The After Party
The official reception ended at 11:00, so at about 10:55, I asked our JD, Ed to give me the microphone. “Hey everybody,” I said, “So the reception is about to wrap up, but this is my dad's studio! We are not planning on leaving anytime soon. So feel free to hang out. My phone is connected to Bluetooth right now, and we're probably going to do karaoke at some point, too. I just wanted to say we're really thankful for everyone who came. Paige and I love you all.”
This was followed by a handful of people leaving. So the main people who stayed were Paige's Brothers (Ryan and Brennan) and Ryan's girlfriend, Yvanna; my entire immediate family and Zach and Eva; a ton of O'Brien cousins; Noah, Nicole, Miranda, Arden, Marshall, Aspen, Kid, and Will.
As some of Paige’s cousins queued music with my phone, Noah, Marshall, Arden, and I talked about life. Arden is a travel nurse, and while she is based in Cincinnati, she does a three-month rotation in another city a couple of times a year.
“So I have some good news,” Arden said.
“Oh,” Marshall interrupted, “you going to tell him about the baby?”
“WHAT?” I yelled.
“Marshall!” Arden said, “No, Mitchell, I’m not pregnant. We’ve taken shots together tonight! I’m going to do a rotation in Columbus!”
“When?” I asked, still eyeing her suspiciously.
“The beginning of June!” She replied.
As soon as Arden told me, karaoke started. I was called on stage, and I sang "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen. However, I’d been screaming songs all night, so I couldn’t really hit any of the notes. After I sang, Ryan O and Brennan sang "Unwritten" switching off line by line, which was really funny.
After them, Noah and Yvanna individually sang a couple of songs, and then my brothers, the Andersons and Will, dominated the rest of the night. As the night wound down, I got back on stage and grabbed Ryan U’s electric guitar.
Growing up, the Andersons would go to Canada for their family vacation. They made friends with a pair of brothers. These brothers introduced my “sisters” to a musician named Jake Scott, and the girls introduced me to him. I have wanted to get married since I was a kid. While I liked a lot of Jake’s songs, one of my favorites is called The Bridegroom. As I said in the installment about Paige and my wedding day, before Paige and I started dating, I wasn’t sure if I would ever get married. But I would listen to this song and look forward to having a wife.
The problem was that Jake Scott married his wife in 2016, and the song came out in 2015. The song references some fights that they had while they were (presumably both) boyfriend and girlfriend/fiancé(e)s. Since it was a commercial release, and the fights were only vaguely alluded to, it’s not terrible, but not super appropriate to sing on your wedding day. As a result, I rewrote some of the lyrics. I had originally been planning to perform this song at the rehearsal dinner, but there were too many people there, and I knew Paige was going to have to be the center of attention through our entire wedding day anyway, and I didn’t want her to have to be the center of attention longer than she had to be.
As I played the song, I looked down at Paige, my wife of roughly 8 hours, and I smiled. This after-party marked the end of Paige and my wedding. We got engaged on May 9th 2025. That’s 53 weeks; one year and some change of planning, stressing, crying, and overthinking to get ready for this event. While I’ve wanted to get married for as long as I can remember, with all the stress of planning a wedding, I think I hadn’t let myself think about Paige and I having a marriage (at least in a way that wasn’t abstract). I broke eye contact with Paige and looked at Marshall, and “sent him a telepathic message” as it hit me: Dude, that's my wife!
To Be Continued…
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