My grandmother wrote on the back of this photo that my mom “is sure holding onto her dad.” I would have been, too, if I’d seen that bug-eyed dude behind them staring at me while walking up the aisle. What the hell is up with that guy?

The thing I love best about this photo, outside of the fake brick and the ridiculously giant swordfish on the wall, is that the guys are all doing something different with their feet. My dad and his best man, sitting just to my dad’s left, have been friends since they were four years old. Classic rural Michigan story: They met when their fathers stopped into the same bar to have “a few pops.”

My parents’ getaway car was a dressed-up version of my grandfather’s Lincoln Continental.