football wedding

Twice this week I’ve gotten an email that began, “You know you’re from (insert state here) when…”. One was for the Pacific Northwest, one was for Texas. Both places I’ve lived at one time or another.

Each had their share of observations that made me giggle knowingly. A few that made my shake my head. But one is sticking out for some reason. Perhaps because of the colossal upset that occurred in college football this weekend.

You know you’re from Texas when…Someone you know has used a football schedule to plan their wedding date.

OK, so I’m originally from Oklahoma and LH is from Michigan. We are both die hard football fans. Our first wedding was in WA where we met. Very small. Only my immediate family and our friends out there. We always planned to do a second wedding in his home town. My family is strung out all over the south but his family all lives within an hour of each other.

When it came time to plan the wedding #2 a year and a half after the first. There was much debate. We would be having the ceremony in Nov, just before departing to live in Germany. You can’t do it on a Friday because of high school games and people are often tired on Friday evenings. Sundays are no good for several reasons. So that left Saturday.

We only had a 3 week window to pick a date, based on our other travel arrangements. We couldn’t do it the first weekend we wanted because he had been given tickets to the Little Brown Jug game. (Michigan v Minnesota, there’s a trophy involved.) But the only other Saturday available was the weekend of the Michigan/Penn State game. People wouldn’t miss that game to see two people who were already married do it all over. Even if we were having an open bar at the reception.

I should point out that this was the year that Michigan ultimately won their last national championship. Or shared the title with Nebraska. Depends on the poll you looked at. Pre-BCS days. But don’t get me started on all that. At any rate, by mid November that little tidbit of info was critical.

Oh the quandary.

Finally we decided we had no choice. Had to be the day of the Penn State game. So we hatched an elaborate plan. During the ceremony, when the groom and groomsmen came out, one would flash the Michigan score, one would flash the Penn State score. We’d spread word.

LH wanted a tv for the reception hall. His mom was horrified. Fan though she is, this was a wedding and she felt we could just forgo football for one afternoon.

Well, his folks were also paying for this particular wedding round. So as a thank you, LH and I decided to replace their aging monstrosity of a television set (still in one of those wooden cabinets) with a shiny new one.

And we decided we would present them with this little gift at the reception.

And since the new tv would already be there, no reason why it couldn’t be tuned in to the game.

So, on my second wedding day, the score was flashed from the altar and a tv tuned to the game sat in the back of the reception hall. And people still cried at the service and danced and drank and feasted at the reception.

When the game was over and Michigan won, our DJs played Hail to the Victors.

One thing about LH and I. We didn’t have any of the same teams but we loved all of the same sports.