The bride was an identical twin, and both were cheerleaders in college, as well as several other members of their wedding party.
The wedding was elegant, with all the groomsmen in white tuxedos in one of my favorite ballrooms at the Hilton Inn DFW Lakes in Grapevine. The party was rocking along, and it was time for the bouquet toss.
One of the unique features of this ballroom was the chandelier above the dance floor, a huge inverted disc that sort of resembled a flying saucer. As the bride went to toss her bouquet, the thought struck me that it was an ideal trap, should the toss end up a bit high. This proved to be prophetic.
The infamous bouquet-snatcher chandelier.
Sure enough, the bouquet sailed in a graceful arc, like one of those slow-motion scenes from a movie, and landed directly in the flying saucer chandelier.
As the crowd’s laughter began to taper off, we realized that it was going to be a bit of a problem to retrieve the bouquet.
Cheerleaders to the rescue!
The bride’s twin and one of the groomsmen who was also a college cheerleader, both dressed in formal white, moved into position for the rescue. He stood just below the rim of the flower-gobbling light, and she stood directly in front, with her back to him. She made her body perfectly rigid, as he grabbed her and threw her straight up, catching her under the soles of her feet.
The gathered crowd applauded their acrobatics, as he straightened his arms overhead, raising the bridesmaid to the full height of the light, a distance of about 12 feet off the floor. She retrieved the bouquet and tossed it casually to her sister the bride. Then she jumped, doing a complete 360 degree flip, and landed on her feet like an Olympic gymnast. And, as the saying goes, “the crowd went wild.”
Every wedding should have a memorable moment like this one.
Apparently that light ate some other bouquets, and the last time I worked that room, the Hilton folks had installed a different fixture, with less of an appetite for flying flowers.