They deserve to live happily every after
Everyone has a wedding story …the groom passing out, or the rings being dropped on the altar and lost for 15 minutes, or a dog trotting proudly in the procession.
Here, one of the latest classics. One after another, things happened when Marian Hildebrand and Ken Windish were married at the House of the Lord in East Moline.
Marian, a widow, had long planned for a Victorian wedding. The bride and attendants would be in flouncy outfits. The groom, a long-time bachelor, would have a top hat, spats and cane. It would be a big wedding.
Marian had a gown that looked like something from “Gone With the Wind.” She would wear a swooping big hat. At home, the hat was a perfect fit. At the church, it wouldn’t stay on.
“We’ll have to pin the hat to my hair,” she said as the bridal party was getting ready. A couple of bridesmaids did too good a job of pinning. They accidentally stuck a long pin into Marian’s scalp.
“Blood gushed down my face and onto my beautiful white wedding dress,” says Marian. Upstairs, the organ was playing and the ceremony was about to begin.
“I kept saying, ‘Omigosh, what’ll I do?’ ”
One of bridesmaids was a nurse. She knew that head wounds can bleed profusely. The pin stick was deep, more than a Band-Aid could handle. Pressure was put on Marian’s head.
“The attendants put me and the dress under the faucet to wash away the blood on the dress,” Marian says.
Upstairs, people were waiting. So was the nervous groom. The pastor, the Rev. William Sandoval, twiddled his thumbs and told the congregation there had been a delay. Lily Hildebrand, the bride’s precocious 3-year-old grandchild and the flower girl, skipped to the altar, dancing, tumbling, doing cartwheels. The audience loved it.
An hour and 10 minutes passed. At last, the bride was ready. The bleeding had stopped.
But now, more would go wrong. Two ushers rolled out the runner — upside down. Someone in the pews called to them, “Turn it over.” By now, the guests were in stitches as the ushers fumbled to flip the runner.
Despite the turmoil and miscues, Marian was a lovely bride. It was a beautiful wedding.
“The only thing,” she says, “is that my wedding dress was wet from all the scrubbing to get out the blood, but I don’t think anyone noticed.”
The wedding was held in the Quad-Cities because Marian grew up in Davenport and has oodles of relatives here — including the bride’s grandma, 94-year-old Louise Quijas of Davenport.
“Grandma put on tennis shoes and danced all night at the reception,” Marian says.
The bride and groom live in Lake Arrowhead, Calif. She says, “All ended well. It’s something we’ll never forget.”
That is an understatement.
One more romantic note
When they were married on Sept. 6, 1958, Richard and Janet Kluger of Davenport drove to Colorado Springs for their honeymoon in a 1950 Chrysler two-tone green club coupe. They never forgot that flashy car and found a duplicate, which they have restored, right down to the exact color. They’ll drive it Sunday to their 50th wedding anniversary party at the Steelworkers Union Hall in Bettendorf . “The car has only 26,000 miles on it,” says Dick. “I think we have a few more miles left in us, too.”
Bill Wundram can be contacted at (563) 383-2249 or bwundram@qctimes.com.