Wedding Day or, are they going to elope, break up, or come back? I'd Go Anywhere With You

A wedding was a very exciting thing, and Lewis's many cousins and aunts and uncle were wrapped up in the big celebration. The sudden speed of things seemed to come second to their sheer affection for him, the oldest brother's only son and oldest child. He relished the bustling household of people, however they fit into the lives of himself and his family. He’d never seen firsthand how the decision of two people could have such ripples. Many of the cousins took an automatic liking to his frankly winsome and petite bride. Of his new in-laws, he had enjoyed the hospitality of Cousin Lynn just the week before. Old family friends, too, arrived, his mother’s best friend and her husband among them.

When Lewis arrived, he realized he’d spent little time with his parents recently. Perhaps they didn’t have much in common past the hours of their domestic life together. But once upon a time, they’d worked side-by-side in the family business. They’d spent vacations in the mountains, roasting marshmallows. His mother had read to him. His father had taught him to drive, taken him to the gym. They’d taken on so many household construction projects together. The whole family had worked in the field picking vegetables until sundown, and more watching television and snapping peas and green beans to bite sizes. They had gone to church three times a week, and had dinner with other members afterwards. They had stopped going together so much before he graduated high school, and then he had attended college on scholarship out of state.

Years later, he would feel much closer to these memories, but at this point Lewis felt much more distant by his new experiences. He thought of how, when he began paying all his own bills, he first truly appreciated just how much his parents had fended for him, sacrificed for him and his sister. His mother, strict as she was, gave him still more freedom than her parents gave her. His father, however hard he worked, had spent more time with him, provided for him, and been more of a father than his own had been. They had, as parents do, made so much up on the fly.
He was sorry he had not had more time to ease Gina into the family, more time for everyone to keep company. His father had wearily sunk into his favorite chair and watched baseball, last time they visited, while his mother busied herself with every chore imaginable. Just the same, he felt the need to go up to his Mom and Dad today, hug them, talk with them for a little while. They found him happy and eager to press forward, if a bit put off at not seeing Gina. He wanted to thank them for all they had done for him, to make him capable of surviving, for teaching him pride, for encouraging him the best they knew how, for trying to show him right from wrong. What were their differences, really. They loved each other very much.

While this was a special day to share with all of these people, it was not really about anyone but the two at its center. What had been very personal and intimate seemed, at present, as though it would swallow them whole! Tradition was keeping them apart until the wedding at 2:30pm; it was bad luck, after all, for the groom to see the bride. Why that would be, no one seemed to know. "Because."

A deeply intimate experience united them. In Lewis's rush to get the wedding date set as soon as possible, there was very little time to adjust to sharing their wonderful secret with everyone. Perhaps a less superstitious and silly old fashioned motive of young girls who could hardly fathom all of this would've led to a brief conference in the hallway. This created the desperation that led him to the outside of Gina's room, bright notes in the key of 'G' insistently prying his young bride to the window.

"This is bullshit, honey!" he declared. "I want to see you! I want to talk with you!"

Lewis was not the most patient---or perhaps, emotionally stable---and definitely not, tame---young man at this point, if ever. Who knows what his friends he'd grown up with thought about any of this; he was known to have a wild side. For some of the wedding guests, it had to be a clue, when he didn't change...and then, they heard the news: he and the bride had vanished.

They disappeared without warning, not an hour before the ceremony.

One minute, Papa Archer was going over the steps of the wedding vows amidst a very busy household packed past capacity with people.

It was no quiet occurrence. Whatever dose of nerves or feelings or madness led Lewis to utterly disrupt the proceedings, to him it was a mix of clingy desperation and the unique closeness he felt to Gina. Who the girl REALLY was seemed to evade most everyone. But they were the only two people at the center, suddenly, of all the attention of everyone in both families and more.

This very private conspiracy to love one another completely and for always now had seen the inescapable light of day. Who knows what loneliness may have driven them both together? In his case, it was of choice; the person he had been was fading like a shell opening to reveal a seed, which ate away the nutritious coating of what it had been before, to take root in the elements. His old way of life was changing in every way, and so, it seemed a time to slip away from his place in all of it. An exciting new idea of what to try to be beckoned.

For Gina, it was so much more simple: she'd quietly slipped out of sight, too. Always her sister's shadow, she had tried to live a little for herself, but the consequences left her very disappointed. Her appetite had fled, her work became her life, and about her troubles she knew not what to say, until her beautiful young man had come to her with warmth, humor, and affection. He'd fed her with his own mouth, and given her attention that elevated her sense of self-worth to reveal more than the shade she'd become.

