The Fanny Pack Guy At Our Wedding

Since it’s been a year, Paul and I figured we should finally choose pictures for our wedding photo album. I've put this off for so long now. This should be a fun task, but when you plan a wedding for so long and so obsessively, once it’s over, you kind of don’t want to do any more work on it.

But it’s been nice to go through the pictures again and reminisce. While doing that, we kept laughing at how many pictures we found where ‘fanny pack guy’, as we have taken to calling him, is lurking in the background. FPG was the groundskeeper for the church. He was supposed to open it up and make sure everything was set up properly, but somehow he managed to become a notorious character at our wedding.

We had a series of mishaps that led to FPG’s infamy. Everyone tells you that no matter how much you plan, there will always be things that go wrong. This is truth. The zipper on my sisters dress busted literally right before the bridesmaids were supposed to walk down the aisle. My amazing bridesmaids managed to sew her back in, but, of course, this delayed the wedding. And this is where FPG enters...

Our parents had already been escorted to their seats and the runner had just been laid down, but FPG decides to stop the organist and walk down the aisle to inform the priest of the situation. In his khaki shorts, half-tucked shirt, and fanny pack. Oh, yes. Poor Paul had that split second of wondering if he was getting stood up at the alter.

Then FPG tried to rush the ceremony. It was like a tug of war between my coordinator and FPG. He was yelling at the bridesmaids to “go” before their cues, and she was telling them “no”. In his effort to pick up the pace, he signaled the organist to start the wedding march early. So everyone in the church stands up expecting me to walk out, but it’s my sister instead.

FPG was a real jerk. He apparently made jokes to Paul and the groomsmen before the ceremony about how most marriages end in divorce. And he started to turn off the lights in the church as our guests were still leaving. Apparently FPG had places to go, and we were slowing him down.

Lessons learned: Always read product reviews. I later found numerous complaints about the bridesmaid dresses having faulty zippers. Always carry a spare needle and thread in case of emergency. And lastly, if a guy wearing a fanny pack shows up, well, you just have to roll with the punches. There’s nothing you can do when someone thinks it’s OK to wear a fanny pack at your wedding.