Wedding Story

A BACHELOR’S VOW
Date:	05/23/2003
By:	Loren Murphy edited by Paula Ramsey & Becca Kaufman
	It was a fight we had time after time. To have a bachelor party…or not have one. Sean and I had been together for four years, and our wedding was two weeks away. Every time the bachelor party came up, things would get tense and Sean would start to sweat. I really didn’t want to envision my future husband surrounded by strippers before he committed himself to a lifelong relationship. I made my feelings very clear. I did not mind the male bonding aspect, but how about something along the lines of golf or dinner? That’s when I got a call from one of his friends. My fiancé, a fireman, was going to be ambushed by eight members of his division, which included his brother, and kidnapped for a Boston Red Sox game. After work, they would surprise him, make the six-hour drive and spend the night. The plan sounded harmless. I made his friend promise no strip clubs would be involved. He swore up and down that they were just going to a baseball game. The bachelor party night came and I tried keeping myself busy, hoping I would hear from him. At about 3 in the morning, the phone rang. It was Sean. I asked, "How is everything going?" He began giggling exclaiming, "I can’t believe that you knew about this!" He went on to tell me that the baseball game was really fun. "Well, where are you?" I asked. There was an awkward pause, and I knew. I had one lousy request, and he and his friends couldn’t even respect my wishes. I kept thinking how could I marry this guy? He said, "I’m on a pay phone outside the strip club. I’ve been waiting in the van for my friends for more than two hours. They keep taking turns coming out and yelling at me to come in… My brother is really angry, and told me I’m ruining the whole party." "I’ve been out here so long that I even had to dump out a container of ice tea to relieve myself… just so I wouldn’t go inside." As my heart filled with warmth, I felt horrible for behaving so irrationally. He respected me so much that he wouldn’t even go inside the strip club to use the bathroom. I begged, "Sean go inside and enjoy yourself. I love you." He told me that he loved me and couldn’t wait to spend the rest of his life with me. When we hung up, I sobbed. It turns out that he never did go into the strip club. It became a legendary firehouse story. His firemen friends never let him live it down, but he went up many notches in my book. We are now celebrating our three-year anniversary.
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