Reply #17: Skinner's crazy wedding story. [View All]

(Actually, it's my wife's crazy story.)

It's about 3:30PM on Thursday (our wedding is on Saturday), and I'm at my office working. My wife-to-be is is at the hotel where everyone is staying. She is in her parent's room, along with some other family members and her *wedding dress*.

People are fumbling with luggage and moving things around. Her uncle grabs the hanger with my wife's dress and hangs it up from the sprinkler on the ceiling. The sprinkler goes off, drenching everyone and everything. The floor has about an inch of water, and it's pouring into the hallway and the room next door. Of course, the water has been sitting in a pipe for years, so it's filled with black crud.

My wife's dress is soaked, and covered with black spots. The fire alarm in the hotel goes off. She grabs the dress and runs out of the hotel. A bunch of fire trucks come to the hotel, sirens blaring.

My wife calls me, bawling. She is wandering around Alexandria, Virginia in shock. She's looking for a cleaner, but she has no clue where she's going or what to do. I tell her to stay calm, and tell her that everything is going to be fine. I have no clue what the heck to do.

My wife calls a friend -- you know, the take-control type person who knows how to fix everything. Her friends says that she'll figure something out. Half an hour later, the friend calls her back with the name of a cleaner out in the 'burbs who specializes in emergencies like this. Another friend picks up my wife and drives her and the dress about an hour out to the burbs.

My wife walks into the cleaner, still wet, dress in hand, still barely holding back tears.

The woman at the counter looks her in the eye and says -- in the most confident tone she could muster -- "Don't worry. Your dress is going to be fine." (Thank god for her. She knew exactly what we needed to hear.) We put our faith in her.

At 5:00PM on Friday we pick up the dress and it's spotless. If it weren't for that place, I don't know what we would have done. I think it cost us about $200 bucks to clean the dress. A bargain -- she could have asked us for $2000 (way more than the dress cost) and we probably would have paid it.

(Briefly, another crazy wedding story: Some of you probably remember that our wedding was three days before 9/11. We were supposed to fly to our honeymoon that day, but instead we drove to my parents house and then to Florida. It seemed like we were the only tourists there.)