Wedding Day Vomit

Today is my 15th anniversary. Pretty momentous, right? My wedding day was filled with typical things. A beautiful white dress. A candle lit ceremony. First kiss as man and wife. My fiance turned husband dapper in a black tuxedo. Family all dressed up and running around, laughing and talking and sometimes arguing. A five tier white cake with flowers. Dancing and food. Bouquets tossed. Rice thrown in air and showering down on us as we ran to our decorated car. And to top it all off, puke all across the backseat of that car. That I got to clean up. Awesome.

Let me back track a little. Matt and I decided not to have a limo take us from the reception to our hotel downtown. We thought it was a better idea to drive the shiny, green Audi we had just bought together. Our first car as husband and wife. What a better symbol to leave the reception in than our first major purchase together? I was the principle driver of the shiny, green Audi so Matt decided that the night before the wedding we should switch cars so that he could get it washed and all clean for us to leave the wedding in. What a great plan. Too bad it all turned to crap. Or vomit actually.

Matt had his then five year old nephew, Joey (not his real name), sleep over the night before our wedding day. Joey was set to be our ring bearer in the ceremony and Matt wanted to do something special for him as a thank you. Matt and Joey took the car to get washed, vacuumed, Windexed and all shined up for the big day. And after that he and Joey went and did typical uncle things. Mainly letting him stay up really late and eat all sorts of junk food. When Joey woke up the next day (our wedding day) he told Uncle Matt that he wasn't feeling too good. Who would after staying up till 1:00 am eating fourteen bags of Skittle's and M&M's? Matt hurriedly bundled Joey up and tried to get him home to his mom and dad before the inevitable happened. He wasn't quick enough. Joey puked Skittle's and M&M's all over the back seat of the freshly detailed, shiny, green Audi.

Here is the part in the story where I really don't understand what happened. Or really understand what Matt was thinking because the first thing he did after Joey puked was drive to my parent's house and switch cars without even telling me. On our wedding day. What a sweetheart, huh?

I'm sitting in my parent's living room just killing time when I see Matt pull up in my shiny, green Audi and take out a pale Joey and place him in his car which was in my driveway. He then starts to drive away. I run to the door and get ready to ask him what's going on when he slows down (he doesn't even stop) and rolls down the window and says, "Hey, Joey doesn't feel well. I've got to get him home." I wave to him and then he starts to speed up and roll the window back up. He then rolls it down a little more and as he's speeding away I think I hear him yell, "And he threw up in the back seat. See ya!"

What? Did he really just say 'And he threw up in the back seat?' What am I supposed to do about that? Doesn't he realize it's my wedding day?! Now mind you, the reason I was killing time was because I was pretty much ready. Nails, done. Hair in an elegant upsweep, done. Make-up, done. My dress was hanging up in my room ready to go. Now I'm supposed to go and clean up candy puke from his nephew? I realized that nobody else was going to clean this up so I got in the stinky car and drove it down the the local car wash where they have shampoo machines. I then spent the next 30 minutes scrubbing candy puke out of the cream, velvet interior of my shiny, green Audi. I did get a lot of stares while I was there. I did after all have a very formal hairdo and wedding make up on. But I was wearing sweats. Super hot.

After scrubbing the upchuck out of my back seat I decided I wasn't going to let this ruin my day. It was my wedding day after all. I got my dress and drove to the the site of the wedding. The rest of the day went smoothly and was beautiful.

The next morning Matt and I sat and had a gorgeous brunch in the restaurant of the hotel we stayed in. I decided that even though I wasn't going to let the "puke incident" ruin my wedding day, I had no problem letting it ruin the day after my wedding.

Me - "So... do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Matt - "About what?"
Me - "Seriously?"
Matt - No words. Just a smirk on his face.
Me - "Well, if you won't say it, I will. About how you dropped off a car filled with puke to your fiance on her wedding day."
Matt - "What was I supposed to do?"
Me - "You're kidding right? How about clean it up? It was after all, My Wedding Day." My voice is now starting to edge up just a little bit.
Matt - "Well, it was MY wedding day too."
Okay. The gloves are off. No more Mrs. Nicey-Nicey.
Me - "Well, you're lucky it ended up being your wedding day because after a stunt like that, I almost didn't show up."
Matt - "Well, you did. Too late now." More smirking.

I didn't know what to say here. He was right. I did show up. All my power was gone. Playing mad wasn't working. I had to pull out the big guns.

Me - "I was just really hurt. It made me feel like you didn't care." Oh my. The twisted web we weave.
Matt - "Honey, let me set something straight right now. I. Don't. Do. Throw. Up. Never. Never, ever, ever. The smell of it, the sight of it makes me throw up. I had to hold my shirt balled up over my face just to drive the five miles to your parents house. And when I start throwing up, I don't stop. You should be glad that I dropped off the car to you or I might not have made it to the wedding."

True to form, for the fifteen years of our marriage, this has been right on. Every time one of our kids or I am sick he runs out of the room. He can't even stand listening to the retching sound. This also means that when our kids are sick, I'm the only one who gets to clean that up too.

Back to fifteen years ago. I decided to let it drop. For that day anyway. I have opened up the vault and taken this little anecdote out every now and then when I feel like he is being a turd.

Me - "You know that this reminds me of? Our wedding day when you dropped off a car filled with vomit."
Matt - "You need to get over that."
Me - "NEVER!"

So that is pretty much the story of my Wedding Day Vomit. What should you take away from this? If you remember anything, remember this. That man sneakily left my new car in my parents driveway filled with surprise puke on My Wedding Day and I still married him. That is how much I loved him. I still showed up. I still said my vows and slipped a ring on his finger and listened to him say his and slip a ring on my finger. Those vows have rung pretty true. We've had good times and bad. We've been richer and poorer. We've had sickness and we've had health. But I wouldn't trade any of it. Not the times together or the times apart because it's all of our experiences that have given us the amazing marriage that we have today. Every single experience has shaped the husband and wife we are to each other. Even the pukey ones. After reading this story if there is anyone out there still wondering what would I say that day, I will tell you. I do, I do, I do. A million times over, I do.

Happy 15th Anniversary Matt.

Ich liebe dich. Sie sind mein Herz. Sie sind meine Seele.