So when this pied piper of her heart came to her window, playing his harmonica, she smiled, all the way to the eyes, for the first time that day. Her well-meaning wedding help had plastered her with adorable, doll=like dollops of make-up, as her petite frame longed for his embrace, and perhaps, a nice nap. When he said, "this is bullshit, honey, let's go somewhere for a minute! Come with me! Seriously!" he said it with a smile, too.



Original text follows, from 2011

They disappeared without warning, not an hour before the ceremony.
One minute, Papa Bowman's going over the steps of the wedding vows amidst a very busy household packed past capacity with people.

An announcement at "Gina's" job, which she didn't tack up but which she couldn't avoid, let all of her co-workers, her sister's co-workers, and her brother's ex-co-workers know: her impulsive decision to marry her new boyfriend was going to lead to a lovely, quickly-put-together ceremony in her hometown. It was the closest thing to a Charlie Sheen moment in their lives, so out of support and curiosity for the bizarre, many, many of them came.

A wedding was a very exciting thing, and Lou's many cousins and aunts and uncle were wrapped up in the big celebration. The speed of things seemed to come second to their sheer affection for him, the oldest brother's only son and oldest child. Many of the cousins took an automatic liking to his frankly winsome and petite bride.

While this was a special day to share with all of these people, it was not really about anyone but the boy and girl at its center. Tradition was keeping them apart until the wedding at 2:30pm; it was bad luck, after all, for the groom to see the bride. Why that would be, no one seemed to know. "Because."

Lou was not the most patient---or perhaps, emotionally stable---and definitely not, tame---young man at this point, if ever. His decision that dressing up in a nicely made suit would be "fraudulent" and his insistence to wear embarrassingly simple clothes, as though he were going hiking, was taken in stride as eccentricity---by the family, at least. Who knows what his friends he'd grown up with thought about any of this; he was known to have a wild side, to be one who would choose to stick out. For some of the wedding guests, it had to be a clue, when he didn't change...and then, they heard the news: he and the bride had vanished.

It was no quiet occurrence. Whatever dose of nerves or feelings or madness led Lou to utterly disrupt the proceedings, to him it was a mix of clingy desperation and the unique closeness he felt to Gina. "Gina" was just a nickname, an airhead's nickname borrowed from a so-so comedy, Martin, for that matter. Who the girl REALLY was seemed to evade most everyone. But they were the only two people at the center, suddenly, of all the attention of everyone in both families and more.

This very private conspiracy to love one another completely and for always now had seen the inescapable light of day. Who knows what loneliness may have driven them both together? In his case, it was of choice; the person he had been was fading like a shell opening to reveal a seed, which ate away the nutritious coating of what it had been before, to take root in the elements. His old way of life was changing in every way, and so, it seemed a time to slip away from his place in all of it. An exciting new idea of what to try to be beckoned.

For Gina, it was so much more simple: she'd quietly slipped out of sight, too. Always her sister's shadow, she had tried to live a little for herself, but the consequences left her very disappointed. Her appetite had fled, her work became her life, and about her troubles she knew not what to say, until her beautiful young man had come to her with warmth, humor, and affection. He'd fed her with his own mouth, and given her attention that elevated her sense of self-worth to reveal more than the shade she'd become.

So when this pied piper of her heart came to her window, playing his harmonica, she smiled, all the way to the eyes, for the first time that day. Her well-meaning wedding help had plastered her with adorable, doll=like dollops of make-up, as her petite frame longed for his embrace, and perhaps, a nice nap. When he said, "this is bullshit, honey, let's go somewhere for a minute! Come with me! Seriously!" he said it with a smile, too. The urgency was contagious; against the efforts of no less than four or five of his adorable cousins, she managed to get out the door and into his hands. It was all one big game to them. He'd simply disappeared from Papa's side to reach her through her bedroom door, and barefoot the two of them fled to his getaway car, as the slightest early spring rain began to fall once more.

The chaos and bemusement left in their wake was barely apparent to the two of them.
"Are they going to elope? " "they BETTER not, after all the trouble we went to arrange a nice wedding on short notice!" "They're going to break up!" "You don't know them, they're more likely to elope than break up." "They'll be back. Maybe it's just the pressure of the day." "Maybe they figured out they are in over their heads. I wonder what will happen next?"

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