Here’s something I wrote in 2012 that I shared with some of you at the time. It’s not really a story about driving newlyweds because I didn’t actually drive anyone. We were also the caterer, sort of. There was an officiant, but she didn’t officiate anything.
Fair warning, this is not a feel good story, but then the human condition isn’t all beer and skittles. If you’re not up to speed on your antidepressant regimen you might want to pop on over to Buzzfeed and watch cat videos instead.
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Saturday mornings in June can be depended on for two things; one, that there is a likelihood that a well-dressed Jehovah’s witness will knock on your door and two, if you’re a caterer that you will have a wedding that day. There were no knocks on my door last Saturday morning, but I did have a wedding that evening to get ready for. As I drank my coffee I thought about how my day was going to unfold and prepared accordingly. I ate breakfast, took a shower (so I can sweat like a horse for the next 12 hours) and donned my work t-shirt with “We’re here for the party!” emblazoned across the back of it. I checked to make sure I had packed everything I thought I would need. Energy bar, check. Advil, check. Black pants, white long sleeved shirt, black necktie, check. The couple getting married had also contracted to use Swoopy, my ’62 T-bird convertible, as their get away car so yet another list was gone over. Tire pressure, check. iPod with “Swingers” soundtrack downloaded (Dean Martin’s “You’re Nobody ’til Somebody Loves You” is the opening track; take THAT, Etta James), check. No A/C, check unfortunately.
In the five years I’ve been doing this I’ve probably helped plan and manage 50 to 60 weddings. And while I don’t remember the particulars of every single one, there are bits and pieces of each that stay with me. The memory of this past Saturday will no doubt stay with me for some time because, well, there wasn’t a wedding. En route to the kitchen I got a call from our office manager saying that it had been cancelled. That call set off a chain of events that sent all of us involved on a roller coaster ride that we really weren’t prepared for.
As told to us, the night before the wedding party went out after the rehearsal dinner to take in the Austin night life. While at a bar on Dirty 6th Street, the groom’s brother (and best man) got into a heated verbal exchange with a stranger that turned physical resulting in the brother having his head thrown against the sidewalk and cracking his skull open like a ripe watermelon. That one punch changed the course of so many peoples lives; some for the next 24 hours, some perhaps forever.
We received a call on Saturday morning and were told that the groom’s brother was having major brain surgery. Not to be glib, but is there really any other kind of brain surgery other than major? I didn’t speak directly with the two main points of contact, namely the groom and the the bride’s sister, so all of my information was secondhand. I don’t begrudge anybody having to make gut-wrenching decisions under such circumstances, much less changing their mind. At first the wedding was cancelled. Then they thought they might postpone it until the next day. Then they thought they might just have the ceremony and offer dinner to those guests who wanted to stay. Regardless of what form, if any, the event took on there would be no alcohol served. This cycle of uncertainty went on for about an hour before the decision was made by the catering manager to proceed as though we were going to cater a wedding that evening. It was now 1:00 PM. The ceremony was slated for 5:00 PM. Hotel pans with stuffed chicken breasts were carefully placed into cambros. Extra iced tea was brewed and poured into 5 gallon buckets. The van was loaded with all of our equipment and we were off.
When we arrived at the venue at 2:30 there was no one there. As our staff began to show up I explained to each of them the circumstances and that we didn’t really know what to expect. Our mantra is “Enlightened Hospitality” and I told them that their enlightened hospitality needed to be turned up to 11 that day. The vendors began to arrive; the florist, the photographer, the band; all were told what had happened and to proceed as though the wedding was going to take place. Keep in mind also that all the vendors including us had been paid. Crass though it might be to say at a time when people are struggling with difficult decisions, money does play a role.
We got to work getting everything set up. The plan was for 100 guests with plated dinner service, We set up a bar with every non-acloholic beverage we could lay our hands on at the kitchen before we left. In the main hall servers were folding napkins and setting out water goblets and flatware. A beverage station near the entrance with lavender lemonade and water with mint and cucumber in glass dispensers was readied to cool guests off as they arrived. The chefs got to work making hors d’oeuvres, preparing salads and finishing off the main course. A coffee station was set up. The wedding cake arrived and colorful vintage dessert plates that the bride had rented were set out. Flowers and candles were put on the guest tables. And then we waited.
At around 3:30 the parents of the bride, who were lovely people, arrived along with four bridesmaids and two fellows who were to be ushers. And that was it. They were the only ones who showed up. No bride. No groom. No guests. Not a single one. Heart breaking doesn’t begin to describe it. The photographer took a few awkward pictures. The band, thankfully, did not play. We then proceeded to serve dinner to 8 people at a table in a room set for 100 guests. It was a bit surreal. After dinner the bride’s parents and the bridesmaids got up from the table and began to pack up the decorations. They asked us if we would slice up the untouched wedding cake and box it up for them to take with them. We helped them load their vehicles. They tipped us. We went though the usual process of breaking down the bar, cleaning the kitchen, stacking rental items for pick up and loading our van for the trip back to the kitchen. We were done by 7:00 PM. Some of the staff had only worked an hour.
I’ve not heard any follow up since Saturday evening. So. Many. Questions. But regardless of the answers, all I can think about is how the lives of the bride and the groom, as well as those of their families, changed in an instant the night before. (I did find out a couple of months later that the couple got married in a civil ceremony and that the brother recovered though I don’t know to what to extent. All I could think of was that that was going to be one tense first family Thanksgiving).
And the icing on this sad not-wedding cake? When I was ready to leave I got into Swoopy, turned the key, and a sound that could only be described as that made by a box of hammers being dropped from a second floor window came from under the hood and rendered the car undriveable (turns out it was a broken engine mount). Even though I had already been paid, I decided it was the universe’s way of telling me that I needed to tear that check up. Good “carma” so to speak.
I'm Just Being Frank 