A June Weddomg

Chapel of the Lake weddings are mostly performed by Mary Ann Feebley for the traditionalists. Another officiant, who simply goes by the name of Elvira or Ellie is for the liberals and/or non-believers. Ellie’s legs and arms are wrapped in tattoos, varying from the typical skulls and flames to the more absurd, including a pair of eyes on her shoulder blades, and something unrecognizable around her belly button. She also proclaims to be sexually fluid.

   On this particular June day, Mary Ann was seated at the patio just outside the chapel's gift shop, waiting for her next couple to arrive. To date, she has performed four hundred and seventeen weddings, one hundred and twenty three vow renewals, and thirty seven commitment ceremonies. All this, and she had never been married once. Ellie, on the other hand has been married and de-coupled twice, two with men and two with women. “Love is the most powerful thing in the world,” Ellie often told her, “monogamy, not so much.”  

Wedding number four hundred and eighteen was to be held on a Wednesday evening, which was an unusual time to get married, but the chapel's calendar had become so full on the weekends that many engaged couple's that waited until the last minute to book, found themselves suddenly resorting to weekday weddings just to get it in before their engagement dragged on another year or two—or the baby came along.

    Chapel of the Lake was part of a resort that had a gift shop. The buildings were in the fashion of an old stucco cottages, painted in various shades of pastels. Curving flowered vines snaked their way up chapel, a green building adorned with tall, skinny dark green shutters with flower boxes that hung below them. The gift shop sold bottles of its own brand of wine and champagne, cards of congratulations, cake cutters and bubbles, and other wedding favors.

The gift shop, in a yellow building, was situated next to the ever expanding parking lot. It had a tiny patio to relax on just outside of it with terracotta pots filled with seasonal flowers. Its ornate wrought iron trellis was like a veil offering protection from the blazing Texas sun. Ceiling fans spun lazily, and occasionally, the air would swoosh a hot blast.

Mary Ann’s hair was blown by a blast of warm June air. She smoothed her hair out with her palms and reached down into her bag for a scrunchy to pull it together in a low ponytail.

Mary Ann was seated at one of the tables that filled the remaining space on the weather beaten floor. She had never met the people she was about to marry and hoped that the couple and their guests were not so portly that the floor would collapse. She reached for the glass of iced tea in front of her; all but one of the ice cubes were melted and it was about to dissolve any second. She pulled it out and sucked on it. She wiped the sweat off her brow with back of her hand.

Even after hundreds of weddings, Mary Ann still went over the routine in her mind. She would meet the couple here on the porch, collect their marriage license and payment, and then lead them up the trail to the chapel, almost a quarter mile away, to perform the life altering deed.

    As she waited for the love birds, throaty wind chimes clumsily swayed and bumped overhead from a nearby oak tree. The melody was interrupted by loud squealing and laughter that came from the path headed away from the chapel. Mary Ann turned to see what was going on and spotted a couple in their late twenties as they came frolicking toward the gift shop, their entourage in tow. As soon as they came into focus, Mary Ann knew it was Ellie’s wedding party.

The photographer was the first in line—a friend of Ellie’s. He looked more like a roadie on a rock tour than a wedding photographer. Behind him came the bridegroom in a denim tuxedo, complete in top hat, and his bride in a mini wedding dress that barely covered her crotch and white go-go dancer boots. The groom leaned over to his new wife while taking a bow and stuck out the longest silver studded tongue Mary Ann had ever seen and pointed and twirled it around the inside of her ear before licking her face with it. They both then stopped dead in their tracks, grabbing each other's buttocks, squishing them and spanking them while the photographer snapped away.

Mary Ann wanted to scream, Get a room! but controlled herself. 

Ellie stepped up onto the patio to join Mary Ann while the wedding party played Ring-Around-the-Rosie, falling all over each other with yelps of laughter.

“Where is your happy couple,” Ellie asked.

