I had envisioned a particular kind of wedding reception, and the local Elks Lodge building was the place. It was a stately structure built in 1915 with four large Corinthian columns and a brick façade. It was classy and grand, to say the least, and the ballroom was beautiful, decorated in light green with large arched windows and antique window treatments. I could see and taste the light hors d’oeuvres, cake, and punch and hear a harpist providing beautiful background music.
When we signed the papers to rent it for our reception, the administrator took us into the ballroom. In the center of the high ceiling hung a large, silver disco ball, the kind that one might see in a discotheque with a thumping bass and Donna-Summer-esque vocals. This was during the mid-1980s, and disco’s popularity had waned. The Elks Lodge apparently had not heard the news. I didn’t think to ask if it could be taken down for our reception; instead, I consoled myself with the fact that it was hung high enough that maybe it wouldn’t be noticed.
When we made our grand entrance into the ballroom, I didn’t notice the beautiful harp music and the harpist or the smell of the bacon-wrapped hors d’oeuvres. What I saw was the large disco ball, spinning in the center of the ceiling. Its many facets, now highlighted with a spotlight, reflected a whirling pattern of white diamonds on our guests. The absurdity of a lighted and spinning disco ball in a tasteful setting made me laugh, and I gave up the notion of a classy reception because there was nothing I could do. I had to be OK with what was not OK. The reception didn’t meet my expectations, and I couldn’t fix it. But I could change my expectations about our reception.
I was ready to move forward and put the reception and the silver disco ball incident behind me. After our honeymoon, a friend who was an amateur videographer presented us with his gift: a videotape of our wedding and reception. It was edited with music, and it clearly took him a lot of time. When we viewed the reception part of the video, we laughed because he used the spinning, lighted disco ball in all his transitions between scenes, painstakingly zooming in and out of focus. Thanks to our videographer, I have a visual record that being OK with what is not OK often leads to laughter.