Reflections on Mick and Michele's 50th wedding anniversary: The wedding that almost wasn't
Published: March 21, 2023
Author: Mick Wilson '68
Mick Wilson ’68 recently shared the following story he wrote in 2021 for his and Michele’s 50th wedding anniversary. Mick and Michele are pictured below in a photo from Christmas 2022.
Mick was finishing his first year on Campus Crusade’s (Cru) high school staff in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Michele had graduated in March from the University of Florida. The wedding was to be held in suburban St. Louis, Missouri, where both Mick & Micki’s (Michele’s nickname) parents, lived.
Like all couples, we wanted our wedding day to be a glorious event. And we wanted it to honor God!
Unfortunately, the events surrounding the wedding became more like a bizarre illustration of MURPHY’S LAW.
In March, as the McCartans were preparing to bring Michele home from the University of Florida, their home caught on fire, [causing] extensive damage. While Michele and her parents were forced to live in a motel for more than two months, Michele sews her wedding dress as well as her mother’s, Mick’s mother’s, and all the bridesmaids’ dresses!
THE WEDDING WEEK BEGINS:
MONDAY: The McCartans move back into their home. Michele’s father and Mick install a new chandelier over the dining room table.
TUESDAY: Mick and Michele drive to the St. Louis County Hospital to take blood tests that are required to obtain a wedding license. They can return on Thursday to sign for and pick up the wedding license.
WEDNESDAY: Ken Reid, who introduced Mick to Michele two years earlier, and is the best man, breaks his toe in a pickup soccer game. He returns to the Wilson home limping and in pain.
THURSDAY: MURPHY’S LAW really kicks in!
--Mick awakens with excruciating pain in his side and is rushed to a nearby hospital emergency room. The diagnosis is a kidney stone! He is admitted to Christian Hospital Northwest. Everyone is praying and hoping the stone will pass and the wedding can go on as planned!
--Michele tries to pick up the wedding license at the county hospital but is left in tears when the local bureaucrat tells her that unless Mick stands before him to sign for the license, we cannot get the wedding license! Our wedding is now in jeopardy!
--That evening a faulty link in the chain supporting the chandelier in the dining room breaks! The chandelier comes crashing down wiping out the rehearsal dinner cake set up that afternoon by the caterer.
FRIDAY:
--Worried that the wedding might not take place since we cannot obtain the wedding license, Mick’s father reaches out to a St. Louis County Judge who is a distant cousin. Judge Lewis issues an injunction against the County Hospital and deputizes a special marshal to seize the wedding license and bring it to Mick’s hospital room for both Michele and Mick to sign in his presence! Thank you, Judge Lewis! You saved our wedding!!
--Mick’s condition is worsening, and his doctor wants him to call off the wedding. Mick explains that most of the wedding party is from out of state, so the wedding must take place as scheduled. He then talks the doctor into giving him a one-hour pass to go to the church on Saturday, which is less than a mile away.
--The wedding rehearsal and dinner are held as planned! Sans one potential groom.
SATURDAY: Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong it will” … expands its definition to include “at the worst possible moment and with the worst possible consequences”!
--An infamous Missouri thunderstorm moves in and lasts all day. This includes heavy rains and strong winds blowing sheets of rain sideways.
--Michele’s mother, setting up her combination living room/dining room for a bridesmaids’ tea in the morning, trips over the cord of a large coffee maker spilling all 30 cups of coffee onto the new white carpet installed in the living room one week earlier.
--Three hours before the wedding, Mick’s doctor withdraws permission for him to leave the hospital for the ceremony! Plans are quickly made to have the wedding in the small hospital chapel one hour earlier than the scheduled time at the church. There is only enough time to notify the wedding party and a few relatives. Oh, and the doctor informs Mick that it is illegal in the state of Missouri to take an oath while under the influence of drugs. Thus, Mick would get no more painkillers until after the wedding ceremony! UGGH!
In the ensuing chaos of the heavy rainstorm and change of plans, everyone loses track of time! The ceremony at the hospital ends 30 minutes AFTER it was supposed to begin at the church! In all the confusion no one was left at the church to meet arriving guests! It turns out that all the guests had seated themselves and were waiting patiently for the wedding party to appear.
After the drenched members of the wedding party make a boisterous entrance through the sanctuary doors of the church and troop down the aisle together, our pastor friend who had performed the ceremony explains what has happened and prays for Mick. He then invites all the guests to the wedding reception to be held in the church reception hall…minus one groom, who is back in his hospital room getting his pain shot. Ahhh!
MONDAY: Mick has surgery to remove the kidney stone. The honeymoon week is spent with Mick in the hospital and Michele writing thank you notes for all the gifts.
Alas! Murphy has one more trick up his sleeve which he reveals in June. When Mrs. McCartan goes to the wedding photographer’s studio to pick up the wedding picture proofs, she finds that the studio is completely empty. Four bare walls and no equipment or furniture! According to the mall manager and the police, the photographer and his studio was fully operational one day and then he disappeared along with all his furnishings, wedding photos and money that night.
So, if you ask to see our wedding album, you certainly will not get bored. The only photo we have from the wedding photographer is the one that appeared in the St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper article (see above)!
We are so thankful for the grace of God throughout our lives that allowed us to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday, May 22, 2021!
