he fed me, smiling back at him adoringly. He looked down at me all starry eyed and glowing. Then he opened his mouth for me to feed him in return.

Now, I readily admit I am probably a very wretched wretched human being for what I was about to do, but I’d made a promise to myself when I was a girl that no matter who I married, this was going to happen. So know that if I’d married you, I would have done the same damn thing.

I took the cake and held it up to him. He leaned in … then I smashed it in his face. And then I smeared it all around after I smashed it. Clifford was STUNNED. He just looked at me with the most stricken expression I’d probably ever seen him wear. Everyone was laughing. After a moment, he laughed, too, but he kept giving me a look like what the hell? He never saw it coming. It was priceless. But because I love him, I leaned up and kissed him, getting it on my face, too.

So beautiful.

So sweet.

So naive.

I think the part that sealed it for me was when we were cleaning our faces in the bathroom. There was purple icing everywhere (I was going through a purple phase – don’t judge). As we were wiping things down, Clifford looked at me. He’s only given me sad puppy dog eyes once in my life and this was it. The saddest, most pathetic puppiest of puppy eyes were on me as he said, in his little South African accent, “Why would you do that to me? I don’t understand.” I just can’t with this one!

I started laughing all over again. He looked even more confused. I explained to him it’s a thing. It’s a tradition to feed the cake and shove it in their face. I watched his eyes as he was trying to process what I was saying and then as understanding set in. “Oh.” He began to laugh. Then he laughed harder.

Clifford, suddenly not laughing:  “But wait, then why did I go first? Because I didn’t know…”

Me: “Because you didn’t know.”

Continuing on with the abridged version of events.

Chelle smoaking hot after giving a great speech.

Darewood being Darewood.

Our first and only dance. Ever.

My Stylist Extraordinaire once again demonstrating how he is seriously the coolest Cat I know.

Did I mention Stylist Extraordinaire may have had a DANCE OFF with my dad? …. Yeah. They did – and to all who know my dad, seriously, they did.

One word: Evidence

The only drink I had all day. I know, right? And there was an abundance of booze, let me tell you.

Dancing? Singing? I don’t know, but having one hell of a good time.

Did I mention my dad looking at his watch? Always with the watch.

It had finally come to an end. My last memory of our wedding reception was walking to Chelle’s cabin with my husband in tow. We were staying there for the night. As we peered through the sliding glass doors to the bottom level of the lodge. There was my father, Clifford’s father, and my uncle opening another bottle of wine. It was 3AM.

Just add my father-in-law to this exact scene and that was 3AM on my wedding night.

And that’s what happened ten years ago today. I love you Clifford Stanislas Geiselmayr.

That moment everyone should have.

Prom. Yeah, not really my scene. In hindsight, it was never going to be the end all be all of my high school years.

Firstly, I have no rhythm. At a club you can get away with looking the fool because you can chalk it up to being tipsy, or at the very least there’s always some yahoo twirling around in sky high stilettos flailing about worse than you. Always.

Secondly, it’s kind of lame. Overpriced dress attire, terrible food, corny photo-ops and forced mingling set to cheesy ballads and crappy pop picks. Does that really sound like an exciting night for anyone?

Thirdly, deep down, I just didn’t care.  

I will say this, however – prom was so much simpler back then. In my day, it was put on by the Junior class. The Junior class officers and elected student representatives were our prom committee and decided the theme, the colors, the decor, the trinkets, the DJ, etc. It was supposed to be their gift to the Seniors.

As a class, they were required to raise funds to pay for these things by selling magazines which was sort of a self-perpetuating money making scheme embraced by the entire community. Typically magazines are sold as annual subscriptions. What did this mean for the Juniors and their magazine sales? That every year people would need to renew their subscriptions. So as long as the new crop of 11^th graders continued the legacy of knocking on doors and calling all contacts, there was a high probability that those targets people were likely in need of re-upping their yearly magazine commitment. Thus prom would always be…

Here’s where things get interesting. The whole operation was a little competitive. Every year the Juniors would break the previous year’s record of funds raised. Every year they were driven to crush their predecessor’s final tally by selling more magazines and bringing in more dough. Until my class rolled around…the class of 1998. And this is just one of the reasons why I loved my class.

We were a whopping 81 students strong. We were the smallest class my Jr.-Sr. High School had had for many years. All other classes capped out at a hundred plus. Breaking the previous class’s magazine sales record was going to be an uphill battle from the start. It was a numbers game and we were definitely on the losing end of that one. But we’re Hoosiers, right? They made a movie about us. Underdogs overcoming adversity because of numbers… Ring a bell? (Darewood only made me watch the damn thing about 150 frigging times) The difference was – those underdogs gave a shit. My classmates did not.

We were the first class since the beginning of time, according to our Prom Sponsor, to not reach our goal. This meant we could not afford the prom we were supposed to provide.

1. We would need to seek a new location. (God forbid)
2. There would be no prom feast. (Oh my)
3. We would not be able to purchase an archway of balloons. (The horror)

Translated?

1. We could no longer host prom at the local retirement center where it was held every year. (yep, you read that right. Our school’s previous standard was that of a local retirement center.)
2. We would not be able to afford the chicken finger buffet and fruit punch fountain. (i.e. the feast)
3. No archway of balloons. (so that one’s kind of the same)

Needless to say, Prom Sponsor was devastated. And kinda pissed.