  “They should be here any minute... although.” Mary Ann looked down at her watch and saw it was seven o'clock, the time the ceremony was supposed to start. It wasn't unusual for couples to be late, as the place in the Texas Hill Country wasn’t easy to find. It was located off a bizarre trail of several country roads without any signs of life before reaching it. “They're from Round Rock so maybe they're having a hard time finding it.” Mary Ann looked up at Ellie, trying desperately to avoid seeing what her new newlyweds were up to now.

Through the corner of her eye, Mary Ann couldn't miss the groom getting down on the grass on his knees, whisking his hat off his mop of long brown hair that hung in ringlets, and setting it down on the grass beside him. His hands reached up above his bride’s go-go boots, exposing her panty line and tan pierced tummy and then he buried his face into her stomach, and wagging it like a puppy dog underneath. 

    “Looks like you did a good job,” Mary Ann said, her eyes gesturing towards the couple.

    “Yeah,” Ellie looked over at the couple as if their behavior was an everyday occurrence on the chapel's grounds. “Wrote a bitchin' ceremony for them. You gotta check it out.” Ellie opened her journal and was about to show Mary Ann the hormone inducing literature when her seven o'clock pulled up. “Never mind,” Ellie said and slapped her black leather book back shut, she got up to leave.

    Mary Ann had risen too, and was walking over to greet her couple. She was relieved that she didn't have to wait much longer in the sun. The couple was older, in their late sixties to early seventies. She tried to figure out what to say when she saw the nervous looks at seeing Ellie, along with her rowdy wedding guests from the other party, rolling the in grass. They had arrived in a dusty white Cadillac, with Texas longhorns, and abandoned it lopsidedly in the handicap space.

Mary Ann walked over and greeted the older couple with a small wave, much to their relief. They slowly exited the car and she led them to her favorite table. Once everyone was seated, she hurriedly went over last-minute details before they could see only God knows what the unruly newlyweds were up to now. She took out her checklist for the wedding and confirmed that the wedding was still an elopement, and that among other things, no one would be giving the woman, Hazel, away.

When they told her they were expecting Louis's nephew and his wife to arrive as guests, she asked if anyone objected to the wedding. She assumed no one did in this case, but it was also an attempt to stall as the previous couple weren't quite out of sight yet. Couples didn't tend to like this question. It was not her favorite question either and once upon a time she didn't bother with it until an ex-husband showed up with a deer rifle to a wedding she’d performed a few months prior.

She remember the incident like it was yesterday. Luckily, Justin, the young community college student who worked part time at the chapel's gift shop, was emptying the trash on the porch when he noticed the magnum-toting, ex-husband sprinting up the trail towards the wedding. He sprang to life and ran up the trail behind the man, trying to catch up, as he yelled warnings to the wedding party. Just a few feet in front of the ceremony, he jumped in front of the armed man, grabbed the barrel of the gun, and pointed it up to the sunny sky as the man shot several rounds. With a tight fist, Justin punched the man on the inside of his arm as he held it in a Jiu-jitsu elbow hold.

The best man and the two groomsmen made sure the man stayed pinned to the ground who was in height and weight much larger than Justin. Justin confiscated the rifle and pointed it at the man on the ground as he struggled with the groomsmen. Mary Ann and the couple stood horrified. The maid of honor called 911. Remarkably, she had a couple of bars there in the isolation of the hills, so the cellphone call went through. The police arrived and arrested the man within a matter ten minutes.

Mary Ann was collecting her fee and their license when Louie’s nephew arrived. Then they made their way up the trail to the chapel. To her relief, Ellie’s newlyweds had descended parking lot and into the black abyss of a limo waiting for them. The best man followed in the horned Cadillac.

With Mary Ann holding Louie’s elbow, and the nephew holding Hazel’s elbow, the four walked slowly up to the chapel. The trail was dimly lit with strings of white lights strung from tree to tree that Hazel and Louis remarked on with pleasure the entire way. The sun had almost set by the time they reached the chapel and the gas lamps that hung on the walls began flickering. Everything went without a hitch for their perfect June wedding.

The End