Seven years.

That's how long Redd and I have been married. We officially tied the knot on September 2, 2000.

The church was a beautiful building, resembling a cathedral that had been shrunk to fit the corner lot it sits upon. It was one of the more straightforward Catholic weddings one could find. We used bubbles rather than birdseed, or some other substitute for traditional rice. The whole thing went off without a single hitch.

In a pig's eye.

My brother, Teach, served as my best man. He didn't arrive from his home in North Carolina until less than an hour before the wedding in Pennsylvania. One of my friends from high school was in attendance, and I was asked him to serve as best man, in case Teach didn't show.

Redd arrived shortly after I did (to this day, she says I arrived seconds before her, but I had been there about five minutes or so...). Once she had been tucked away at the back of the church, so I wouldn't see her in her dress before the wedding, I went back to wondering about Teach's location. Then he showed up.

"Great", I thought, "Now things should get back to normal." Of course, we were in northeastern Pennsylvania, and my idea of normal was a little different than the area's norm.

In fact, just the wedding party was enough to show this. Redd's family and friends served as her maid of honor and bridesmaids. My brother was my best man, m y niece and nephew were flower girl and ring bearer, and my friends were my groomsmen. Therein lay the strangeness.

I love my friends. They are the best a guy could hope for. But I grew up in an area that wasn't as... uniform... as the Pennsylvania coal belt (just outside Washington DC). I got more than a few comments from the people in the area who knew me about the odd makeup of my groomsmen (or people, as will become clear in a moment).

You see, I asked my best friends to stand by me as I took the most important vows of my life:

Steve, my Jewish-Canadian friend, who wore a yarmulke to show his respect to being in a religious place. In itself, not a bad thing. That the yarmulke in question had the logo of the Montreal Canadians hockey team on it was another thing. The symbolism would have been lost on most people around here;

Ryan, a rather stoic individual, who is a good friend nevertheless, and is black. My friends arrived the day before, and came to visit me at home. To get there, they had to pass a store that had, among other things in the window, a Confederate battle flag. Steve and Ryan told me later that they vowed at that moment to operate on the buddy system;

Shayne, a friend I had made working in Pennsylvania. He looked like he could have been in a band playing drums on stage somewhere. As a side-note, he had recently had every tooth in his head removed. He said something about some karate incident leading to the tooth loss. I had asked him when my friend Lawrence couldn't make it (he had been sent to China by the DoD to I think he said, learn Chinese. Since he himself was Chinese, and he and his parents spoke Chinese in the house, I wondered at the logic, but for fear of stepping into "I'd tell you but I would have to kill you" territory, I let it go). At the time, Lawrence was a pretty big guy, so rather than have a large Chinaman as a groomsman, I had a long-haired toothless tech-support guy;

And finally, Rebecca, a close friend from my short time in collage. Yes, one of my groomsmen was a woman. She was fitted for, and rented a tux for the event. She wore it very well, but it turned out to be an interesting obstacle later on.

I wouldn't have changed a thing, except having Redd's mother there. She had died earlier in the year, and was remarkably missed by more than half the people at the wedding.

The wedding itself was a beautiful event. family member read the readings from scripture, and the priest (5'1" if he was a foot) offered a wonderful sermon. At the end of the ceremony he did do one thing for which I have yet to hear the end of from my friends.

He introduced Redd and I using Redd's maiden name.

*sigh* Well, things can't get too more odd, I hoped. What a foolish mortal I was.

Redd had spoken to Matt, a friend of mine, online frequently. Until he became familiar with Redd, he referred to her as "what's-her-butt", and she as "Mattermew". Matt was there, and brought his boyfriend. Redd was looking at the gathered friends and family trying to figure out who these two guys she never saw before were, and oh, my God, will we be able to feed them at the reception?

Fast-forward to the receiving line. Matt comes closer, and Redd whispers urgently to me "Who is that?" I tried to respond, but was unable to. Matt arrives, grasps Redd's hand, and says "Hello, What's-her-butt." Redd shrieks (a rarity), throws her arms around him and gives him a hug.

She later told me it was less glad-to-meet-him, and more relief at knowing that the guests at the reception will be covered appropriately. Now, everything should be fine.

Not to be.

The reception itself was great. The short priest cut a rug to "Zoot Suit Riot". Redd and I smashed cake into each other's faces (Redd was blowing icing out of her nose for days), and then came the bouquet and garter tosses.

Redd tossed her bouquet, and it was caught by the only woman to wear a tux to the wedding. Rebecca caught it, and visions of silliness reigned in my head.

I tossed the garter removed from my new wife's leg, and a short struggle ensued, as Rebecca's boyfriend made sure he, and no one else, would slip the garter on Rebecca's leg (the video is pretty amusing. It was a very brief struggle, and Rebecca's boyfriend pointed at the other men, as if to say, "in your faces!").

When the time came for the garter to be put on Rebecca, the logistical problem of how to do so to someone in a tux presented itself. Over the pants leg? Under? How?

He opted for under, and the struggle began. Again, an amusing bit of video, and almost as silly as the visions I had in my head moments before.

Anyway, all this rambling is leading to my point.

A little under seven years ago, I vowed to love my wife as long as we both should live.

Not only would I do it again, but I would do it with greater conviction today than I did then.

And that's knowing the Sprout and Squirt would be arriving in the next couple of years.