This forced our band of misfits to be a little more creative. So we ended up with a gorgeous hotel on a lake as our host site. I think we may have had a sit down dinner with gold place settings and awesome food. And we decorated with white Christmas lights instead of so many tacky balloons. It was kind of a killer change up from the old folks’ home. Not bad for a bunch of small fries that caught a ton flack for slacking in their class duties.

My peers made me proud with how that prom turned out. That said, I hated being on the prom committee. Being VP of my class, it was thrust upon me to be a part of the group preparing a dance like they were preparing for the Second Coming. I don’t begrudge the girls who went to town with their prom planning shenanigans – clearly it worked out well for all involved. In fact, I imagine most little girls look forward to prom only next to their wedding. I just wasn’t that girl (anyone who knows me also knows I had a half-assed wedding. Again, not much of planner in the big life events department).

Regardless, my class came together and conquered prom in a way no one expected. Fairfield Class of 1998, I tip my hat in your direction. We were pretty cool cats and always managed to pull off the unexpected.

Now, I only attended because I was on the committee. I made a pact with a couple of girls that if we didn’t come across dates, we’d go together. So I attended with these lovely ladies and had a great time.

Prom 1997. Me, Krista and Melissa. This is the only picture I could find off hand. I’m sure there are others somewhere. Again, didn’t quite care …

Pretty positive Krista got a speeding ticket in her dad’s Corvette that night … (totally have to call you out on that one, dear. It takes steel balls to rock a borrowed car like that at 100 mph + on their way home *wink*)

I still hated the corny photo-ops, the cheesy music and the fact my parents wasted $48.95 on a dress, but Melissa, Krista and my classmates made it fun.

I still bailed on my Senior prom. Don’t regret it for a second.

Unless you had a significant other that week, you typically went with a group of friends. You also typically cleared the dance floor the moment a slow song came on. You promptly exited the cafeteria floor (that’s where a lot of my school dances were) because it was time to claim your location on the wall. The slow songs were terrible and the country songs thrown in made my stomach turn. Even then, surrounded by farmers and Country-Western-loving-fiends, I hated Country music.

BUT, once the painfully depressing slow song segment would end, it was back to business. Shimmying and shaking to Billboard’s top hits. There were always those songs that got everyone going like YMCA and The Loco-Motion.  And then there were the everyday chart toppers with a few old school songs thrown in to boot. A little Madonna, a little Prince, a little NKOTB … school dances could easily be a fun, safe and pretty upright way to spend a Friday night with your friends. And yes, I am well aware things have changed – OR maybe they haven’t changed as much as we might think.

I was in my car a few years ago and AC/DC came on the radio. Love me some AC/DC. Of course it was You Shook Me All Night Long. And of course I began screaming singing along at the top of my lungs. Who doesn’t with this one? But the funny thing is, I was listening to the lyrics for the very first time. I knew the lyrics, yes, I had to in order to be able to sing along, but this was the first time in my life (in the 50,000 times I’d heard it) that I was actually listening to the lyrics. HOLY SHIT.

So this song played at my junior high dances. It played at my high school dances, too, and I don’t know that that was any more appropriate. Do you know the lyrics? It’s sort of like my Fast Times At Ridgemont High experience. Growing up, I watched Fast Times more times than I can count. It was always playing on some cable channel when I was a kid. Totally edited, mind you.  Call it naiveté or blissful ignorance, but though I laughed quite heartily at Spicoli’s antics or Brad Hamilton’s sorry state,  it was only when watching the movie, unedited, years beyond my youth, that I realized how much content I hadn’t fully comprehended.

My virgin ears and eyes should have been completely appalled at the obscenities heard, seen and implied in that film. Don’t get me wrong, I still totally love that movie; it’s a classic. And I’m no prude, but seriously? Where were the parental controls? Heck, where were my parents? Letting a child with delicate sensibilities watch as Phoebe Cates demonstrated some unseemly carrot eating techniques to a young and impressionable Jennifer Jason Leigh. So. Wrong.

Back to some AC/DC playing at the school dance. With the Fast Times concept fresh in my mind, where were our teachers during these dances? Where were the authorities making good life choices on our susceptible behalves? We, very vulnerable (and rather sheltered in some cases) youngsters, were unknowingly receiving a fast and loose sex education disguised as melodious music merely meant to swing and sway to. Ok, maybe not always unknowingly …

So I’ve decided to add to The Music Challenge with today’s throwback. Just a few songs I boogied to with wholly inappropriate lyrics… well, inappropriate for excessively hormonal tweens and teens to be gyrating to in a confined space. But every time I hear them, I’m taken back to that cafetorium floor and a really bad DJ who likely grew up to be a meth dealer one day.

The Music Challenge #6

26. AC/DC, You Shook Me All Night Long (1980)

27. Sir-Mix-A-Lot, Baby Got Back (1992)

28. Madonna, Like A Virgin (1984)

29. Color Me Badd, I Wanna Sex You Up  (1991)

Help me out here. What were some poor song choices played at your school dances?

Christopher Walken rocking out to the musical stylings of  Fatboy Slim’s Weapon of Choice. In-freaking-credible. Everytime I hear ANYTHING by Fatboy Slim, the first five seconds bring me to Christopher Walken killing it in this music video.

Song number 15 of 365. Watch. Absorb. Enjoy. (and you’re welcome)

15. Fatboy Slim, Weapon of Choice (2003)