Surprise Wedding

Surprise! I got married this evening. Okay, not really. But I was involved in a wedding. Well... not so much a wedding, as a wedding rehearsal. And I really wasn't a part of the wedding. I don't even know the people who are getting married. I was just asked if I could to do sound for it. But it was a surprise. And a wedding. That much is true!

I got a phone call about 6:15 PM this evening, as there was a wedding rehearsal going on at my church that was supposed to have started at 6:00 PM and there was no sign of the person who was going to do sound, nor was anyone able to contact him (don't worry, he's okay—he just accidentally mis-scheduled things and was out elsewhere for the evening). In the frantic attempt to find someone else who could do it instead I was called. Since I wasn't doing anything important anyway, I paused the show I was watching and quickly went down to the church to help out. And since I was the one involved in the rehearsal so I know more what's going on, I'm going to be doing the actual wedding as well.

Even though I wasn't planning on doing sound for this wedding, this is a nice surprise since I'll get paid a bit for it. While for regular church functions doing stuff like this is a volunteer position, whenever the church arranges for someone to do sound for an event related to a building rental, whoever's involved does get paid for their time. Don't worry, that would come out of the rental fee, not people's tithes.

Whenever I get these emails about needing a sound guy for weddings, I usually don't pay much attention to them. I'm barely starting to feel comfortable with the normal church services, and I'm always worried that I'd end up accidentally doing something wrong on the board and spoil the mood on what is supposed to be one of the happiest days of the new couple's lives. I always figure that I should leave things like this to the experts, who've had considerably more experience than me.

Plus, I don't even have much experience with weddings, period. Some people go to 5 or more weddings in a year. I have to think hard about whether I've even been to more than 5 weddings in the past decade (just added it up, and I believe it was 6 unless I'm missing one). Unless I'm forgetting one or am remembering them out of order, the last wedding I attended was just over 2½ years ago, I believe. And the only weddings I was actually a part of were being a ring bearer at my Aunt's wedding probably around 28 years ago, and that of my brother about 5 years ago.

But I think this will end up being a great experience, and after this weekend perhaps I'll be more likely to take on similar events in the future. When I really think about it, there's considerably more going on during a typical worship service than a wedding ceremony so it should be easy money. Well, perhaps I should reserve judgement until after it's over, Saturday afternoon.