Monday, March 17, 2008

The Wedding Was Great And Then The Mime Showed Up

© 2008 Leighann Lord

I've been to a lot of weddings, most traditional; some not. I've seen people jump the broom, step on stem ware and chicken dance. My cousin's wedding this weekend seemed pretty straight forward: beautiful ceremony, open bar reception, the pleasure of being with family, but then just after dinner The Mime showed up.

A woman dressed in black and white, wearing white face suddenly appeared at the reception hall. And by "appeared" I don't mean out of thin air, I mean she just showed up. And although she seemed terribly out of place she didn't act lost. My husband and I were alarmed, but everyone around us seemed pretty cool with it; like a mime at a wedding reception was as normal as having a preacher, a DJ and an argument.

I don't mean to brag, but my husband and I have the best arguments. At it's core it’s always the about same thing: our opposing approaches to life. I'm a planner. He's a winger. He's a last minute, leap without a net, it's all gonna work out type of guy. I'm a research, charts and graphs, map out all possible outcomes six months in advance type of girl. On the day of my cousin's wedding this conflict manifested itself as an argument over clothes.

Twenty minutes before we were supposed to leave the house my husband lazily began looking for something to wear. I, on the other hand, picked out my outfit the day I got the invitation. This last minute dash, which somehow usually works for him, would have been fine if he were a suit and tie kinda guy. He’s not. He cleans up well, but it’s a battle.

This is eerily reminiscent of our wedding. The romantic man who courted me with abandon, who moved mountains to win my hand, who would have changed the rotation of the earth if it suited my fancy, dragged his feet on securing his wedding tux. Months went by. With the big day perilously close, he still didn’t have a tuxedo and I had a melt down. In an apoplectic fit on Queens Boulevard – aptly named The Boulevard of Death – I screamed, "Whoever is standing at the altar with a tux on is the guy I'm gonna marry and if it's not you, so be it!"

Some would attribute this outburst to classic psycho bride behavior. But there's hope for a marriage if a couple can survive the wedding planning process. The average groom, however, may find this daunting. Thankfully my then groom, now husband, is not average. He loves me for me. And what he loves most about me is that I am not a mime.

"Baby, there's a mime. Why is there a mime?" he said clutching my hand.
"I don't know."

And truly I didn't. At first I thought he was just jealous. He's used to being the only white person at our family functions and now suddenly, it was him and The Mime. But I too was leery.

We stand-up comics and mimes don't have a happy history. On the entertainment totem pole, comics are one step above mimes. That one measly rung allows us to feel superior. We look down on mimes with contempt and scorn. We mock them at every opportunity; and yet we are secretly grateful, for they are the cushion that saves us from being on the absolute bottom.

It turns out, however, that we were grossly mistaken. This lady wasn't a mime. She was a praise dancer who performed an interpretive dance to gospel music in white face. I never thought I'd type those words together in the same sentence, but there they are. Read it again if you need to.

In the Catholic Church they're called liturgical dancers but the concept is the same. There's lots of gliding, spinning, big sweeping arm motions and praying hand poses. It's beautiful. I've just never seen it done at a wedding reception. To be honest, I'm still not sure why she did it in white face. I didn't know Jesus was that big in the mime community; then again I doubt they really talk about it.

I guess the moral is – and here my husband and I totally agree – beware the open bar.


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2 comments:

The Chick said...

OMG!

This is so my husband and me!

The personality details...

Thanks for the laughs today.

Leighann Lord said...

You're very welcome!! I'm glad you enjoyed it.