On Saturday Oct.8th Ingrid Frances Stark and I were married. I had promised several people who could not make the ceremony that I would post the story of what happened. Where should I begin? So much happened. Let’s begin with almost being left at the altar – by the minister! The wedding was scheduled for 1:00pm. The minister had it written in his date book as being at 4:00 . Ingrid’s brother managed to scare up the minister’s cell phone number and called him. He finally showed up at five minutes to one. Okay, we got through that little crisis. The preacher was ready, the music was ready, and we were at the back of the church ready to enter. Me (to Ingrid): Have you got our little cheat sheets with the vows? Ingrid (surprised): I thought YOU had them. It turns out that we had forgotten the vows, our readings for the service, and the marriage license. I ran home to get those. Okay, we managed to get throught the processional, the blessings, and the readings. We were up to the vows. Ingrid and I have each been wearing silver promisory rings since last spring. The procedure, which we had imagined for the vows, was for each of us in turn to remove the other’s promisory ring from the left-hand ring finger (with a comment about what it represents) and place it on the right hand ring finger. Then the same person would take the wedding ring and place it where the promisory ring had been (again with comments about what it represents). The other would then repeat the prcedure for the first. After that we were to speak our actual vows. WEEELLLLL….. Ingrid grabbed her own wedding ring instead of mine, I dropped her wedding ring and the minister had to go chasing it, and my promisory ring couldn’t get past the last knuckle of my right hand ring finger. After a few one liners about creating a juggling act during the wedding and how all of this had worked in rehearsal we got through it. We are married, but not without having turned the church into a vaudeville theater (or do you say “music hall�). If these things ever went smoothly life wouldn’t be any fun at all