A Vegas Wedding

  Michele and ‘English’ Mike were getting married. Azure was going to be the Maid of Honor and Jay was the Best Man. We didn’t have much of a plan. We knew they were staying on ‘The Strip’. Chrissy and I would go, find a cheap motel to stay at and meet up with them. Problem was we didn’t know quite where to find them. We just didn’t think that far ahead. I figured when we got to Vegas, I would call Jay on my cell phone when we got there.

  Chrissy and I took off early on a Saturday morning and headed to Vegas. The trip was relatively uneventful, although I did discuss this Zak situation with her. She was still in a long distance relationship with ‘Doogie’ but it was apparent that Chrissy and Zak were getting really close. I flat out told her if she was dating Zak she’d better break it off with ‘Doogie’. It wasn’t fair to him, and I didn’t want to be in a position of being blindsided with a question or have to lie to him about her whereabouts if he called. She said they weren’t dating. I didn’t believe her, but I let the subject drop. I suspected their relationship was more than just business because after the first week she stopped bringing inking work home.

  After we found the cheapest motel room we could find (read: seedy) we drove south to ‘The Strip’. No sooner do we get near Bally’s then we see Azure walking down the street. Unfortunately, by the time we found a place to park, they were long gone from that spot. Calls to Jay from my cell phone went unanswered. I did not plan for that. At least we knew generally, where they were staying. We went to the nearest hotel where we saw Azure. It was Bally’s. We gave the names at the front desk and asked if they were staying there. They couldn’t give us that information. But… when asked directly to page their room they were able to do that. They weren’t in the room but at least we knew that they were staying here.

  We had nothing else to do but wait for someone we knew to show up in the lobby, so I gave Chrissy a roll of quarters and gave one to myself and said the person who had the most quarters left in 45 minutes wins. Within a half hour we ran into Jay and Azure. We spent the next two days checking out the sights and having a good time. We ate dinner at Planet Hollywood. Overall, a good time.

   Afterwards, Chrissy and I went back to our seedy motel and tried to get some sleep. In the morning we went to a diner and I read the sad news in the newspaper that Charles M. Schultz, creator of the Peanuts, had passed away. We spent the day again, seeing the sites and then we bought some alcohol and had an impromptu party in Mike’s room. I didn’t know Mike all that well. We knew him through Michele. To me, he was a drinking buddy. Back in New York, the two of us would compete against each other while doing Dr. Pepper shots. Usually he would beat me downing the first one, but I would win in subsequent rounds. One of those nights he informed us that he used to be a real big asshole until he got into a motorcycle accident back in England. Whatever head injury he had sustained apparently changed his personality. I found that to be a bit odd. He knows what he used to be like but just doesn’t act that way anymore? How does that work? ‘I used to like pushing people off of their bicycles, but now I don’t find it entertaining’ Is that a head injury or just growing up? Anyway, we never met the asshole version of him in England, just the auto shop worker him in the U.S. and he was okay.

The next day was the big day. We drove down to Bally’s to meet them because we didn’t really know the plans. We met up in Mike’s room about an hour or two before the ceremony was to take place. All the girls were being taken in a Limo to Cupid’s Chapel and they graciously took Chrissy with them as she would be the only girl not in the limo.

  No sooner does the door close behind the girls then Mike turns to Jay and I and says… “So… This wedding may not be totally legit,” sending a look of confusion over both of us. Jay asked him what he meant by that. He explained that the reason they were getting married in Vegas was because of how easy it was to get married here. He was in the U.S. on a work Visa that had since expired. After that he just took some customer’s social security number and changed around two numbers and was using that number ever since. It turned out that he had to put a social security number on the wedding certificate. He was just hoping they’d marry them here and then he could go back to town hall in New York with the Marriage certificate and hope they would have to accept it as legal. Then he asked if we thought this was bad.

  We didn’t know. Did that mean Michele would be married to whoever had that social security number? The United States only knows us as a number. We kind of shrugged our shoulders and told them it wasn’t that bad. While Mike was getting his tux on and out of earshot, Jay and I freaked out. What the Hell?! I don’t know what penalties he would face for being in the country illegally or Social Security fraud, but friend or not, if the government says “oh, seeing you got married in Vegas, everything is okay then”, I’d be quite annoyed.

  While we waited for Mike, Michele’s brother and father showed up at the room. I had never met them before, but Jay had met them. It was now about 45 minutes before the ceremony. I asked where the chapel was with plans to start heading off. It was “Cupid’s Chapel” which I actually remember seeing near my ratty motel. But it turned out that none of the guys had made plans to get to the chapel on their own. So they all looked at me. They wanted me to cram everyone into my poor little Jeep and drive them to the church on time. My Jeep was parked at least a 10 minute walk away

and for Michele’s dad, it would be longer. Chrissy and my bags were also in the Jeep because we were driving back to Colorado straight from the Reception dinner. This was the worst planned Vegas wedding I had ever been to.

  “Let me bring my Jeep around up front.” I told them. If I ran we’ll be cutting it close. So I ran. Got the jeep, picked them up and booked to the chapel. It was all the way at the other end of The Strip and then some. Traffic straight there would make us late, so I took the quicker parallel street. Weaving in and out of traffic. At one point we needed to make a right, but the car in front wasn’t turning. I had no time, so I drove up on the sidewalk and went around him. Shortly after that I had overshot the block I needed to turn on. I knew it, but didn’t want to worry them. They were afraid I was lost, but what was scarier was, I wasn’t lost but knew we’d be late if I drove legally. At that point, I drove over the median to do a u-turn. Mike sat next to me the whole time in silence. He was sweating and holding on to the dashboard the whole time. I was more afraid of Michele’s dad wanting to kill me. We got to the church with minutes to spare.

  Mike finally spoke. “I have to admit, I was scared. But you got us here and on time. So I will never speak of it again. Michele’s dad said nothing. Jay said that in his mind he was picturing the two scenes cutting back and forth with each other: The girls at the church with slow ceremonial organ music playing as they methodically prepared for the wedding and cutting back to us with fast paced music playing while we jumped curbs and running over pedestrians.

  The ceremony itself was rather nice. It was a lot better than I thought a Vegas Wedding would be. We all went to a big dinner where Michele’s dad finally made a comment about the drive and then Chrissy and I drove back to Colorado so I could be at work in the morning. Chrissy actually drove the second half of the trip so I could catch a nap. I woke up briefly to see she was dealing with blizzard conditions up in the mountains and thought ‘better her than me’ before going back to sleep.