It begins one week before the wedding when you realize you’re making the biggest mistake of your life by marrying James but mums the word. Further infuriating your family will do nothing to endear you to them since they already know this marriage won’t see the light of morning.

The wedding gods gave you every sign of the impending disaster but still you didn’t heed their warning.

Monsoon rains prevent half of your guests from attending and the culprit for your sister’s broken ankle. Even your perpetually optimistic grandmother pats your arm and shakes her head sympathetically while informing you that this is a bad omen.

You discount her silly superstitions.

You stand in the back of the church gazing at your future husband, who can barely stand, let alone keep his dirt brown eyes open because he’s so hung over and looks like a walking corpse. Ironically his complexion matches the white calla lilies that line the altar. Try to keep from running in the other direction.

Feign a smile as the butterflies somersault in your stomach and walk down the isle.

Pretend you didn’t just catch his old girlfriend kissing your new husband open mouthed with just a hint of tongue without protest, just before the wedding photos are to be taken.

Turn the other cheek.

After a long exhausting day, you look forward to being alone with James until you open the door to the honeymoon suite to find your suitcases have been ransacked and realize that the hotel bellhop is now one thousand dollars richer. In his typical ‘scream first, ask later’ fury, James leaves you alone on your wedding night while he attempts to retrieve the stolen money and give the bellhop something to think about.

You write if off to crime in the city.

Typhoon Toshi conveniently wiped out the south Pacific island you were suppose to honeymoon on yesterday, so there is no honeymoon today, but cans of soups and other non perishable items would be greatly appreciated for those that survived have nothing left. Please leave them in the bin located in the hotel lobby. The nice bellboy will see the donations to the Red Cross.

It’s all very unfortunate.

James decides that Las Vegas is the perfect last minute honeymoon spot and although you see right through his thinly veiled guise, he pooh-poohs your pleas not to go because of his smallish gambling problem. And as if the wedding wasn’t enough to pay for, he casually mentions that he borrowed more honeymoon money from your father, which, of course you know he’ll never pay back.

Seeds of distrust and repulsion fall through the fissures of your heart.

The flight to Las Vegas is six hours delayed due to snarled air traffic across the country. The airlines threaten to ban you from ever flying with them again because James demands, rants and raves that he be put on the next available flight, while cursing out every available agent in the terminal. “This is my honeymoon, damn it and I’m not going to spent it sitting in some third world airport,” he less than politely told them.

On the airplane, you sit in coach while your husband comfortably reclines in first class. “See I told you so, the squeaky wheel gets the oil every time,” he mouths to you as he tips his beer. Don’t begrudge him his good fortune; you’re happy to be away from him, despite sitting in between two obese women and in front of two screaming children.

Pray this is all a nightmare.

The ‘Convention Capital of the World’ is fully booked and the only room available is the jungle room at the Quick Hitch Chapel and Motel. You desperately rack your mind for what it was exactly that made you fall in love with James in the first place.

Your heart feels more like a sieve than a living, beating organ.

Refuse his amorous advances in the fluted bath tub, feigning exhaustion from the weekend from hell but know in your heart, you can’t bear to have him touch you ever again, and wonder, as you lie in bed with this stranger, what happened to the man that you lived with for two years, the one you thought you loved. How could you could have been so blind to his flagrant faults and egotistical, narrow minded opinions, particularly of you?

Beseech God for forgiveness for what you’re about to do.

Try not to rouse the man sleeping next to you, quietly sneak out in the wee hours of the morning, head to the nearest Denny’s for some stimulating conversation. Anybody there would be easier to talk with than the stranger you just deserted, a man you don’t know and definitely don’t like. Strike up a conversation with the cute guy eating alone and wonder if he’s married. Tell him of your gargantuan mistake and the instant that you see your own remorse reflected in his crystal clear blue eyes, decide never to return to that motel room.

Try lady luck again.