When we speak of wedding songs in western Pennsylvania, most guests expect to the hear the “Chicken Dance,” “Hokey Pokey” and the “Electric Slide.”
My wife and I attended a wedding recently, and a new tune may be added to the play list:
The “Senior Slide.”
During the traditional bridal dance, revelers eagerly line up and donate currency to dance with the bride.
In this region, the bridal dance is as common and traditional as the cutting of the cake.
For those unfamiliar with this practice, the bride stands in middle of the dance floor and her bridesmaids coordinate the participants. Usually the maid or matron of honor wears an apron with pockets to collect as much money as possible from guests wanting to dance with the bride.
The dance’s purpose is to give the newlyweds some extra money to spend on their honeymoon.
What do guests get for their contributions?
After dropping their contributions into the apron, a guest hugs the bride for several seconds while spinning her around before the next person comes into the circle to hug and spin her, and so on, making her ever more dizzy.
As each guest leaves the bride, the groomsmen offer him or her a piece of neatly wrapped wedding cake or a shot of liquor.
As the mother of the bride enjoys the final dance, the groom’s ex-football buddies and a host of drunken groomsmen form a tight circle around the bride to prevent the groom from “breaking through” to gather up his new wife.
I have learned to get out of the way when the groom does his best to prove that no one can stop him from getting to his new wife.
Turn up the music, because it’s at this point that we introduce the “Senior Slide.”
Because the groom’s frantic leaps in an attempt to jump over the burly defenders was not working, he decided to circle the group on a dead run to find an opening.
Unfortunately, his breakneck speed combined with some spilled beer sent the groom sliding across the floor toward an unsuspecting woman and her 2-year-old grandson.
Yep, you guessed it: The grandmother was my wife. She had deliberately walked away from the circle to avoid the confusion but ended up the center of attention.
Instead of the groom sweeping his bride off her feet, he slid about 15 feet and knocked the pins out from under my wife.
She had turned her back on the action before the groom made his roundabout dash.
The slide reminded me of the time Pete Rose crashed into catcher Ray Fosse during the 1970 All-Star game. Rose not only separated Fosse from the ball, he did the same with the catcher’s shoulder.
I was about 20 feet away when I saw the slide unfold.
My wife fell as fast as Sinead O’Connor’s career after she tore up a photo of the pope during a “Saturday Night Live” skit.
My main concern was that my wife would hit her head on the floor. Fortunately, she landed squarely on top of the groom, who broke her fall.
She bounced up quickly with the help of some other guests.
Luckily, the couple had decided against videotaping their reception. The tumble undoubtedly would have surfaced on “America’s Funniest Videos” or popped up on YouTube.
Although my wife took the plunge, I felt sorry for the groom. He spent the next hour making repeated trips to our table to apologize and make sure my wife was OK.
“What can I do to make this up to you?” he asked.
To ease his mind, I told him to let it slide.
