Get me to the church on time

Last Saturday, my cousin Sunny got married in a lovely little Baptist church about three hours away. To account for the long drive and the hour time difference, my mom and sister and I left town at 6:30 AM. I'd called Sunny a few weeks before the wedding to RSVP, and she gave me the address of the church so I could plug it into googlemaps. The trip went off without a hitch, really. The weather was pleasant, we had lots to talk about, and we only hit one relatively short stretch of construction before reaching smooth sailing on the interstate.

We got to the cute little touristy town where the wedding was to be held at about 10:45 local time, almost a bit too early for the 11:30 ceremony. We eyed cute little flea markets and touristy antique shops. We exclaimed over a sprawling bright yellow historic house, transformed into a bed and breakfast. We carefully followed the directions to the address Sunny had given us, and ended up on a narrow backroad surrounded by trees, a machine shop, a storage unit, and a barn. Uh...

We'd been traveling along State Road 4, and there were multiple offshoots marked Old State Road 4, so we theorized that we'd taken the wrong branch. We continued on along State Road 4, and finally conceded that we'd definitely, definitely gone too far. Mom reminded my sister that her iPhone should have a GPS feature, and Sis plugged the address in and verified that we were pretty far off course. We retraced our steps, only to end up on the same backroad by the same storage unit. Mayday! I tried calling Danger, who was at the wedding. No answer. I tried calling MacGyver, Sunny's brother. No answer.

While following our course on her iPhone, Sis had noticed an Old State Highway 4 on the map. Theorizing that perhaps Sunny had made a mistake in the address she gave me -- and realizing that we now had about 20 minutes to get to the ceremony and no choice but to take a wild guess -- we set off again. As we drove, we recalled that Sunny had mentioned that the church was just down the road from the fairgrounds. We had left our invitation at home and couldn't remember the name of the church, but with this clue, we were saved. We pulled over at a Shell station and asked the clerk, a nice lady named Peg, if she knew of a little Baptist church near the fairgrounds. Lo and behold, she did! We hauled ass and found the church, walking in just as the bridal party was lining up in the vestibule.

We later found out that lots of other people had the same problem. Sunny's other brother and one of her aunts had ended up at the same storage unit that we located. Three of her friends got so lost that they didn't even show up until the reception was almost over. Lesson learned? Brides, be EXTRA SURE that you have accurate directions to give to your guests. (And the church's listing on the county website has the incorrect address, too, so it wasn't entirely Sunny's fault.) Otherwise, your guests might be standing by a barn in the woods, instead of watching you walk down the aisle. (Or, you know, shopping at a flea market. Not that we considered that as an alternate option or anything...)


Reading:  The Seance by John Harwood

Playing:  some mix CDs