Wedding Jitters? Me? Are You Kidding?

Well, it’s Release Day. Weddings Can Be Murder hits the bookstores today. So, you know where I’ll be most of the day, right?

Stalking bookstores, lurking in the corners, spying to see who picks up my book, waiting to see who buys it. If you’re out in the bookstores, I’ll be the suspicious woman hiding under a hat, and behind the dark sunglasses, carrying a cattle prod. (Hey, cattle prods have always been a big part of my marketing strategy and my first book did very well.)

Anyway, in honor of “R” day, I’m posting a feature, and contest, that is now up at Dorchester. And in addition to the contest mentioned below, which I hope all of you will enter, I’m giving away a T-shirt and a pack of note cards to one lucky poster who posts sightings of my book on this blog. I’ll be watching all week for anyone who posts, and next week I’ll announce the winner. Oh, and since June is about Weddings, I’ll be holding contest on all my Tuesday blogs, so stay tuned. Also, just for heads up. I’m going to be guest blogging at http://novelthoughts.wordpress.com/ June 2nd and there’s going to be a contest happening over there too. So pop over.

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It’s June, marriage is the air, and with my book Weddings Can be Murder hitting the bookshelves, I’m getting a lot of questions about my thoughts on weddings and my ability to write about wedding jitters. Surely I, happily married for twenty years, hadn’t relied on any of my own “jittery” experiences. Right?

Well, I can honestly tell you that unlike my character Katie, I never had a serial killer after me, and for certain I never got locked in the dark with a sexy PI. Nor did I, like Katie, have a . . . a need to hurl at the thought of getting married. Although, there was that bad shrimp cocktail that got served at my reception. . .

Not that the shrimp, or even my wedding memories are where I got the plot for this book. But when people ask about my experience with wedding jitters, and wedding faux pas, well, I do recall a few personal wedding reminiscences. Let’s see . . ., I remember the cold feet, the bad shrimp, a lucky cat, and one dead pigeon.

They didn’t happen in that order, of course. I think the dead pigeon came before the bad shrimp. And the lucky cat after the dead pigeon. However, looking back, it might have been the bad shrimp that led to the untimely death of the poor bird. I’m not really certain.

I wasn’t certain of much that day. Hey, it was my wedding. I mean, there I was, standing out in the apartment building’s courtyard, about to take the till-death-do-you-part vows before God, family, and about a dozen people I was certain had crashed the wedding for the reception’s finger food. (Not that most of those people weren’t sorry because of the bad shrimp, but we won’t go down that road.) The point is, I was standing beside my husband-to-be, knees knocking, staring at the preacher who had arrived over an hour late (his tardiness probably the cause of the bad shrimp), and I was having a serious bout of wedding jitters.

“Do you, Steve, take this woman . . .” Oh yeah, I had the jitters. And I had ‘em bad. So bad that I was looking left, right, front and back, trying to figure out the best escape route.

“I do,” Steve answered. And that’s when the dead pigeon arrived. Well, it wasn’t dead upon arrival, but its hap-hazard flying form led me to expect that it wasn’t long for this world. Of course, I hadn’t expected its life to end so quickly, or violently, and I sure as heck hadn’t expected to witness it.

Yup, the haphazardly flying pigeon smacked head-first into the brick wall right behind the preacher.

As I watched the lifeless bird plummet to the manicured lawn, I couldn’t help but wonder if it hadn’t been some cosmic sign. My entire wedding party and guests also witnessed the bird’s demise. And then we got to witness the lucky cat who ran to collect the prize. And that’s when I realized that, sign or no sign, the bird’s unfortunate end was my opportunity for escape. I hiked up my white skirt and had one foot out.

My plan was squashed when my husband-to-be took my hand. Okay, so he was on to me. I gasped in a deep breath and tried not to stare at the cat with the dead bird in his mouth strutting across the lawn.

“Do you, Christie, take . . .”

“Excuse me,” I said and motioned for the inexcusably-late man of God to stop. I looked at my husband-to-be still holding my hand. I looked at the crowd, who all leaned forward as if they couldn’t wait to know what I would say—or do—next. Oh yeah, they’d lost interest in the lucky cat and the unlucky bird show and hoped to see an episode of the escaping bride.

I refocused on my fiancé. “How about if we just continue to live in sin?” I whispered.

He touched my cheek. (And this is the part I remember most about that day.) Then he whispered in my ear, “I love you. I love your daughter. I promise you. I promise you with everything I’m made of, that I will never hurt you. Take a chance on me.”

You see, I had been hurt. And boy, was I scared. But one look into the eyes of the man tenderly studying me, and right then the dead bird, the lucky cat, and the ungodly-late preacher all lost importance. And I took a chance that day. A chance on love. Twenty years later, I can say my chance paid off.

So . . . back to the question I’m being asked. Did I draw from my own experience to write the wedding jitter scenes? You bet your bottom dollar I did. And maybe the bad shrimp inspired Katie’s hurling problems. I know several of the wedding party, wedding crashers, and even the honeymooners had some time at the throne.

But the thing I have mostly drawn upon to help me write my novels is the love that I felt that day and have continued to feel through the years.

Love can be a scary thing, with or without serial killers, but when you get it right (and my characters always do) there is nothing more rewarding or more valuable in this life. Here’s hoping my sexy and suspenseful stories continue to make you laugh and continue to remind you of the value of love.

So anyone of you out there have a story to share? Share it here and then send it to me on my email below, and I’ll make sure you get entered in the contest.

Crime Scene Christie

Contest:

Do you have a heart-warming story or amusing faux pas about a wedding or falling in love? If so, share your story and you could win a “Pamper Me Like A Bride” basket from Christie Craig. Basket includes: a promotional Sexy, Suspenseful and Seriously Funny T-shirt, chocolate, candles, sensuous lotions and soaps, and a pack of Craig’s own note cards. The winner and runner-ups will be posted on Dorchesterpub.com as well as on Christie Craig’s website. Winners will be chosen at random and notified the last week of June.

Submit stories, 250 words or less, to christie@christie-craig.com by June 30, 2008.