Some wedding do's and don'ts

The county judge of Cherokee county, Chris Davis, has conducted lots of weddings. He has learned some things.

“A boutonnière will not properly hang on a Budweiser T-shirt. When you have a wedding and one of the groomsmen has on a Budweiser T-shirt, just leave the boutonnière off. It’s probably the best thing.”

He married one couple at Shiloh Ridge near the community of Alto, where Chris lives. Four-wheelers run through the mud there.

“People come from everywhere to just go crazy riding their four wheelers and four wheel drive trucks. I had a call from a couple who wanted to get married at Shiloh Ridge. I immediately had some strange visions going through my head. I mean this has got to be a redneck wedding. It’s just a mud bog out there. Well, when I arrive to perform the ceremony, it was a beautiful fall day and the trees were ablaze with color. We were on top of a hill and you could see all the way around. It was gorgeous. They had this nice huge expensive wedding tent for the reception and all. Chairs were set up under those oak trees and the white material for the aisle was rolled out. I thought I had been wrong about this. It’s going to be real nice.

“I was waiting for the groom to arrive and I looked over and saw this big black four wheel drive pickup across the pasture and it’s got a big bowtie on the front of it made out of aluminum foil. The truck pulls up at the end of the aisle and the groom gets out of the truck. He comes up and stands by me. Then in a minute here comes this Blazer from across the field and it’s got a huge white veil taped to the top of it. That veil has a long train on it and it’s blowing in the wind. That four wheel Blazer stops near the pickup and the bride steps out and walks down the aisle. It was a beautiful wedding.”

While Chris was a Justice of the Peace at Alto he heard all sorts of stories about why people shouldn’t have to pay a speeding ticket. One medical student wrote Chris a letter explaining why he was speeding.

“He said he was on his way to see this beautiful woman in Tyler. Being a medical student he was so busy and time was such a premium he calculated if he drove 70 miles an hour (this was when the speed limit was 55) he would have an extra hour to bathe in the company of such a beautiful person. I wrote him back a latter and said surely spending time with a woman this beautiful was worth the price of a defensive driving course. I told him I didn’t understand why he didn’t bathe before going to see the girl. Then I told him the amount he owed. The guy came into my office and paid the ticket and never mentioned the letter.”

An older woman who came in to plead her case said her prostate cancer was bothering her. Chris thought if she had prostate cancer she could enter her story in the journal of medicine and have enough money to pay her ticket.