COLUMBIA, S.C. (KRT) — When asked whether he would perform the service at an all-nude wedding, Harold L. Swafford of Columbia, S.C., replied, “It won’t be a problem for me.” He waited a beat before adding: “… Because I won’t be there.”
Swafford, a lawyer and notary public who has officiated at marriages since 1976, does not do nude weddings. He also avoids weddings that involve swimming or hot air balloons, although he has been asked to perform those types of ceremonies, too. He prefers ceremonies where everyone stays dry, dressed and with both feet on the ground.
Those caveats aside, two things Swafford always makes time for are weddings and adoptions.
“I’ll stop whatever I’m doing,” he said.
Whether weddings are deliberately offbeat or meticulously planned, things sometimes
go awry.
With no pun intended, owner Minnie Young said of weddings performed at The Magnolias of Columbia, “Seventy-five percent go without a hitch.”
But those mistakes tend to be memorable.
“When there’s a little boo-boo, people relax more and have more fun. You can laugh instead of cry,” Young said.
Of course, what constitutes a little boo-boo or a big blunder may be in the eye of the beholder. Or the bride. Or the groom.
“There should be a Plan B for everything,” said Linda Ingle of Jo-Lin’s Bridal & Formal Wear.
Aside from fainting grooms, some wedding planners most often cited children and animals as culprits for deviations from the script. Music — too much or too dreadful — also earned some mentions.
An outdoor wedding on a hot July day caused one groom to faint, Swafford said. But such was not the case with a groom who fainted twice during a wedding at Corley Mill House & Garden, a popular wedding spot in Lexington, S.C.
He would have gone down a third time, too, Corley Mill owner Sheila Hall said, but someone brought out chairs to seat the couple for the rest of the ceremony.
Hall also remembered a flower girl who thought she was supposed to throw her petals in peoples’ faces. As the guests caught on, they covered up when the petal-pelting flower girl advanced down the aisle.
Phyllis James of Mitchell House & Gardens in Columbia recalled a flower girl who had been trained to dutifully pick up after herself. The first trip down the aisle, she tossed her petals. For the trip on the way out, she began picking them up, one by one.
James also had an animal incident at a wedding. As the bride and groom stood in front of the minister, her cat Stormin’ Norman strolled in and plopped down on the bride’s train for a cat nap. To the amusement of guests, he punctuated the minister’s long-winded sermon with occasional yawns. Norman has since been relocated to a new home.
A gobbling turkey might top a snoozing kitty. Chris Harris was a guest at an outdoor cowboy wedding in South Carolina. The guests sat on logs lined up like church pews, and a big turkey casually strutted among the assembled multitude.
When the preacher got to “speak now or forever hold your peace,” the turkey loudly gobbled, gobbled, gobbled, Harris said.
Then there was the bride and groom who wanted to ride off on horseback at the end of their wedding at Magnolia’s in Columbia. The groom climbed aboard his horse with no trouble, but the bride’s gown slowed her down. Her horse got nervous, and the bride’s long white train was not white anymore.
Even if party poopers, animals and children were banished from weddings, an element of unpredictablity always is afoot.
And remember that what’s done is not so easily undone. Swafford joked that he would marry a couple for $25, but it would cost $2,500 if they came back for a divorce.
“I had an elderly couple I married on a late Friday afternoon, and I got a call from the groom about 8 or 9 that night asking me to hold on to the paperwork over the weekend because things weren’t working out,” Swafford said.
“I told him it was too late. They were married.”