The day before a wedding is less demanding if you are a guy. Kate spent an obscene amount of time having her nails done, Susan entertained her mother all day, and my only responsibility was taking her mother's boyfriend to lunch. Colin arrived in the afternoon. About 90 minutes before the rehearsal, Kate asked me to run the name cards to the country club, so Colin and I hopped in my car. Which was when he noticed the puddle under Susan's car - it was leaking coolant pretty badly. I made a Monday appointment with the dealer and figured we should add some anti-freeze. We headed for Fleet Farm, but learned than Audis only accept something called G12 which must be purchased from the dealer and costs $25 a gallon (one more reason to avoid German cars). By the time we had picked that up I was running well behind, and still had to stop by the country club. I got home fifteen minutes after we should have been on our way, and still needed to change clothes.
By the time I was ready, everyone else had left for the church. We decided that taking Susan's car would not be a good idea, and Eric had his (locked) car parked behind mine in the driveway. Normally I would have taken several swings in and out of the garage to get safely past him but we were running late, and I just knew I could do it in one. I kept my eye glued to his bumper in the right-hand outside mirror. I did not keep my eye glued to the driver's side mirror, which smashed into the garage door track and shattered into pieces. The impact also dented the track and knocked the "don't crush a toddler" sensors mounted to it, so the garage door would neither go up or down. More time went by as I tried to repair it and finally disconnected the door from the opener. It was a scene from "National Lampoon's Family Wedding"...
So, with one car disabled and the other damaged, we went to the church. Steve Savides ran a very relaxed rehearsal, and the out of town guests oohed and aahed appropriately over the sanctuary.
The dinner was at Il Angolo, which was closed to the public for the occasion. There were maybe forty people - Loes had invited many of the Minnesota friends to attend. Wonderful food, wonderful service, a good time had by all. Susan and I then went to the bar at the Paper Valley to spend some time with other guests who had arrived; it was very, very loud. When we got home at last, there was an RSVP on the answering machine: "We'll be there!" So much for final meal counts and table assignments...
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