[This is Part 5 in the multi-part epic describing the wedding I attended at the beginning of August 2002. Previous episodes: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]

Friday, August 2, 2002. Sometime around 13:00 PDT. Jaeger, Yanthor, scottgalvin.com, Kiesa, and myself went to the tuxedo rental shop to pick up our uniforms and verify that they fit. (Apparently, Kiesa's role on this outing was to verify that the uniforms would "look good". Maybe she also wanted to keep the groom company.)

At the tuxedo shop, after we each gave our names, the employees located the appropriate uniforms for us to test. Thankfully, the information I had attempted to send during the prior month, using an obscure piece of stone age technology known as a "fax machine", had succeeded in reaching its intended destination.

Each person was shown to a dressing room, where we donned the uniforms. Mine fitted well enough, though it took me a while to figure out the purpose of some of the extraneous attachments and accessories that were included. Since some of my fellow groomsmen had been involved in prior weddings and other formal events, they were able to assist me in identifying these mysterious items.

The uniforms appeared to fit to everyone's satisfaction. After parading around in them for a brief period of time, we returned to our standard attire, and allowed the employees to pack them up properly so that they could be transported easily without altering their pristine condition.

Having accepted a cash subsidy for part of the cost of the uniform rental from Jaeger earlier in the day, I brought the Happy Bank Account Depletion card into play. This would undoubtedly show up on the radar of several of the nation's largest consumer marketing agencies, who would, at the very least, register that I had made a transaction in Longview, Washington (maybe even the specific item). But "they" would already know of my trip anyway. My plane tickets and cell phone records would leave plenty of paper trail as evidence to that.

We returned to the Stone Estate for a few minutes until the rehearsal, where some of us wandered into the forest and envisioned Matix-esque filming scenarios. (That's where we left off with Part 4. So much for chronological consistency.)

14:00 PDT. Jaeger, scottgalvin.com, Yanthor, Captain Logan, and myself descended upon the church where the wedding was scheduled to occur. We hung out there while the rest of the people arrived, until someone let us into the church.

In the church, while various people ran around doing various things, scottgalvin.com, Yanthor, and I discussied a perplexing question which has been debated by philosophers, theologians, historians, writers, craftsmen, farmers, and gynecologists since the dawn of time: "What would it take to get Linux on the desktop of the common user?"

(The younger readers may now turn to their parents and ask, "Daddy, what's a 'gynecologist'?")

Kiesa handed out copies of the wedding script to all who were present. This multi-page monstrosity included a detailed list of everything that would happen during the wedding. Taking a queue from my experience on Worst Scifi production sets, I studied the script intently to make sure I would know all my lines perfectly. Thankfully, I didn't have any speaking parts, at least in the scripted version.

I also got acquainted with various other people who would be involved with the wedding, including the wedding coordinator, who would provide me with much advise and information regarding my role, and expectations of me during the event. Since I had never been a best man in a wedding before, this would prove to be invaluable. (Taking the Worst Scifi analogy further, she would have been considered the director in this production, telling everyone exactly where they needed to stand, how to walk, what to say, etc.)

I also got briefly acquainted with the flower girl (estimated age: 4 years), who reminded me altogether too much of my years of working at a certain educational institution in Boulder Colorado. She was quite intrigued with the dead frog depicted in one of the dissection photographs on the wall.

While things were being prepared, and various people arrived and left, bouncing and Acaudi walked into the church. This was the first time I had seen bouncing since my journey to San Antonio back in May, and the first time I had seen Acaudi since... the prior Sunday. Right.

After all the relevant personnel had arrived, we were corralled^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H seated into rows at the back of the church, where Yanthor, scottgalvin.com, and myself grudgingly ceased our great debates on how to save the world. (I think we were discussiong OpenBeOS at that point, but I may be wrong.) Kiesa introduced everybody, the wedding coordinator gave us all an overview of what was going to happen, and the pastor gave a motivational speech, followed by a prayer.

Before long, the rehearsal got underway. This was to be the slickest, glossiest production Longview had ever seen. More tightly choreographed and provocatively arranged than a Britney Spears music video, it would wow the town for years to come. At the same time, it would maintain that indescribable, uniquely arcane "Worst Scifi" aesthetic we have come to expect from any soundstage ever occupied by the Logan Brothers.

Err... Back up a moment. I'll just say what Kiesa told me, and has been known to repeat on other occassions since. "If you ever decide to get married, here's my advise: Elope."

The wedding procession would happen in a fairly traditional sequence in most regards. The mothers of the bride and groom walk to the front to light the candles. Then, the groomsmen and bridesmaids would walk down the aisle in pairs and take their places.

