winter weddings: guest blogger, F.I.L.

the hubs & i woke up to the following email from my father-in-law a few mornings ago & i thought i would share with all of you. it was totally random, unsolicited, but it got both of us starting our day off laughing. don't focus too much on how it all ends... ; )

If we go back to the late 70's or very early 80's -- definitely before 1982, there was a January evening when my brother Tom and I went out for dinner. I was his Best Man and he was getting married the following day. We had a great dinner and then stayed on for drinks until 1 or 2 in the morning. When we left the bar, it was just beginning to snow. How great for the wedding tomorrow! We thought some breakfast at a diner on 69th street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn was just the place to discuss the plans for the next day. An hour later, we left the diner, but the snow had fallen so thick and so fast and the City plows had done such a fine job that we could not get Tom's car out of the snow. Not a problem we thought. We'll just walk four blocks to Marilyn's and my apartment and Tom would sleep on my couch. The wedding was not 'til late afternoon and there would be plenty of time to get him to his house for the wedding preparations.

Not so fast, we discovered the following morning. Not just a snowfall, but a record setting blizzard. His fiancé was having a fit because the limos would not cross the Verrazano to get her in Staten Island. My father and mother and the south Jersey branch of the family was having a devil of a time getting to the wedding as was anyone who lived more than a block from the Church. By 11, forget the snowy backdrop because we had to forget the wedding -- for that day anyway. As it turns out, Tom should have forgotten the wedding altogether. They did get married the following weekend, by which time the snow was sooty, yellow spotted, and generally slushy at every corner. A divorce about a year and a half later made it clear to all that that the snow was an omen and not just a backdrop.

again, the ending isn't all roses, but there are a few things i love about this. first, the fact that they were out drinking until the wee hours the night before the wedding. second, that no matter how hard we all try, we absolutely can't control mother nature, so sometimes you just have to go with it. and three, that he decided out of the blue to type up this note & send to me & the hubs.