Daily Archives: June 9, 2006

GERALYN RUANE: Claim Your Day

Dixon.

I once went a wedding that was all about Dixon.

Was he the bride? The groom? No. He was the father of the bride. And frankly, there was no way the wedding should have been all about him.

It all began the night of the rehearsal dinner. Dixon stood up to give a toast. But first, he handed out packets to each guest. PACKETS. Several pages of single-spaced material Dixon had found on the internet, “funny” stuff about what it means to be a wife, a husband, a married couple. For his toast to his daughter Elizabeth and her soon-to-be-husband Mitch, he read through it ALL. In a slow, monotone voice. This took about forty-five minutes.

When my guy Ron and his friend Larry, life-long best friends of Mitch, got up to make their toast, it went like this:

Elizabeth, we now see that Mitch likes you most
So we hope your marriage lasts
At least as long as Dixon’s toast

Dixon was thrilled, hamming it up for the guests. Sure, he was being teased and everyone was laughing, but they were laughing at a joke about HIM.

Next: The Wedding. The ceremony itself lasted about 5 minutes out in the frigid wind of a Connecticut November, then we all moved inside to party.

Dixon brought his clarinet to the wedding. He kept trying to get the band to let him play along, but he didn’t know any of the songs. So while they played without him and people danced, he kept going to the microphone trying to get everyone’s attention to say I know not what since his attempts to commandeer everyone’s attention never quite worked. Whenever the band had a break, though, Dixon – anxious to play his clarinet – would make them stay and play, “When the Saints Come Marching In” with him. Which I guess is understandable, since that’s such a classic wedding tune.

Finally, it was time to cut the cake. There were Mitch and Elizabeth, slicing into the mile-high abundance of confection.

And Dixon stepped in.

I mean, right in between the two of them cutting the cake! The man could not be left out of anything!

So, his daughter Elizabeth turned to him and flung the cut piece of cake right down the front of Dixon’s crisp white shirt. But before he could ham it up the crowd, she pushed him back away from the cake and moved closer to Mitch, shutting Dixon out.

Yay Elizabeth!!! Yay!!!

After two days of Dixon Dixon Dixon, she claimed her day!

Geralyn Ruane is the author of “Jane Austen Meets the New York Giants”
in Marlo Thomas’s book THE RIGHT WORDS AT THE RIGHT TIME, Vol. 2, April 2006, and the OCC/RWA Vice President