Wedding Cake Suitable At This Surprise Party

These blessed nuptials would be memorable even if the groom knew he was getting married.

The bridesmaid’s last name is Hart, after all, which fits in perfectly with the Valentine theme. And, yes, that best man in the black tuxedo is really a woman named Elaine.

But the look of bewilderment on John Pope’s face. That’s the topper on the ol’ wedding cake.

“I thought there weren’t going to be any secrets in our marriage,” Pope says humorously to his bride, Megan Astleford, after finding out a few minutes before the ceremony. He thought he had come here for a dress rehearsal and dinner.

Don’t get the wrong idea. This is no shotgun affair.

Pope, a 37-year-old builder, isn’t being hustled. He planned to marry Astleford, 28. He just thought the “I do” stuff was set for Saturday.

But this scene is unfolding in an immaculate South Hill Spokane home on Friday night, the 12th.

For the last month, everyone connected to the wedding has kept their lips zipped tighter than James Bond being interrogated by the dreaded Dr. No.

The parents. The two dozen guests. The kids. Even the minister, Happy Watkins, was in on the subterfuge.

“This is the first wedding I’ve performed where the groom didn’t know,” says Watkins, laughing and shaking his head. “It’s a little different.”

Watkins nearly blew it the other day as he and the couple filled out the marriage license. Fortunately, the good reverend caught himself in time and left the date section blank.

There are a couple of stories floating around as to why poor Pope was pranked like this.

The most believable version is that the groom was having a lot of stage fright. His bride decided to throw a changeup so her intended wouldn’t be a bag of nerves on his wedding day.

Astleford, however, puts a different spin on it here.

“He’s one of those guys who takes care of everything: the car, the laundry, everything,” she says. When Pope told her to take charge of the wedding, she decided to do just that and playfully give him a surprise.

Weddings seem to divide humanity into two camps: Traditionalists and those who dare to be different.

My own was a solemn event with an organ and a Bach fugue. Over the years I’ve written about exhibitionists who got hitched at hockey games, baseball diamonds and on water skis.

Watkins, who performs about 30 weddings a year, once did a backyard wedding on Halloween eve. It made for a strange scene with trick-or-treaters milling about.

Another time he performed a wedding for Richard, a country boy of few social graces. All through the ceremony, recalls Watkins, the anxious groom “kept trying to get to the goods” of his bride, Barbara.

With each grab, Barbara would slap her man’s hand and say, “Not now, Richard,” in a scolding tone.

After five or six whacks, Watkins had had enough. He waited for the next violation and paused dramatically to add his own “Not now, Richard” to the vows.

Watkins was in great form during this event. “Do you, Megan, promise to love, honor and you won’t surprise him anymore?” he asks.

Still a bit shellshocked, Pope gets the giggles. It’s obvious these two, who have known each other two years, have great senses of humor.

“I asked my fiance to please don’t surprise me like this,” says one of the guests, Dianna Chamberlain, who took in the proceedings with a bemused look on her face.

Pope picked Elaine Charon for his best man because they are good friends who both grew up in Pomeroy. It also worked out nicely because Charon let the couple get married in her lovely home.

The vows finish. Watkins gives the go-ahead to Pope, who gives his practical-joking wife a huge hug and a smooch.

“I feel relieved,” he says a few minutes later. “I’m still waiting for tomorrow, though. I had my whole day planned. Now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”