
Last year I had what I hope will be my most awkward moment. I was working fulltime and going to school at night until I graduated last year, so I was always the most overdressed member of my class. Made life more interesting too, since one friend of mine from school was a bit of a nut and loved my "buttoned-up and formal" look or, as she later called it, my "about to be wed" look.
She ran a group at our college and last year talked me into being in a "mock wedding," for lack of a better term. Thing was, the group was the gay-straight alliance, or something like that, and the mock wedding was the highlight of their "Gay Wedding Day" event. When she talked me into being in it I had no idea how big it would be. The wedding was held in a church near the campus and performed by a lady minister. My groom was a guy who was a member of the gay-straight alliance. She had us both wear navy blue suits (since we both had them and it was cheaper than tuxes), with very starched (how I wear them) white shirts, and navy blue bow ties (with a little bit of a print), and of course matching white rose and baby's breath boutonnierres. I was nervous as hell, naturally. When they opened the doors into the main church, there's the minister waiting for us down at the end of the aisle and the place was PACKED. Probably a couple hundred people. Next thing I know the organist was blaring out The Wedding March and there I am walking very slowly down the aisle with my groom on my arm, both of us all stiff and buttoned-up and formal in our suits and bow ties and being wed in front of a church-full of people. It couldn't have been more real. As soon as The Wedding March started playing and we started walking down the aisle, it may as well have been for real. On top of that, my sister knows this friend of mine, so naturally she found out about the wedding, and naturally she told my mother, who said, "I have GOT to see this!" So among those in attendance as I was being wed to my groom was my mother, sister, and a couple of aunts and cousins, and a neighbor. Everyone got all dressed up for the occasion, and the way my mother was you'd have thought it was a real wedding.ONT]