One unforgettable wedding

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By Barb Ickes | Saturday, June 21, 2008 |

Without humor, things around here could get pretty dark.

Case in point: the recent nuptials of Brittany Dirck and Chris Hennessey, as told by the mother-of-the-groom, JoAnn Hennessey.

For the big wedding day, Saturday, June 7, the Hennessey family had kin in town from Albuquerque, Denver, Kansas City, Des Moines, Branson and St. Cloud. To keep them entertained during their visit, JoAnn scared up a few tourism brochures and suggested her peeps see the Quads from one of the Channel Cat water taxis.

The family members were booked at the Radisson in Moline, but the Channel Cat wasn’t departing from the nearby TGIFriday’s that day because of some work on the docks. So, they hauled themselves to the Ben Butterworth Parkway and departed from there.

Under JoAnn’s advisement, 12 of the out-of-town visitors got off the Channel Cat in Davenport and hoofed it to the East Village for some shopping. They stopped in at Isabel Bloom and then headed for Lagomarcino’s (an excellent suggestion).

Two of the guests, Jane and Jim from Branson, evidently didn’t realize the confectionary also serves sandwiches, so they set out on their own to find something tasty because one of them is a diabetic.

The party of 12 was now a party of 10.

The group, minus Jane and Jim, headed back across River Drive to catch the water taxi back to Moline. But the skies had grown ominous during their East Village outing and, by the time they reached the Mississippi shore, the steamy heat had been joined by a threat of severe weather.

They boarded the Channel Cat and had barely headed out when it started to rain, and the warning sirens let out a blare that something worse was on its way. The water taxi was forced to turn back.

“The wedding was at 4:30 at the Augustana Ascension Chapel,” JoAnn said. “The hotel was the Moline Radisson. It was 2 o’clock in the tin shed in the Davenport marina (where the group was guided to shelter). A quiet panic ensued.”

Besides the panic over how they were going to get back to the hotel and clean up, the group still had seen no sign of Jane and Jim.

Meanwhile, things at the chapel in Rock Island weren’t going so great, either.

“There’s no air conditioning in the church, and we were all in this one air-conditioned room,” JoAnn said. “The mother-of-the-bride passed out from the heat. We had to call an ambulance.”

The 10 in Davenport, fortunately, were still on their feet. Everyone in the group had a cell phone, and they all started dialing. A couple of them got through to a group of family members that had not gone on the taxi tour, and they came in rescue vehicles.

Sweaty, rattled and still wondering about Jane and Jim, the group quickly cleaned up and headed for Ascension Chapel. They got to the church on time.

JoAnn, who knew nothing of her family’s little experience, said the wedding went off beautifully. Her son escorted her to her place in the church and kissed her. She then noticed her sister sitting in the pew behind her, so she leaned back and whispered, “The mother-of-the-bride collapsed.”

Without skipping a beat, her sister replied, “We lost Jane and Jim.”

Laughing at the memory of it, JoAnn this week explained: “We’ve had a sibling rivalry for 50 years and, at my own son’s wedding, she one-ups me. I didn’t talk to her until the reception.”

One more thing: “Jane and Jim arrived at the wedding in time to hear the couple introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Hennessey.”

Barb Ickes can be contacted at (563) 383-2316 or bickes@qctimes.com.