• GAZLO
• CLASS
• JOBS
• AUTO
• HOMES

Moonshine for the bride. Beer for the horses.

The sweat was pouring down the inside of my arms.

There I was, perched on 3-inch stilettos in front of 200 Tennesseans and 20 dogs. My only job was to smile and avoid passing out while my dear friend promised to honor and obey a brown-eyed cowboy from Rockford, Ill., ‘till death do they part.

I was as girly as I’ve ever been in my life. A scrubbed, powdered, plucked, sprayed, pinned, painted kind of girly.

And I was sweating like a linebacker.

My friend Miranda got married in a renovated horse barn in her home state of Tennessee this weekend. For months, up until minutes before the event, she kept saying she wanted everything to be simple. No fuss.

She didn’t even have a style of dress we were required to wear. Just find something light blue and get down here, she said.

That meant, of course, that her wedding was the most complicated event I ever have or ever will participate in. For days I hauled around Mason jars, dried flowers, fresh flowers, dog crates, votive candles, tulle, picture frames, antique pop bottles, tissue paper, squirrel-shaped chocolate mints, tonic water, ham and biscuits, straw bales, turkey feathers, moonshine and tiny brass cowbells.

Despite the giant number of moving parts, the wedding went off without a hitch. We launched Miranda and Neil into happily ever after.

No bridesmaids were injured in the making of the blessed union, although the DJ required a tow at 2 a.m.

Anyone who’s ever spent time with me in any sort of festive situation would not be surprised to hear that around midnight, I decided that what the horses wanted was a drink of ice water.

Not just water … ice water.

I commissioned the bride’s brother to help, and miraculously, did not get bitten in the process.

Miranda, I love you. You too, Neil.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m’onna git me some leftover biscuits.