My Wedding Day

As far as I was concerned, everything was good. My parents were going to be at my wedding. The day before the wedding, my husband-to-be and all the men in the bridal party went and got the tables and chairs to put in the backyard. We were hoping for a small wedding and trying to keep the number of people below 150, but since the wedding was at the end of August and we lived on the island, as did most of my family, everyone who lived on the island was coming. The ones who lived off the island that we had invited were coming also, so the count went up to 220. Oops! I tried to keep it down, and I really didn’t think all the family members off the island would come, but they told me that they loved coming to the island in the summer, and they all planned their summer vacation around my wedding. Dad wasn’t very happy about this, but there was nothing we could do about it. When you combine two families that lived on the same island, and both had family that lived there, that alone brought the count to 150. I also sent an invitation to my beauty school teacher; her reply was yes. Then four students from the school where Larry, my husband, taught crashed the wedding. The List just kept on growing.

My family wasn’t too involved with the church at the time of my wedding, so my mother-in-law-to-be asked us if we would consider having the wedding in her church. I didn’t have a problem with that at all, and her church was larger than our church. So I asked the minister from the Presbyterian Church if my minister could also be included in the service. He told me that would be fine, so I asked the minister from St. Mary’s Church if he would take part in the service, and he was fine with this.

Things were coming together. Larry was going to be my husband, and I wanted his Aunt Rosemary to sing at our wedding. He thought this would be nice for her to be asked, so we both went over to her house one afternoon to ask her. She told us she would be honored to do this, and then she suggested a song to us. We told her that would be great. We asked the minister about Larry’s Aunt Rosemary singing at the wedding, and he said sure, that would be fine.

My wedding day went off without a hitch until the very last song was announced. Larry’s aunt and uncle had been to the doctor the day before the wedding, and he was told he had to take it easy because his heart wasn’t able to withstand any excitement. Larry’s uncle said, “Well, I’m going to my nephew’s wedding tomorrow, and I’m going to have a good time.” The doctor said, “Okay, just take it slow.” During the reception, his wife got his food, and he stayed at the table. But when they announced that it was the last dance, he said to his wife, “I have to dance at least one dance,” so they got up and went to the dance floor.

As you can see, they were having a good time. Then all of a sudden, the music stopped in the middle of the song. I was upstairs with my bridal party; the window overlooked the backyard. No one was moving, and they were all standing. I knew something was wrong, so I ran down the stairs. Someone tried to stop me, and I said, “It’s my wedding, and if someone is hurt, I’m going.” When I got to the back door, there was Larry’s uncle on the deck; and my aunt, who was a nurse, was working on him. When the ambulance arrived, my aunt had at least gotten a slight pulse. They loaded him into the ambulance and went straight to the ferry that was waiting for them.

Whenever the ambulance was heading for the ferry, the police called them, and they waited for the ambulance to arrive. They boarded the boat, and it pulled out right away. The hospital was about one mile from the boat, so not too far away. When he arrived at the hospital, they were able to keep the little pulse going, knowing he wasn’t going to last much longer. My cousin, the nurse, said to me after they left the yard, “He isn’t going to make it, but I didn’t want him to be declared deceased at your wedding.”

I was taken to one of the bedrooms and was out of my wedding dress and dressed before I knew it. Mom said to me, “You two get on the road. We will let you know what happens with Uncle Markie.” The next thing we knew, we were on our way to Oswego, New York, but we didn’t make it off Long Island. There had been a car accident up the road, so we decided to stop at a hotel off the highway. We checked in, and when we got to our room, I called home. Mom answered the phone, and I told her we stopped due to traffic. She was glad to hear we had stopped for the night. Then she told me that Uncle Markie didn’t make it, but we all knew that was going to be the outcome.

When we got home, just to show you how small this island is, I cashed all the checks we received. A few days later, I received a check back that couldn’t be cashed. Yes, it was a check from Larry’s aunt and uncle. I decided not to tell anyone, but when I went to the bank the next day, a friend who worked at the bank told me she had contacted my Aunt Rosemary about the check. She told her if she saw me to tell me that she would be putting another check in the mail, and she was sorry, for that account was closed before the check cleared.

Every year for ten years when I would see Aunt Rosemary, she would say, “Oh dear, this is the anniversary of Uncle Markies death,” not our wedding anniversary. If you haven’t figured it out, Larry’s Uncle Markie’s wife, Aunt Rosemary, was who sang at our wedding. So she sang at our wedding and the very same day lost her husband. You just can’t make this stuff up.

Two years after we got married, my son Brian was born, and two years later, my other son, Kevin. Things went along as smoothly as life can be. I started working with my mom in her beauty salon. I worked there for many years until her business started slowing down. Then I did peoples hair who couldn’t leave their homes due to illness. After that, I got back into adult home care and did this for many years.