The Hound Dog Wedding was an unqualified success, by even this former bridal-magazine-editor’s standards. No detail was left to chance. The prized baby-blue Chevrolet pick up truck was washed and waxed and beribboned with tulle and silk roses. Backed into the front yard and surrounded by the white fence it was an ideal “ceremonial bed” for two hound dogs. The autumn air was crisp and the colors in the trees echoed the bride’s orange rose collar with its ecru tulle train. She was stunning, as you can see.
My son had every gun he inherited from his dad out and on display, from the BB gun to his Sweet 16 rifle to the 30.06, thanks to the goading of a male guest (yes Virginia, some doctors are gun nuts). The compound hunting bow slung across the back window of the truck lent a certain hunter/gatherer energy to the affair. 
A dear storyteller friend and founder of the ‘DoTell Storyfest” from Hendersonville (Karen-eve Bayne), arrived in costume 
with her boyfriend from Charlotte who (as it turns out) is also a gun nut (see photo below). Who knew?
The cake table was stuffed with homemade sweetness. The Bride’s Cake was vanilla-chocolate chip draped in a chocolate ganache. The Groom’s Cake was a caramel cake filled with dates & nuts and laced with a real caramel icing. The tiny wedding cake was, of course, mashed potatoes with creamed chicken flowers. The Bride’s Noodle Bar held a chicken and fettucine bake, linguine (with the amazing crock pot of red meat sauce the groom’s mother slaved over for hours that could have fed an army – See photo of Groom’s Mom Angela and daughter Lucy) 
and a cold pasta salad with a pickled garlic dressing and crisp vegetables. The potluck table was filled with goodies from the guests and decorated with a dozen cream soda bottles (consumed and carefully washed and saved by my son over the summer) tied with raffia ribbon and filled with yellow roses and field flowers from the dogs’ walks in the woods. Each lady went home with one.
The guests arranged their lawn chairs in front of the aforementioned ceremonial bed only to have the groom refuse to jump in. 
That was fine with Dot, because it gave her more room to pose. She pranced down the aisle and leapt into the bed and turned her gaze artfully this way and that, adjusting her stance to catch the slightest hint of breeze so her tulle would lift. Her knack for working a dress and finding a camera should land her on America’s next top model. Seriously, she’s that good. Plus, before she ate all her wedding gifts, she was skinny, too.
The vows were said, the ring bearer and maid of honor ran back down the aisle like the running buddies they are to where they knew the mashed potato cake was waiting. Dot and Ford took their time, sniffing the guests for gifts. After a few photos, they cut and swallowed their tiny cake and took their party to the back yard where they slurped bowls of noodles and chicken while the guests devoured the potluck and put the red meat sauce on EVERYTHING they could find, it was that good. After the feast, the wedding gifts were opened and divided between the two households. Ford gave Dot a flying squirrel and a squeaky duck as outward and visible signs of his love.
Like all weddings, it was over in a few short hours but we still have the pictures to prove it happened. That and the article in the local “happenings” magazine, Bold Life. It pays to know writers in high places…
Photos by Laura Gaines, Orchard St. Creative 828-545-0521