For the sake of clarity (and because I like to write perl code), I will express the wedding party in terms familiar to anyone who has ever coded perl. Everyone else can just follow along. (As some may have already guessed, there might just be a few other perl idioms appearing in later chapters as more of the tale unfolds.)

# Assemble people standing to the right of the happy couple.

my @groomsmen;
my $best_man = "Bitscape";
my $not_a_url = "scottgalvin.com";
my $not_neelix = "Yanthor";
my $duke = "Captain Logan";

push @groomsmen, $best_man;
push @groomsmen, $not_a_url;
push @groomsmen, $not_neelix;
push @groomsmen, $duke;


# Arrange people standing to the left of the happy couple

my @bridesmaids;

# Traditionally, the "Maid of Honor" is a scalar, but
# the bride wanted it to be an array.
my @best_maids;

# Retrieve the founders of an internationally
# renowned organization of condemn doners
@best_maids = get_founding_members_of_the_Mo_and_Angie_Club();

push @bridesmaids, @best_maids;

# Not to be confused with a yet-to-be-introduced character
# This variable was passed in via parameters
push @bridesmaids, $cousin_of_the_bride;

# No vampires will dare to come near this wedding
push @bridesmaids, "The Slayer";

There. I think that covers it.

During the rehearsal walks down the aisle, I got briefly aquainted with $best_maids[0]. The structure of the conversations was amusing, because we would talk while walking down the aisle, then immediately terminate discussions upon reaching the stage, and resume the conversation at roughly where it had left off during the next take. Much like suspending a process. Ctrl-Z.

Finally, the bride would emerge. She would walk down the aisle, to join arms with her father. The preacher would ask, "Who gives this woman to be with this man?"

In a slight break from many weddings of the past, the father would respond, "She gives herself with our blessing." When I learned that the bride had insisted on the use of this language, despite pressure to the contrary from other family members, my respect for her grew by another notch.

The old language, which implies an assumption of ownership by parents of their daughters, even when they are fully grown adults, is silly, patronizing, and, at worst, degrading. It's about time somebody did something to correct it. That's my rant for this chapter.

(I was also somewhat surprised to learn during one of the rehearsal breaks that the bride happens to be a faithful reader of my web page. I knew she had perused it occassionally, most likely because the groom has long been the #1 reader, but I didn't realize that she had gotten into the habit of reading every new entry. I decided that maybe it would be a good idea to get back to writing updates more frequently in the future.)

At the alter, Gramps (the bride's grandfather) would read several passages from the Bible, then the minister would preside over the vows. The best man (me) would hand the groom the rings, and they would exchange these tokens of union.

(Due to some "interesting" religious traditions, the exchanging of the rings had apparently also been a matter of some controversy. But again, this time due largely to the groom's efferts, (which I didn't learn about in detail until long after the wedding weekend), the couple had the courage to stand up for integrity of their wedding. Yea|)

During the rehearsal, while the director worked with other members of the cast to clarify their roles, I solemnly knighted scottgalvin.com on the stage of the Longview SDA church. By authority of the Bitscape's Lounge Certification Program, scottgalvin.com may now also be known as "Sir scottgalvin.com".

After the bride and groom had officially kissed, we would all exit with great fanfare, symmetrically paired, in reverse order. In other words, the wedding processional would function like a LIFO structure. A stack.

But wait! There's more.

But after exiting, some of us would return to escort various family members out of the church. Think of it as an encore. My role was to escort the bride's grandparents from the front row to the back door. (I didn't realize until much later, on wedding Sunday, that these would be the bride's "other" grandparents, which would cause me a brief moment of great confusion during the real wedding. But that's getting a little ahead of this chapter.)

After a several more trial runthroughs of the ceremony, the session wrapped up. Whatever was to happen on Sunday would be the only take that would matter.

As things drew to a close, the groom's mother asked me if I was hungry. It had been hours since the huge breakfast. I decided that I was getting there. She then informed me that there would be a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, to commence immediately after leaving the rehearsal.

This sounded like an excellent idea. Departure was eminent.

The Yoda passengers exited the church for immediate departure. With one of my duties still lingering on my mind, I made a quick decision, and ran back into the church. There, I found the mothers of the groom and bride, and asked if a phone book for the Portland area was available. When they asked why I needed one, I said that I was looking for a bowling alley, as a possible site for the party the following night.

This question served a double purpose: (1) If they were able to help, it would put me one step closer to formulating the mythical plan for Jaeger's bachelor party. (2) It would let them know that we were putting something together. The response I had given the previous night had not instilled confidence, so this might help correct that perception.

The bride's mother referred me to the bride's cousin, since she was familiar with the Portland area.

I put that nugget of information away for later use, and hurried on to join the rest of my comrades, where we would ride in Yoda. On to the Chinese restaurant!

[Coming in a week, more or less: Part 6 -- Friday Evening Dinner.]