First off, Patrick Tucker is a do-nothing, fat, red faced, overalls-wearing, clodhopping, low down, sack of cow manure, which is to say he’s a piece of shit, although I wouldn’t say that because I’m a lady.

And Patrick Tucker’s dadburned, ground-hugging, long-eared, fat- legged, droop-eyed excuse of a Bassett hound is every bit as bad as his owner. Patrick named him Henry, which is about the stupedest name anybody ever thought of for a dog. And he has fleas.

I only invited Patrick to my wedding because Mama made me because she and Mizz Tucker play Bunko every Tuesday night. There’s sixteen of them plays bunko, and she made me invite them all, and I didn’t mind fourteen of them, but I invited Mizz Tucker and Patrick, and Mizz Beedle, who’s never had a kind word to say to me in all the time I’ve known her even though I’ve always been polite and well behaved to her. At least Mizz Beedle didn’t ruin my wedding, though.

We had it in the backyard, my wedding, and we fixed it all up so pretty it about took your breath away. We got three of those arches, you know, the white ones with all the white lights that go across it, and we fixed it up with some plastic ivy and some silk geraniums and irises, which the geraniums were red and the irises were purple, and my colors were a kind of violet color, so the mix of the two complimented the dresses perfectly.

Anyway, we set up chairs, and we planned it for night because we put out all our Christmas lights–strung them along the rows of chairs to make an aisle for me to walk down, and we put some along the plywood that Daddy painted white to use for the altar, and we had enough left over to string around the table with the cake and the punchbowl. It was a little chilly, and there were a few mosquitoes, but it didn’t rain, and that was the main thing, it being May with its showers and all.

Well, of course Patrick, being the imbecile he is, brought Henry, which I should have thought to put on the invitation that dogs aren’t invited because he brings Henry with him wherever he goes. He showed up wearing overalls, and I didn’t know he’d brought Henry because he left him in the truck, with the windows down.

Daddy’d put some white paper down the aisle, and I made it down it okay, even though my heels kept poking holes in it and getting stuck, and a few times I was dragging the paper along and a nice guest would notice and hold it down so my heel would come loose, but we got down it, and when the preacher said, “Who gives this woman to be married, Daddy cried and couldn’t say, “Her mother and I do,” like he was supposed to, so he just gushed out, “Us,” but everybody knew he meant him and Mama.

I was in the very smack middle of promising to be with Zack in sickness and poverty and what-all, when Henry come bounding around the corner after my cat, Princess. Princess is high-tailing it under the table, then down a row, then down the next row across the aisle, and here comes Henry, chasing after her as clumsy and filthy and slobbery as he could be, with that stupid sounding bark, like some kind of dog retard. He’s run through the ditch where stupid Patrick parked his truck, so he’s covered in mud, and he follows Princess under the table, then along the row of guests, and it’s only then that Patrick tries to stop him, but Henry, being the dog retard that he is, just keeps going with that stupid bark, and covers about ten people in mud and snags first one string of lights then the other, and there’s bulbs popping before he loses smell of Princess, or gets bored with chasing her, or knows he can’t ever catch her, so he stops and comes right up to me and smears slime and mud and slobber all over my gown.

Zack tries to make a joke of it and he kinda snickers and says, “That’ll teach you to try to get away with wearing white,” and I stomped on his foot because he’s a jerk that way and always likes to brag about whatever he got away with before we were married.

Then I turned toward Patrick, and I made after him, and I beat him with my bouquet, and he just stood there, covering his face, and saying, “Ow, I’m sorry, cut it out, it was an accident.”

“It was an accident?” I screamed at him while still thrashing him with the stems of the roses and tulips seeing as how all the petals broke off right away. “Bringing a dog to a wedding ain’t no stupid accident!” I said.

Well, Patrick took Henry and left, and I had a good cry, and Zack brought a bucket of water and a scrub brush and tried his best to get as much of the mud off my gown as he could, and we went ahead and got married anyway, seeing as how everybody was already there, and Daddy had already paid Brother Mac.