Writer's Workshop: Excuse Me Father, I Just Need My Hanky

In a few more weeks Jeff and I will be celebrating our 16th anniversary. Our reception was probably more memorable than our wedding, thanks to the bag dance.

But Jeff and I still laugh about one thing that happened during our wedding.

We were standing at the altar lighting our unity candle. I started to cry, of course. I knew it was going to happen, so I was prepared. I had a hanky on me.

Since no one has figured out that brides cry and put a pocket in wedding gowns, I had to improvise.

I put that hanky down the front of my dress, which was the only place I could carry it without it being seen.

I didn't quite think through how I'd discreetly remove it when needed. But our backs were to the congregation, so I squeezed close to Jeff and with a little flick of my wrist, extracted the hanky.

I would have gotten away with it, too, except the priest had joined us at the altar and was standing directly across from us.

I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head when I pulled that hanky from my cleavage like a rabbit out of a hat.

After the initial shock passed, the priest simply turned around, walked away and sat down off to the side.

Jeff and I started to chuckle silently. It was supposed to be the most solemn moment of our ceremony. The moment when, with prayer and the church's blessing, we celebrated becoming one.

We knew it was inappropriate to laugh, which just made us laugh even harder. We stood there shaking with silent laughter. Suddenly the song that had seemed to go on forever couldn't last long enough for us to compose ourselves. Tears were flowing down our cheeks as we finally pulled ourselves together.

As I pressed a sodden hanky into Jeff's hand so he could put in his pocket, we thought we'd gotten away with our moment of shared laughter. We were wrong. Everyone at the reception asked us the same thing: "What was so funny?" Even though we never made a sound and they couldn't see our faces, they all recognized silent laughter when they saw it!

At least the bag dance made them forget our moment of inappropriate hilarity.

Play along with Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop. This week's prompt was to tell about a time you laughed at an inappropriate time.

© Trippin' Mama 2010